Revisiting Israel's 'Good Fence'

...They work on the seams of Sabra Girl panty hose while Arab music competes in the background with the noise of sewing machines...

...I first observed the program six months ago ("Israel's New 'Experiment in Peace,' " NL, September 27, 1976), when full-scale civil war was destroying Lebanon...

...Tov, beseder," agreed Eva, who now speaks some Hebrew as well as her native Arabic and French...

...Besides," he added with a smile, "I had a chance to practice my Arabic...

...One English-speaking laborer, who had been in the British Army during mandate days, summed up the general feeling of this contingent...

...In the case of Lebanon, the ties of friendship date back 3,000 years —to the days when King Solomon and King Hiram of Tyre concluded a commercial agreement: food for Lebanon in exchange for cedarwood for the Temple...

...The goal still requires the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to reconcile itself to the permanence of the Jewish State...

...They now can read in their gift book, My Shalom, My Peace, some of the hopes in the hearts of their new Israeli chums...

...For myself," said Bini, "I felt I was creating history, because this was the first step of a new relationship with my neighbors...

...After lunching at the kibbutz, they were led on a tour of Gonen's flourishing apple orchards, cotton fields and fish ponds...

...they are part of a land reclamation scheme supervised by Israeli foresters...

...David Klein, the Hungarian-born veteran of three Israeli wars who manages the canning factory, told me, "There is no shortage of workers...

...The strong belief is that these humanitarian ventures will be remembered by ordinary people across the borders, regardless of what their respective governments do...

...Another new service is the branch the Israel Postal Service has opened at Dovev, where Lebanese can send mail (long cut off) to relatives and friends in both countries...

...At my favorite young kibbutz, Gonen, under the Golan Heights, agricultural manager Bini Jacoby described one recent instance of this process of getting acquainted—a visit of 60 Lebanese farmers...

...With a Syrian military force of some 30,-000 in Lebanon to "keep the peace," Israel is more alert to her security needs than ever...

...In Jish [the Arab name for the Israeli-Arab village of Gush Halav] my wife and I visited friends we hadn't seen for 28 years...

...This precaution, though, has not prevented the Good Fence policy from growing steadily more innovative...

...Because Israel is not our enemy...

...I would like to live here...

...Although the good feeling was spontaneous, the visit had been three weeks in preparation...

...Never...

...And, in addition to the first-aid stations at Dovev and Metulla, a third cut in the fence has been made at Hanita —the gate the schoolchildren came through...

...Schoolchildren of Lebanon and Israel were meeting together for the first time, and peace was written on their faces...

...The fence is a very good thing, because the people on the other side learn to know us as we really are...

...Now, in one word-Israel is my home...

...On the wall of the modern, air-conditioned factory, the girls have their pinups—among them a portrait of Roger Moore ("The Saint") and one of an Israeli woman officer shouldering her Uzi machine gun...

...Those PLO are far away from our village," she says...

...The spontaneity of it all, the delight and excitement of the children, mixing it up together as if they had never heard of war or enemies, was exciting and moving...

...I've been in a few camps...

...Meanwhile, the 1973 Yom Kippur War has erased forever any mood of complacency here: The Israelis are determined to hang tough on these two issues they consider nonnegotiable, and at the same time to actively encourage peace in their own fashion...

...And the day was finished off with an abbreviated football game between the two nationalities...

...In the past weeks, over 1,000 southern Lebanese have crossed over to see family and friends, some for the first time in 30 years...

...At Gibor Textile Enterprises, Ltd., in Jish, the 150 employes include 18 Lebanese girls...

...An account of the history being created by the Good Fence policy must certainly include Eva—the 23-year-old Lebanese nurse I found working at the Dovev olinic six months ago, after the medical facilities in her home town had been closed down by the civil war...

...Every day, there is trouble with the Moslems in our villages...

...Nearly 400, for example, have been showing up each day for jobs in land reclamation, and in Kiryat Shmona and Na-hariya textile plants, hotels, hospitals, and infirmaries...

...They then went to meet their Israeli counterparts at the local high school...

