Withdrawn into themselves

Some have dreams of regional prosperity, others are happy with the upturn in civilian tourism. Some are worried by Hezbollah terrorists amassing nearby, and some of Metula's residents are still deeply saddened by the plight of former SLA soldiers. A portrait of the northern city, one year after the army's withdrawal from Lebanon

Ada Ushpiz, Ha’aretz, 25.5.01

Working the fields right alongside the border.

"Despite the fact that a single shot hasn't

been fired since the withdrawal, the image

of Metula as a frontier town has intensified.

"(Photo: Nir Cafri)

On the desk of Yaakov Katz, the head of the Metula council, within reach, lies a plan that was put together some three years prior to the withdrawal of the Israel Defense Forces from Lebanon a year ago this week.Katz, energetic, vigorous and articulate, spreads out a map of Metula. Here, he says, around the Fatma Gate, the northernmost point of the State of Israel, is where a regional economic project will be established in the future; goods on the way to Lebanon will pass through here; and here, there will be a parking area for checking unauthorized vehicles. Here, there will be a gas station, light industries such as an assembly-line for sprinklers, sewing workshops, shoe manufacturers - factories like those that shut down after the withdrawal. There will even be 200 housing units for Israelis and Lebanese who wish to settle and work in the area, he says.

The IDF withdrawal from Lebanon dealt a killer blow to the flourishing trade through Fatma Gate in the north of Metula - trade that was primarily one-sided, Katz continues. Trucks carrying soft drinks, beer, clothing, medicine, fruit and vegetables would cross the border and travel northward, laden with goods "in huge economic volumes, between NIS 5-10 million a year," he says.

Katz is convinced that a portion of the goods even made it all the way to Beirut and Syria. On the other side, the drug-smugglers were most active, but this was only a marginal side-effect of the economic prosperity of the days of the occupation and the war along the Lebanese border.

"Today, everything is dead," Katz determines, without toning down his enthusiasm. The desolation of the Good Fence since the withdrawal has not "put the brakes" on his vision of economic momentum. He continues to speak in the present tense.

Katz is a Likudnik; he was born in Haifa and only moved to Metula in 1978; he is married to one of the town daughters and owns a relatively small farm of some 60 dunams [15 acres]. Katz is a great believer in Israel as the spearhead of progress, and in a healthy regional economy - in Lebanon, the Golan and Syria - as the key to peace in the area without giving back any land.

"We want trade, two-way tourism," Katz continues enthusiastically, jumping from one idea to the next. "We want them to let us cross the border; there is a lot for us to do there - develop agriculture, water reservoirs, sewage systems. The sewage of South Lebanon seeps into the earth and can cause ecological damage, and we have solutions. They also want to develop. And we have another ready-to-be-implemented plan to construct a water reservoir in Marjayoun - with effluent purification systems - that will collect the sewage water from all the villages in South Lebanon for agricultural irrigation purposes in Israel."

This is a plan for days of peace, he admits, coming to his senses. The peaceful border with Jordan was brought to life thanks to ready-made plans for the establishment of economic enterprises.

"We are ready to press ahead even with the IDF already out of Lebanon," he adds. Years of living along an open, hostile border; the blurring of boundaries between occupiers and the occupied; a perverted symbiosis between the military, collaborators and residents on both sides of the border - this had all become an integral part of the texture of the day-to-day life in Metula. To these were added virtual blood pacts and a dependent relationship between welcoming Jewish bosses and grateful Lebanese laborers, who had taken a gamble on Israel for the sake of financial gain and had burned all their bridges - humiliated and downtrodden by the very impossible choice they had made - and providing the Israeli conqueror with the patronizing and sanctimonious justification that always pleased him.

All this had turned the northern border of Metula, at the end of Rishonim Street, into the most flawed boundary line of all. The residents of the town have yet to get used to the idea that it is closed. This week, because of the rise in tension, in fact, the border was quieter than ever. Even the stone-throwers who sometimes hang on the fence, cursing and taunting the soldiers or the farmers of Metula in their orchards, decided to forgo this post-withdrawal ceremony. The Israeli and Lebanese flags flew alone, above the improvised commercial center of the Good Fence at Fatma Gate, which, during the days of the war, the infiltrations and the Katyushas, actually became one of the most popular tourist sites of the north.

Only the kiosk of Oded Berenblum, 75, was open. All the other storeowners have gone bankrupt.

The war economy

Apparently, it wasn't by chance that the breadwinners of Metula chose to open the leaflet that was distributed in preparation for the celebrations to mark the 100th anniversary of their town, six years ago, with a subtle observation. When the community was established during the time of the Ottoman Empire (1896), they wrote, "There were no countries or borders between Metula, Europe Asia and Africa."

It seems that till today, the residents of the town still carry with them that dreamlike heritage of a community at the center of the world - even its "border of blood," as the leaflet defines the boundary line with Lebanon, isn't real and is almost imaginary, only an arbitrary fence and a few non-binding marker stones.

