In the West Bank

Christian Century, May 16, 2001 by Elizabeth Sanders, Marthame Sanders

Every now and then, some brave (or perhaps desperate) souls will try to drive through even the smallest opening. Sometimes they make it, sometimes they get stuck and everyone gets out to push, sometimes they leave their stuck cars to go to fetch a tractor. During winter's rainy season, all the roads turn to mud and the taxi business dries up.

We head up the hill that leads to the two settlements. Settlements are often on hills, for they provide the best location for military outposts. Early in the restart of the intifada, soldiers evacuated Kadim and turned it into a military base. One of the Palestinian "martyrs" was killed by a shot from there. Once you have seen one settlement, there is no mistaking another. Row after row of red-roofed houses stand on the crest of a hill like soldiers standing watch over the villages nearby. None of these houses has water tanks on the roof the way Palestinian houses do. We are told that the settlements always have water and electricity, unlike the Palestinian villages whose stolen land is home for the "lifestyle" settlers. In the past few months, construction crews have been at work on the bypass road, improving it and adding electrical lighting alongside it. The people doing the work are often Palestinians, needing to work in this brave, new world, even if their work contributes to their own oppression.

Once we pass the turn-off to Ganim, the road suddenly narrows and the pavement doesn't look so new anymore. A sign points the way to the new Arab-American University of Jenin, which had the misfortune of opening on the day that Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount. Despite the conflict and disruption, it has remained open all year, though some of the teachers who were slated to come changed their minds after watching the news.

EVENTUALLY WE REACH the top of the hill above Zababdeh. The first thing you see is the new Latin Patriarchate School, inaugurated two years ago with significant help from a private agency in Spain. The other thing that attracts your attention is the muezzin--the Muslim prayer tower.

According to tradition, which is supported by some archaeological evidence, Zababdeh was on an old Roman road that made its way from Nazareth down to Jerusalem. Supposedly Mary and Elizabeth stopped here on their journey (some have conjectured that the village's name comes from a transformation of the name "Elizabeth"). Today the village has three churches--Anglican, Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic--among which about two-thirds of the village's 3,000 people are divided. There are also Greek Catholics, but their church has been closed since 1985, a casualty of political and economic wranglings in the church hierarchy.

The reason the road is open from the checkpoint to Zababdeh is because Bezek, an Israeli military training camp, is stationed at the edge of the village. It was once a Jordanian camp, built on confiscated land. The Israelis claimed it after 1967, and expanded onto more confiscated land. The road winds down through the camp's shooting range, past an old Patton tank (used by Iraqis in 1948) and other recognizable targets, such as metal figures cut in the shape of 1920s-era soldiers.