Migron

Migron has the feeling of an outpost on its way to becoming a town. Home to a few dozen families, most of whom still live in trailers, the town is festooned with makeshift electrical and lighting poles, fabricated from wooden posts with their bases either squeezed between the boulders in the soil or loaded into discarded rusty oil barrels weighted with field stones.

Migron houses, with the established settlement of Adam in the background, and my own town of Pisgat Ze'ev even further back.

Welcome to Migron

The Preschool

But Migron is also an outpost in the crosshairs. In order for an outpost to become a settlement it must pass through ten stages of approval. The first stage, authorization from the local municipality, is easy enough. With the Arab world dumping money into the Palestinian Authority, and funding roving tribes of nomadic Bedouin immigrants to settle permanently, competition in the open hilltops surrounding Jerusalem becomes intense. Every Jewish settlement needs to build as many outposts as possible in order to hold its territory before it is encroached upon by rapidly expanding Arab settlements in the vicinity, and therefore approves as many outposts as possible. The next stages of building involve water hookup, electricity, etc., each of which require their own approval. At the end of the day, after all the previous steps have been accomplished, the defense minister signs his final approval and an official, legal Jewish community is born.

Migron had passed through the first nine stages of approval, to the point that banks were confident enough in its eventual success to loan homeowners the money they needed to build permanent structures. But politics being what they are, the international community registered its shock and outrage at Jewish growth with then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who ordered the Mirgron's destruction to placate them. The army showed up with hundreds of soldiers, but the settlers showed up with thousands of activists, so the army threw up its hands and went home. Leaders come and go, but Migron seems to pop up again from time to time. Whenever the current defense minister is challenged from the left within his own party, he rallies his base by ordering a meeting to discuss a plan of action for calling an assembly of officers to draft a game plan to destroy Migron. Nothing has come of it all yet.

Migron's first two permanent structures.

Migron still has the pastoral, open feeling of an unfenced town. Security consists not of fences and patrols, but a ferocious guard dog.

Benji scans the perimeter.

The coast is clear. No milk biscuits or fire engines.

Looking north towards Rimmonim.

The mikveh (purity bath) for immersing dishes and cooking utensils.

Foreground; migron. Background: Kochav Ya'akov.

Yours truly in Migron

Looking back at the mother settlement of Kochav Ya'akov from the outpost of Migron. A small garbage fire burns in the midground.

Outside Kochav Ya'akov's Fence

In response to this problem, the young, passionate, and idealogical move specifically outside the fence's protection. One man started his catering business outside the fence, "Davka!" as they would say in Hebrew, specifically to make the point.

Catering trailers outside the fence.

The Jews aren't the only ones playing the settlement game. Since 1967, the Arab states have invested billions in building as much as possible to hold territory and block the expansion of Jewish communities. East of Kochav Ya'akov stands a fingerlet of mansions and apartment complexes. No cars, no carpets draped over the balconies, no children in the street, only silence. The entire complex stands starkly empty, built only as a place-holder.

Bottom left: Kochav Ya'akov Catering. Top right: The empty mansions of Al Amari.

Rabbi pulls me aside. "Look at that ridge line out there with the Arab housing." About three miles distant, random slapshod buildings arranged in no particular order, empty a mosque minaret.

"Yeah, I see it. That's Jaba," built on the ruins of the ancient Jewish city of Geva, fortified by King Solomon about 3,000 years ago.

"Look below slightly, and you'll see a little bit of Kochav Ya'akov."

Sure enough, a small trailer with a couple of olive trees rests in Jaba's shadow.

"He's a gardener, living with his sons. He's planted an olive orchard but it doesn't produce yet. You can make a good living with olive oil."



Trailers (bottom right) in the shadow of Jaba (above.)

Looking east, we spot Migron, about four miles distant, built by the next generation of settlers, the children of the original pioneers of the established communities.

Foreground: Kochav Ya'akov's rooftops. Background: Migron

And Migron will be our next stop.

Kochav Ya'akov's Fence

Arriving in Kochav Ya'akov, we meet Rabbi Feld (from my previous trip here.) Kochav Ya'akov is surrounded by a fence of a different sort. Unlike the massive concrete panels of the federal government-sponsored wall surrounding Pisgat Ze'ev (and the rest of Israel,) this fence was built with approval from the settlement in cooperation with the army.

A local settlement fence with motion sensors. Behind the fence lies the sprawling Arab village of Deir Dibwan.

Every fence that Israel erects comes with philosophical and emotional baggage. For most Israelis, the construction of the massive wall is strictly a life-saving security consideration. But as a religious settlement, with inhabitants from every Jewish group from the National Religious to the Hareidi (ultra orthodox,) the residents of Kochav Ya'akov have to weigh the Jewish arguments of fence building as well. On the one hand, it is a basic point of Torah that one must protect one's own life at most (but not all) costs. Motion sensors and barbed wire certainly delay the potential infiltrator, possibly long enough to get a security team on the scene to finish him off. Of course, even during the intifada, there was not a single attempted infiltration here, but that's not to say that it couldn't happen.


But what about the biblical injunction to settle the land of Israel? While the municipal jurisdiction of Kochav Ya'akov extends for miles, a fence surrounding the entire land area would break the army's budget. Therefore, the fence had to be built short and tight, surrounding only the existing houses, with most of Kochav Ya'akov's land outside. This sends the psychological message to the neighboring Arabs that the Jews have given up. Building and land ownership laws throughout Israel, and especially in Judea and Samaria, are only enforced against Jews. Government fears of "making a scene" for CNN with demolition of illegal structures, a left-wing infantilizing pity towards the Arabs powerful enough to pardon all crimes, and a general post-Zionist apathy amongst middle-of-the-road Israelis has infected the nation's decision-makers. With a fence marking the new, truncated limits of the settlements, no law enforcement, a legal shield and publicity from Peace Now and other advocacy groups, the surrounding villagers are free to take as much land as they please.

Empty, ownerless lands beyond the fence in danger of being consumed by Deir Dibwan.

This is not to mention the psychological victory fence-building grants Israel's adversaries. True that a fence may stop a terrorist, but it also sends a signal of victory. A fence broadcasts fear to the potential killers, and the sadistic infliction of fear and pain is the life-blood of terrorism. Building fences may actually inspire more attacks than the they thwarts.

Next: moving beyond the fence.

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.