BARTA, West Bank - Israel's defense minister held a ceremonial groundbreaking yesterday for a fence to block Palestinian suicide bombers as shopkeepers and farmers living along its proposed route worried about confiscated land and disrupted lives.
Construction of the fence will affect mostly Israeli-Arab villages, where open borders between the West Bank and Israel mean open trade in everything from livestock to fruit. But the same route that helps Palestinian olive farmers feed their families also gives Palestinian attackers easy access to Israeli cities.
"Every day that goes by without a fence might cost us more casualties," Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer said as he toured an area near the Salem army checkpoint in Israel, near the northern West Bank city of Jenin, where bulldozers were clearing and flattening land.
Yesterday's event was more a political show than a start on construction of the first 80-mile section of what will be a 225-mile fence. Crews have been clearing land for the past week but have yet to sink a single pole. Only a waist-high, red-green-and-white guardrail lines a portion of the proposed route.
But the tour for reporters signaled that Israel's government is prepared to build the barrier despite the upheaval it is causing among Palestinians, who view it as the start of "apartheid"; among Israeli-Arabs upset at losing land; and among right-wing Israelis, who call it a de facto border that sets a dangerous political precedent.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has repeatedly said that any Palestinian state would not mean a return to the borders that existed until the Arab-Israeli war of 1967. But the fence, along with a 50-yard buffer and trenches, is to be erected roughly along those old invisible borders, known as the "Green Line."
"The meaning of the fence is a return to the 1967 borders and the establishment of a national boundary," Effi Eitam, chairman of the National Religious Party, said in a stormy Cabinet meeting yesterday.
"You entered politics like some sort of messiah," Trade Minister Dalia Itzik responded. "But we still have not heard any suggestion from you about how to stop terrorists entering Israel. The choice is simple: Either we build a fence, or we continue to endanger the lives of Israelis."
Ben-Eliezer said again yesterday that the fence in no way marks a political border. "It separates the suicide bombers from the population centers in the state of Israel," he said, noting that five suspected bombers were arrested in the past week in the northern West Bank.
Palestinian Cabinet Minister Saeb Erekat said that only an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank will restore peace to the region. He said the barrier would divide Palestinian territories into cantons and "start a new apartheid system, which is worse than what happened in South Africa."
The rough topography, farmland and villages that straddle the route make placing a fence difficult. Israeli officials acknowledged yesterday that some Israeli-Arab farmers will be cut off from crops growing on the Palestinian West Bank, and they will either be compensated or given passes to cross back and forth.
The line goes through several villages, such as Barta. Instead of plowing through streets with a chain-link fence, Israeli officials have decided to fence off the West Bank side of the villages, incorporating both sides into what is now Israel.
Just how this will work remains to be seen. Barta is one of the more unusual villages. Home to 1,500 people, it exists in two worlds, which are divided by a dry streambed, now the village trash dump.
There is no formal border between the two sides, and villagers go back and forth between shops, school, work and home all day, with no Israeli soldiers or border police to prevent them. There are, however, significant differences.
Those living on the Israeli side, or West Barta, are citizens of Israel. They drive cars with yellow Israeli license plates and, though often stopped by suspicious police, can visit a Tel Aviv nightclub or beach or travel to downtown Jerusalem to shop and work.
People living on the Palestinian side, or East Barta, are technically breaking the law by crossing into Israel. That law is not enforced as long as they stay in Barta, where cars with both Israeli and Palestinian plates abound. But being caught in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem can mean arrest and jail.
Families are split between the two sides. Food is cheaper on the Palestinian side because of taxes, but schools and amenities are better on the Israeli side. Though the fence will put all of Barta in Israel, Palestinians there will face the same restrictions as always. Some will be cut off from land in the West Bank.
Residents such as Salem Salem, 33, don't like the fence but say it is better to be on the Israeli side, where he lives. "We need work, and the situation in the West Bank is very bad," said Salem, a nurse at a psychiatric hospital in the Israeli coastal city of Netanya.
A sister and a cousin live in the Palestinian section. "Israel says this fence is for their security," he said, "but all it will do is prevent Palestinians from moving freely. It will be an obstacle to peace."
Abdul Khader Jad, 47, said the "Israelis talk about peace but build fences. It doesn't matter if you build it on the west side or the east side. We should all be together. I am against suicide bombers as much as any Israeli, but give me a chance to live."
Hashem Fawaz, a 50-year-old Palestinian, drove his rickety car to Barta from Jenin, a city that Israeli officials blame for providing most of the suicide bombers. It took him two hours on mountainous roads to skirt Israeli army patrols, but he knows that once the fence is built, his days of selling eggs in Barta are over.
"I won't be able to come here," Fawaz said, dozens of egg cartons stacked in the trunk of his car. "I will have to find another way to make a living. This fence won't be a solution, and it will destroy my peaceful way of life."
Closer to the Salem checkpoint, an hour before the Israeli news conference, Basam Jaradat, 38, and Diab Asfour, 28, hid under an olive tree and waited for an army patrol escorting building crews away from the fence line. Seizing an opportunity, they quickly darted across and jumped over a temporary guardrail.
About three times a week they find illegal jobs as day laborers, making at most $20 a day. "Sometimes we make it, and other times they see us and turn us back," said Jaradat, who has a wife and four children between the ages of 1 and 13 to support. Both men live in a village near Jenin.
There is no work in the West Bank, and they don't know what will happen when the fence blocks their way, they said.
"It is people like us who will suffer," Asfour said, taking a short break in the hot sun before heading into an Israeli village to look for work.