...This boy's father was killed by bombs during the war...

...I don't think they've done a good thing in all their lives...

...Victor Einhorn (who has served at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York) warmly welcomed them with the words, "I hope we will build a bridge of friendship for you, the children of an Arab nation . . ." Bwary promptly interrupted him, saying "We are not Arabs, we are Lebanese...

...Its herds of cows and calves peacefully grazed on hillsides that, before the Six-Day War, were constantly being shelled by Syrians on top of the Heights...

...One chef who worked at the bombed-out Holiday Inn in Beirut is now employed in the new North Hotel in Kiryat Shmona...

...The guests sent up a cheer of approval...

...paid in Israeli pounds, they can convert half their earnings into Lebanese currency, using the remainder to make purchases on this side of the border...

...I hope the gate stays open not only here but on the borders of all the Arab countries...

...The schoolchildren and teachers from Aalma al-Chaab are a part of that tradition, and they demonstrated their eagerness to keep it alive...

...The Lebanese and Israelis I spoke to rejected any talk of closing the Good Fence when and if the war in Lebanon finally does end...

...The doctor she currently assists, Aaron Hallak of Tel Aviv, his machine gun leaning against his desk, took a moment out from his examinations to comment: "Say that this Good Fence is a very good approach to peace...

...Except for the wooden and silver crosses hanging on chains around their necks, the visitors looked exactly like their hosts—the girls in brightly-colored dresses and pants suits, the boys wearing V-neck sweaters over their shirts...

...The letters, bearing the postmark "Operation Good Fence," have become instant collectors' items...

...Although some Arab countries have been attempting to persuade the PLO to project a more moderate image, it clearly has been reluctant to take even that limited tactical step...

...She and her Lebanese coworkers have no objections to being photographed...

...That conflict has supposedly ended, but the high barbed-wire fence along the upper Galilee border is still in place-0-odd miles long, electronically controlled, constantly patrolled by armed soldiers on both sides...

...In Hazor, at the Galilee Fruit Canning and Dehydrating Factory-which employs 450 men and women —Mary, 24 and unmarried, works on the grapefruit-segment assembly line...

...Hassan (not his real name), 54, who had brought his wife from the village Rmaish to the Dovev clinic for lung treatment, told me: "I don't believe the Israelis will close the gates...

...Just before lunch at the Katzenel-son Primary School, a score of Israeli seven-year-olds smartly paraded into the dining room singing a Hebrew version of "When the Saints Come Marching In...

...It's so exciting, this trip...

...Einhorn told me afterward...

...One Lebanese teacher—very chic in her well-pressed jeans, white turtle-neck sweater and white leather cap atop shoulder-length brown hair —spoke to me about the outing: Gertrude Samuels, a frequent New Leader contributor, is writing a book on Operation Good Fence...

...his kitchen helper receives free treatment at nearby Safad hospital...

...Nor do the Arab nations themselves seem prepared to meet Israel's two bottom-line conditions: recognition of its right to exist, and secure borders...

...It is modeled after the 10-year-old West Bank "Open Bridges" policy that has enabled tens of thousands of Arabs from neighboring countries (Jordan, Syria, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Egypt) to cross the Jordan River on the Allenby Bridge into Israel...

...The farmers, who lack all mechanization, seemed "almost in shock" as they studied the modern plowing methods, observed the new plastics factory, and especially when they got to the straight lines of automated feeders for the settlements' 50,000 turkeys...

...By now, some 5,000 of them have periodically been working in Israel...

...Special permits allow them to stay with relatives and friends for as long as a few months...

...If the gate closed, we would not be short...

...His school has been closed for two years...

...Israel was not destroying anything of the Lebanese people...

...Later, the young Lebanese toured the town hospital, where they talked to local Arab patients being cared for alongside Jewish citizens...

...Anyway, its cheaper than paying for a bomb...

...The Lebanese do not merely come to visit...

...That is why they place a high value on the Open Bridges and Good Fence policies...

...The director, Dr...