Four more events chosen to represent the history of Metula in that same leaflet were: the burning and pillaging of the town by Arabs in 1920, the bombardments of the Vichy forces during World War II, the capture of the Litani River in the War of Independence, and the Sykes-Picot Agreement, which, in 1923, stripped the farmers of Metula of 3,000 dunams [725 acres] of land in Marjayoun that had been bought and paid for in full by Baron Edmund de Rothschild from an effendi living in Sidon. This land, which can be seen through binoculars from the roof of any house in Metula, is more real than the border.

"Our land-purchase certificates are still in Sidon," stresses every Metula resident, young and old alike, who is a descendant of the founders of the town. Some even had the chance to work their land in Marjayoun up until 1952. "That was good, fat land," Katz bemoans.

What the 100-year festivities failed to mention, however, was that that typical Zionist purchase was carried out behind the backs of the Druze sharecroppers who were driven from their land and fought the new colonists with swords and knives, eventually capitulating and becoming farm laborers on their own lands.

Metula of today - a conservative, farming society, for the most part, with a 60 percent majority for the Labor Party - has not changed its ways. When the Good Fence was opened in 1976 - following a request for medical assistance from the Christian residents of Aysha who had come under attack by their Shi'ite neighbors, and out of the Israeli perception of the need to nurture the "progressive" Christians at the expense of the Shi'ites - Metula was recruited for the national mission.

"The army urged us to employ Lebanese laborers," Katz emphasizes. "Between 1989-1999, some 1,500 people crossed the border every day; 900 of them were employed here. Metula alone invested more than 90,000 work days a year in the Lebanese of the south; in other words, salaries to the tune of NIS 9 million.

"Our goal was to develop together with the Lebanese side. The reasoning was that if southern Lebanon were to become economically sound, it wouldn't turn to Hezbollah. It was a national interest of the highest degree. The army allowed the Lebanese to work in Israel only if they had family members in the South Lebanon Army."

The IDF withdrawal brought a recession to Metula, particularly for its tourism industry, the success of which during the days of the Katyushas served to compensate some of the residents of the town for the national agricultural crisis that they too were suffering. Wartime tourism, which was based in no small part on soldiers, SLA personnel, high-ranking officers and their families who combined business with pleasure, disappeared. The 1,150 beds in the hotels and bed-and-breakfasts of Metula emptied in a flash.

"The people of Israel are not ready for rapid change, without first checking it out," Katz says. "Despite the fact that a single shot hasn't been fired since the withdrawal, the image of Metula as a frontier town has intensified."

Much to the distress of the residents of Metula, the UN's decision to close Fatma Gate and to position itself elsewhere, so as to distance itself from the friction points with Hezbollah, adversely affected the strange tourism enterprise of the Good Fence. The town has only recently started to recover, to get used to a new economy and a new kind of tourism - the domestic tourism of weekends and holiday breaks. Last Passover, occupancy rates at the guesthouses were at a maximum; on Shavuot, too. Despite the statements of Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah and the IDF warnings of an escalation in tension along the northern border in anticipation of the anniversary of the withdrawal, there weren't that many cancelations.

Instead of the Lebanese workers, Thai laborers can be seen caring for the spectacular flower-filled lanes and paths of the town. Quotas that cater to the needs of the town aren't always approved, the residents complain. Metula is having a tough time breaking away from the ethos of its wild border.

In the eyes of the beholder

"The situation is difficult. Since the withdrawal, it has deteriorated," bemoan Adi and Assaf Amitai, cousins in their forties, Likud voters, both natives of Metula, sons of founding families and owners of 200 dunams [50 acres] of land. In the wake of an Arab attack, their grandfather fled for his life to Mishmar Ha'emek, returning to Metula only after the trouble had subsided.

Israelis say that it is best in Antalya; there's no war there," jokes Adi, the head of Metula's civil defense squad, straightening the green, bell-shaped hat he is wearing. Both are angry about the cancellation of two student tour groups that were supposed to have stayed at the Canada Center. Assaf manages the restaurants there.

"Nasrallah opens his mouth and the Education Ministry immediately advises students not to travel to Metula," he complains.

Assaf remembers the first few years after the Lebanon War with longing: "We had such great times here - Switzerland, masses of tourists. Now, we are living on the overdraft line, some more and some less."

A drill involving a (false) Katyusha attack on Metula calls Adi into action. "11-A reading you. How many stayed? How many fled?" crackles his two-way radio. "One thousand," he throws out, to the laughter of the few people who have gathered around him. Adi was witness to a shooting incident at the Good Fence early in the week.

"Two guys from Hezbollah arrived; they threw heavy rocks and shook the fence. Warning shots were fired into the air; they shook the fence harder. So they shot each of them in the leg. They shook the fence again; then they were each shot in the other leg. One of them took a cigarette out and tried to smoke it; his hand was shaking fear; he didn't believe that they would shoot him. He suddenly developed Parkinson's," Adi and Assaf laugh out loud.

Like most residents of Metula, the two of them supported a withdrawal from Lebanon in the framework of an agreement - not an IDF escape, with its pants down, as they see it. For them, the worst part of it all was what happened to the SLA refugees.

