The Ramalla Bypass

Ahead of us lies a traffic circle. Looking around, I can't help but smile at the Jewish desire to beautify our tiny patch of land. Here we are, past the wall, driving into an area where most Israelis fear to tread, and whoever it was that built this road has taken the time to add a manicured garden to the center of the roundabout, complete with Jerusalem stone paving, olive tree, and grass.

The Traffic Circle

Arriving at the traffic circle, we have now entered the Ramallah Bypass, Unlike the planned and orderly planing one finds in Israel, the layout of Judea and Samaria (aka the West Bank) follows a more chaotic layout. The original road which ran the north-south axis of Judea and Samaria, from Ganim (Jenin) in the north through Beit El (Ramallah), Jerusalem, Beit Lechem (Bethlehem), down to Chevron (Hebron) in the south, was simply built over the Ottoman road, which was built over the Byzantine road, which was built over the Roman road, which was built over the Greek road, which was built over the Jewish road, which was built over the Canaanite road, which was built over the "Road of the Patriarchs," the road travelled by the Jewish forefathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Torah.

Route 60, the "Road of the Patriarchs"

Rather than run near towns like a modern highway, the road simply passed straight through them, becoming the main street of each one. A century ago, when the Holy Land was a dead land, virtually empty of settled people, the Road of the Patriarchs was sufficient. But as cities like Schem (then Nablus) grew from tiny villages of a few hundred under the Ottoman Empire to sprawling cities of thousands under the British, and later tens of thousands under the Jordanian occupation, roads that were once sufficient for a wagon became clogged with vehicles, squeezing through the chaotic, uncontrolled cities between high-rise buildings. When the first Jewish settlers began returning to Judea and Samaria after 1967, they used the same roads, driving straight through what had become major Arab cities.

A map of the Ramallah bypass.

During the eruption of the first Intifada from 1987 to 1991, the congested streets running through suddenly hostile neighborhoods became the ideal locales for ambush. The army lost control of the security situation, unable to unleash the necessary force to supress the insurrection without incurring international wrath. As casualties mounted, a solution had to be found, and the Israelis called upon their skill of avoiding unsolvable problems by sidestepping them, in this case literally. Along the Road of the Patriarchs, numbered, labeled, and categorized by the Israeli civil administration as Route 60, the government constructed a series of bypass roads, looping around the major Arab cities through the empty hills nearby. It was as if the words of Deborah the Prophetess, referring to the years opression of Israel by the Canaanite King Samgar, were being lived again, "Higway travel ceased, and those who traveled on paths went by circuitous roads. They stopped living in unwalled towns in Israel." Shotim (Judges) 5:6. The construction of bypass roads, which began during the first Intifadah (1987-1991) intensified during the peace process, including the building of the Ramallah bypass.

The Ramallah Bypass road. Top left is the outer fence protecting the massive wall. TO the right is another fence to prevent pedestrians? Sheep? Stone throwers? Who knows.

Driving past the now fenced and fortified Rami Levi in the Sha'ar Binyamin Industrial Area.

On the Ramallah bypass, moving towards Kochav Ya'akov, perched is up on the hill above, with the Sha'ar Binyamin Industrial Area to the right.

Beyond the Wall

The following series of posts are based on a tour I took of the security fence with Yavneh Olami. The original intent was to hear the army's explanation of how the fence works, and then to spend a second day visiting some settlements outside the fence to see what effects it has on life beyond. Unfortunately, due to "security concerns," the army had to cancel our tour, but we were still able to do the settlements portion anyway.

I woke up early and schlepped all the way downtown to meet the group. Of course, the bus was late. We ended up going back through the supercheckpoint in my very own Pisgat Ze'ev. D'oh! If I had known we were coming back this way, I could have slept in and hitched from here.

Look to the right and you'll see my very own Pisgat Ze'ev. Turn our head 90 degrees forwared and you'll see the Hizma supercheckpoint (which I've shown many times before on this blog.)

Just as the alabaster columns and Roman-style domes of Washington D.C. architecture are designed to impress upon the viewer the grandeur and power of the United States, and as the space needle pricking the Seattle skyline projects a optomistic, upward-looking, future-thinking mindset, so the drab concrete panels and bullet-shielded pillboxes of the security wall make their own statement. This is to be the dividing line between Israel and the Arabs, between civilization and barbarism. You don't erect forty-foot concrete walls unless you're worried about King Kong lurking on the other side.

Exiting the gate is the last stop for hitchhikers.

We pick up our own hitchhiker, Yishai Fleisher of Israel National Radio, who will be guiding the tour. And here is his ear.

"One thing to understand about region is how the whole face of the middle east is rearranged in a day, and then it's like it's been that way forever." It's critical to understand, myself remembering my time here back five years ago, when building a massive wall like this would have been politically impossible.

An interesting shot. Ahead of us, the wall. In the rear view mirror, soldiers checking vehicles.

The turmoil and heat of war, in this case the Second Intifadah, has a way of making events, concepts, and ideals fluid. What was impossible yesterday becomes critical today, and driving along a wall that was unthinkable half a decade ago is now like second nature. The same logic of fluidity through warfare applies to Israel's capture of the region in 1967, the settlement enterprise, the Palestinian Authority's successful ethnic cleansing campaign against the Arab Christians of Judea and Samaria over the last five years, and more.

Up next: The Origins of the Ramalla Bypass Road