 Welcome back to my YouTube channel, this is Daniel Rosil. Today I have another video about life in Israel that I wanted to share. I've mentioned in a few of my previous videos that Israeli citizens are prevented by Israeli law from visiting parts of the West Bank under the control of the Palestinian Authority, commonly abbreviated as the PA. If you'd like a really detailed explanation about how and why this occurred, check out my video entitled Why Israelis Can Visit Palestine. But here's a shorter version. Under the second Oslo Accord signed in 1995, what's commonly known as the West Bank, what Israelis called Yehuda and Shomron, was divided into three administrative categories. Area C was to remain under full Israeli control. Area A was to be controlled fully by the Palestinian Authority. Area B, which is mostly Palestinian villages, was left as something of a mishmash. While the PA was to maintain administration over civil affairs including policing, Israel reserved its right to exercise security control there. The ABC Division of the West Bank was supposed to be a temporary arrangement that would presage a better resolution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian. But as we all know, peace remains elusive, arguably further away than ever. Therefore the ABC Division of Territory in the West Bank, the territory Israel holds beyond the 1967 Armistice Line, remains very much relevant today and in force. Area A comprises approximately 18% of the West Bank and includes Palestinian cities like Ramallah, Janine, and Bethlehem. Area B comprises 22% of the territory and the rest is Area C. In October of 2000, at the beginning of the second Intifada, Israel instituted a ban on its own citizens entering Area A. In light of the deteriorating security situation, this ban is instituted in order to safeguard their lives and prevent Israeli security forces from halting to risk their lives in rescuing Israelis who had found themselves in dangerous situations in Palestinian controlled areas, whether by force or by accident. In practice, the ban is only applied against Jewish Israelis and Arab Israelis are allowed to visit Area A freely. The ban applies to all Israeli citizens, irrespective of whether they hold foreign passports. Those found to have broken the law by willingly and knowingly entering Area A can face fines, imprisonment, or both. Unfortunately, a long list of incidents continues to bear out why this ban was deemed necessary. On October 12, 2000, immediately before the Area A ban was enacted, two IDF soldiers accidentally entered Ramallah and were brutally lynched to death by a Palestinian mob. While further incidents fortunately didn't have such a grizzly end, there have been countless incidents whereby Israeli citizens entered Area A and had to be rescued by Palestinian security forces after facing hostility and lynch attempts from Palestinian rioters. The purpose of this video isn't to score political points, so I include this detail only for context about why the ban was introduced, so I won't get into those further. So although most Israelis can understand why the ban on Israelis entering Area A remains in place today, equally the introduction of the ban brought about a rather dramatic reduction in the day-to-day contact between ordinary Israelis and Palestinians. This is a dynamic that has scarcely been reported upon, but I believe that it's impossible to state how great an effect this administrative restriction has had. With the erection of Israel's security barrier beginning in 2000, another security measure, ordinary Israelis and Palestinians have found themselves increasingly bereft of opportunities to encounter one another. For the most part, the two groups lived completely parallel lives, even though they're often separated only by a few kilometers, a wall, and a checkpoint. This separation, I believe, only breeds further mutual skepticism and distance. It has also had a jarring effect on the landscape that marks the conflict's epicenter. In the wake of enacting the ban on its own citizens entering PA-held territories, Israel erected countless red signs throughout the West Bank, warning its citizens when roads lead into Area A, intended to warn those who took a wrong turn to make a U-turn. For anyone who travels in the area, these large red signs have become iconic of the conflict. The unfortunate thing about terrorism, of course, is that the actions of a violent minority can ruin the party for many more. Many Israelis have fond memories of the time before the ban was enacted, when they could freely and legally visit Area A cities. Both Bethlehem and Ramallah are only located a few kilometers from Jerusalem, and many Israelis used to shop in both cities for leisure, to go shopping, or even to find a safe haven from the Shabbat shutdown in Israel's capital. Likewise, there are many on the Palestinian side who