"They abandoned them, people who had worked with us for 25 years; and today, we have to look them in the eye," Assaf says in a defiant tone. He has lost much of his hope. The frightened withdrawal of the IDF harmed our deterrence capabilities, he explains knowingly. "The Palestinian have learned a lesson from Hezbollah. What will we get out of it?"

From where they stand, "in touch with the army," nurturing among themselves the well-known theories of "a knife in the back" and "all the Arabs want is to throw us into the sea without boats," the situation along the northern border looks hopeless. They keep an eye on the Hezbollah activists moving along the arid ridges across the border.

"You can see the threat," says Assaf's brother, Dubi, sitting comfortably in the family restaurant, Hakura, which, during the good old days of the occupation, was a meeting place for all senior IDF personnel.

"Since the day of the withdrawal, Kiryat Shmona has flourished, while Metula has sunk," he begins to sadly articulate his credo. "We are surrounded by Hezbollah to the east, north and west. They haven't been sitting quietly at all; that is a grave mistake. Over the year, they have set up an extensive infrastructure, outposts, positions, trenches, you name it; they are preparing for war, without a doubt. Nothing will satisfy Hezbollah, just like nothing will satisfy Arafat. All they want is for us to get the hell of here."

A good sign

On the other hand, the noise of the helicopters and airplanes that patrolled the skies of the border that morning didn't reach the well-kept home of Miriam Hod, the owner of the Hod Hotel in the town. "I was afraid of the withdrawal," she says. "I expected the worst and was pleasantly surprised. The past year has been quiet, a joy; all the forebodings proved to be false. We got our quiet back."

Miriam was born in Hod Hasharon; she came to Metula in 1972 after marrying a son of the well-to-do Fine family. Agriculture in Metula, like everywhere else in Israel, she says, is affected by high water costs and the government's no-duty policy on fruit imports which discriminates against the local growers.

"But tourism is rapidly coming back to life; people are no longer afraid to pass through Wadi Ara and come here," she says. "As long as Sharon doesn't make things worse; enough is enough; he must tone things down; he mustn't cause chain reactions that would cause all the borders to flare up, because we are, at long last, seeing a light at the end of the tunnel," she adds.

Unlike the Amitai family, Hod does not see Hezbollah activists on the ridges; she sees Lebanese farmers working their fields right alongside the border. "That is a good sign," she says, "a sign of getting into a routine. I don't believe they would dare enter areas slated to be firing lines."

The reading of the Israeli political reality, which has always been filled with those same sacred turns of biblical phrases and their well-known combinations, changes from house to house in Metula, in accordance with the heartstrings of those making the prophecies. Since the withdrawal, Hod has devoted more attention to the fate of the SLA refugees and less time to keeping an eye on the movements of Hezbollah. She is the only resident of Metula who used her home to host the 11 members of her housekeeper's family.

She is well "connected" with sources in Lebanon that she is afraid to expose, and passionately follows up on any piece of information regarding the fate of the SLA refugees, those she knows personally and others she has never met. Her housekeeper's family was rescued by her husband on the terrible night of the withdrawal, right off the bus that pulled up at the locked gates. She is convinced of the absolute innocence of the members of the SLA.

"They weren't collaborators; they fought for themselves and for us; they gave of their all to the very end and regarded us as brothers in a common war; they were the dividing line between us and Hezbollah," she insists. "They had no choice; they had no means with which to exist in Lebanon; they needed the livelihood," she unwittingly contradicts herself. "But even after we took them in, the policy was to show them the way home, and all the talk of 'camaraderie,' 'brothers,' 'soul mates' disappeared in the wind."

Miriam Hod finds it hard to accept the Israeli treachery and hypocrisy. She is a second-generation Holocaust survivor and says she feels she did what she has done for her parents.

An individual without an eternity

The few Lebanese laborers, family members of ex-SLA fighters, who have remained at their place of employment in Metula complete the web of despair, humiliation, cynical exploitation and false sense of coexistence that was woven at the Good Fence and whose fallout still weighs heavily on the town. They wander the streets of Metula stunned, hurt, rejected on both sides of the border.

In Kiryat Shmona, extensive real-estate enterprises have been established at their expense. Local agents, they say, are pocketing bribes from members of the Shin Bet security service, which is responsible for approving apartments for former SLA personnel. The government-sponsored rental aid to the Lebanese refugees has turned them into preferential customers who are able to pay almost double the average going price for rental apartments on the market. Only someone who adds his own money to the benefits he receives manages to get an apartment, one of the refugees says.

"I don't know anything," laments a young married woman, a mother of two, who works as a waitress at one of the restaurants in the town. "I was born into a war, and I grew up in a war. I have lived for 28 years and I don't know anything apart from South Lebanon, Kiryat Shmona and Metula. What do I have? Nothing

"I have no citizenship; I have nothing. Everyone has an eternity to think of a home and a family; I have nothing; I am exploding," she says, choking back the tears. "In short, I am an individual without an eternity.