...Israel is employing the Lebanese not so much for economic reasons as for humanitarian ones...

...Arranged by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the Ministry of Education, and Aalma al-Chaab's village leaders, it is but the latest example of the many ways Israel is continuing to extend Operation Good Fence-the policy of opening the border to grant humanitarian and medical aid to the wounded and ill in Southern Lebanon...

...she comes through the Metulla gate daily...

...And ultimately, Israelis insist, peace in the Middle East will depend more on relations between people than on politicans...

...Because we are solid...

...Now, he's going on with his learning . . . planting trees in Israel...

...We are friends, and when peace comes, we'll be able to cross freely back and forth, Israelis as well as the Lebanese...

...UNFORTUNATELY, it WOUld be a mistake to make the facile assumption from all this—or for that matter from recent political and diplomatic activity-that 1977 will be the year for peace in the Middle East...

...We have to begin with something...

...to the enthusiastic applause of his charges...

...It's a long time ago, that's true, but those times are long remembered...

...She still makes the crossover five days a week to assist the Israeli doctors doing reserve duty at the border, and her presence has inspired several more Lebanese nurses to serve at both Dovev and Metulla...

...We are steadfast and we have our guards [the Falangists, Right-wing Christian soldiers...

...We were farmers in our villages, but now . . ." He translated his words into Arabic for the others and they nodded in agreement...

...Just north of us this Sunday, in southern Lebanon, the shooting still drags on—though we're told the civil war is over...

...But the fence is a good thing...

...I was glad I made that faux pas," Dr...

...The sentiment was echoed by the Lebanese workers I talked to, most of whom are now far less worried than they once were about reprisals upon returning to their villages each evening...

...Some 10 kilometers from Kiryat Shmona, in the Hula valley, a dozen Christian Lebanese work planting eucalyptus saplings in the thick mud brought on by the winter rainy season...

...Israel has started to import some Lebanese tobacco and offer agricultural assistance...

...With her pay-7 pounds (about $5.50) per eight-hour day—Mary shops in Kiryat Shmona for herself and her parents...

...And 24-year-old Michel of Haifa, saying goodbye at the gate to his uncle—returning to Lebanon after a two-week stay in Israel—exclaimed: "Feel" You can see how I feel...

...Theresa, a vivacious dark-haired girl of 19, explained in French: "There's no work in my town, and we don't fear any reprisals...

...We prefer to work in Israel, and take back food and clothes with our money...

...Not all the Lebanese feel so secure, however...

...Nonetheless, 45 Lebanese children from Aalma al-Chaab (a village of some 2,000 across from Kibbutz Hanita), together with nine of their teachers and a community leader, Habib Bwary, walked this morning to the "Good Fence" along the border, then came by Israeli bus to spend the day at this gracious resort town...

...The Lebanese get the same wages as their native counterparts...

...The temporary field clinics and tents in the receiving areas, for example, have been replaced by red-and-white metal barracks with wooden benches, tables and toilet facilities...

...The emotional reunions are as moving as those I witnessed when refugee Jews fell into the arms of relatives in the new state of Israel after World War II...

...Before returning home, the visitors replenish their essential supplies here, buying flour, coffee, spices, cooking oil, rice, clothes, and shoes...

...Eight-year-old Vardit Fertouk of Kibbutz Hagoshrin wrote of what it all could lead to in his poem entitled "Tomorrow": . . . we'll joke about times in the past When we ran to shelters And lessons missed . . . Tomorrow, when peace comes, we won't waste money on arms We'll buy more cows for our farms...

...The students, aged 12-14, were greeted at the municipal building by Nahariya's mayor, Ephraim Sharir, and presented with flowers, soda pop, sweets, and a handsome French-language gift book, My Shalom, My Peace: Paintings and Poems by Jewish and Arab Children...

...A visitors program is in full swing as well...

...Mostly, we were just crying and kissing...

...So why be idealistic- Listen: I spent the Second World War wandering around Eastern Europe...

...After lunch, the Lebanese students watched their teachers briefly take over a class in elementary Arabic...