hanker after the time when they had regular face-to-face contact with ordinary Israeli citizens. About a year ago, I posted to a Facebook group asking people to share some of their stories from before the time the ban was enacted, because they had so out of curiosity and never intended including their responses in a video, I'm including their responses in likely edited format and I'm not including their names. In response to my question of, do you remember what it was like to be able to visit the Area A cities and the Gaza Strip before it became illegal to do so, here are some of the responses When I lived in the Negev in the 70s, we went to Gaza City on a regular basis. They had the Bespaklava and other pastries. We also went to the pharmacy and other stores. We even hitchhiked to Gaza City. We were young. My boyfriend at the time would often take his car to Bethlehem to be serviced. When I was working at the Ministry of Tourism, I would accompany groups from abroad to the Christmas services in Bethlehem. My cousins once took me to a picnic in a park in Albirah near Ramallah. It was a lovely place. When I was in the army, we stopped for Artikeem Lollipops in Ramallah. This was between 1980 and 1982. The bus from Jerusalem to Tiberias would stop in the middle of Jericho for a break. This was also during the late 80s. The bus to Gusha Tzion went through Bethlehem and people did shopping or went to doctors. People went to Gaza. The good old pre-Ozlo days. Many Palestinians longed for that time. We left Israel in 1987 for schooling. It was a huge shock to come back to the new Israel a few years later and find everything changed. Places that were not safe or not allowed to drive to, limited shopping where we previously shopped, etc. These places, plus Bethlehem and Ramallah, were where secular Israelis went on Shabbat to eat and shop. I bought bamboo furniture in Hebron. It was instead of IKEA I guess. This was the 80s. I remember going to Jericho and a glass work tourist place near Hebron as part of my Jewish teen tour in the late 80s, just before the Intifada. I also remember when the cave of the patriarchs was open to everyone and not divided from the same tour. This would have been 1987 to 1988. My grandparents lived in Natanya. I used to go food shopping with my grandpa in Tulkarm. The carpenter came from there. So did the electrician and the plumbers and the decorators. The Palestinians did brilliant work. Built beautiful built-in covers with exceptional craftsmanship. The plumber never caused a leak. The electrician was able to fix anything that got broken. But that was a very long time ago. I lived in Gushkati for the 80s. The Gush kids would take their driving test in Hanyunas. You would fail if you didn't stop at the stop sign that used to be there. I was a soldier in the Golanee Brigade in 1974 to 1976. Because I served near Janine, I had to carry an Uzi machine gun at all times. I had an excellent dentist in Janine that used to care for my teeth. He always received me with a bright smile with a word, here comes my nice soldier patient in Hebrew. I used to leave my Uzi on the chair next to me without any fear. And on the way back to my base, he always packed a few tasty cookies baked by his wife for me. With the saying, brush your teeth well after eating these cookies. I also recall going to the beach in Gaza and El Areish. Beautiful beaches. I missed those days when there was friendliness and we could walk anywhere. Currently as a tour guide, I have a license that allows me to legally enter Bethlehem and Jericho, which I did every week in the pre-corona times. I enjoy shopping there. Everything is so much cheaper than here. I had excellent dental work done in Beit Jalla just last year by an internationally trained dental surgeon, a third of the cost for the same work here. But it's true. These were the good times in the far past before 1987. Unfortunately, it all changed after the first Intifada. However, on the human level, I still feel that a good interaction is possible if one comes there open-minded and without too much bias. I pushed a double buggy in downtown Nablus. People got non-cocious grabs and bones for their dogs there. Everybody got their car inspected there because it cost cents. Not only could you drive to Kevra Yosef, the tomb of Joseph in your private car, but people would come down on foot from Harbrugha. When I was in the army, I was at one point on a big base just outside of Gaza. We would go into Gaza to eat hummus at a restaurant. Of course, all of us were in uniform. I just remember a long table and delicious hummus. The road to Rafa was beautiful. It was palm trees lining the road. Yameet was great. It was beautiful beaches. I still believe it's possible to restore some of that. At the end of the day, people want to live a quiet life and feed their children. Politicians just ruin it all. I can go on and tell you about everywhere, Sinai and Charmosheh, Kras Mohamed was the most beautiful coral reefs. In the early 80s, we would stop in Ramallah to eat in Kalkili as well to buy goods. Never had a problem, but wouldn't try that today. We used to go to Gaza to buy fresh fish off the boat and cruise in the Shukh. Fishermen from Gaza would come to Bershava neighborhoods on Friday to sell their catch. What is now the era's crossing that gets burnt down whenever our neighbors have a tantrum had a lot of garages patronized by truck and taxi drivers from all over the south and all sorts of small businesses that were always full of Israelis. Gaza, with its beautiful beaches, could have been the Riviera of the Middle East. When we went to visit our friends in Dugit, Gush-Katif, we could see the beach from the kitchen window. I had falafel in Al-Rish and got our world-class stomach ache. In the mid 80s, I would take a bus on Friday mornings to Beit Lechem to go to Keva Rachel, Rachel's tomb. I would go into the shops, look at and sometimes buy the Jerusalem glass for gifts, then cross the road and wait for a bus to bring me back to Jerusalem. I was never concerned to stand on the street alone. In the fall of 83, I traveled with friends to Egypt. We took a bus from Tel Aviv that traveled down the coast through Gaza. We got off the bus in Gaza, went to the convenience store, sat around, and then went to the Rafa border crossing. No one blinked at us or cared that a group of Israelis were traveling through their area. Those were very different times. I used to visit friends in Jericho all the time, drove in and out of the city, so often the people on the street would wave at me. I bought a refrigerator in Ramallah and would pick up soda and other items in Isawiya when I was visiting friends there too. We live in the Shomron and I have the fondest memories of shopping for shoes, fruits, veggies, spices, everything in Nablus. People were nice and the prices were low. Today it's a hornet's hive, off-limit for Jews. Tour buses used to go to Bethlehem and Jericho in the early 80s. We could go and look at the ancient mosaic floor in Jericho and also more mundanely buy pomelos. In the late 80s, we used to drive through Ramallah from Jerusalem on the way to visit friends in Beit El. We also stayed in the beautiful hotel Gush-Katif. On the beach there, we found what looked like a rock composed of shells on the beach. That's my memory of Gush-Katif. Israel was all Israel. I lived in Elat, but we would, as a family, go to a wonderful restaurant in Jericho at least once a month. It just happened to be somewhere we liked going. Furniture in Gaza was the cheapest, so that's where we got it. Bethlehem was somewhere we would visit as the site. Sinai was our backyard. Elat has many Gaza residents as workers. In fact, our mechanics as well often lived there. It was actually just one country. No big deal. The shock was the change. I remember for the first time seeing burning tires in the road, having stones thrown. It was so strange to witness the change to have places that were part of your life suddenly become no-go areas. In the early 90s, a group of us spent Shabbatot in Jericho at the old synagogue there, sleeping in a nearby Yishuv on alternate weeks. On Shabbat afternoons, we'd hang out with the locals at a stream there and try to piece together conversations. We all had a great time. Those were the good old days. It was relaxed. There was no walls and hills near Jerusalem. Older Muslim people might be sitting beside a small fire making good coffee and smoking. They were friends with old Jewish people and they drank coffee together. It wasn't scary. You could feel that some people wanted to be American and they were pushing there and other people wanted the old ways. So the inner fight was that. And it made me angry because I wanted the old ways and I knew America was going to destroy the very essence of the Middle East on every level. We often went shopping in Bethlehem in early days here. Wonderful fruit and vegetables, warm and helpful shopkeepers. It changed overnight when the Intifada began. They were afraid to look at us or speak at us. It's never been the same since. So sad. Years ago, when we lived in Gushetion, people used to drive there through Bethlehem and Kevar Raquel, Rachel's tomb. It still looked like it did in the old pictures, not the fortress it is now. We arrived in 1971. On Saturday afternoons, we would drive to Jericho from Jerusalem and have a tear coffee under the orange trees. We felt no animosity from the locals. Bethlehem was also a place I visited frequently with my young children. I really missed that. I hope you enjoyed hearing those anecdotes from a more peaceful and less divided time. If you'd like to get more videos from me about Jerusalem, Israel and other subjects, please do consider subscribing and thank you for watching or listening.