Last Sunday was my third day of Protective Presence. I drove up to Tayibe from Tel Aviv with Eyal, a teacher of Bible and Jewish studies at a small college, and Benny, an American rabbi at a Conservative synagogue.

When we arrived, the road was blocked. We didn’t know the reason. I saw the remains of what looked like a car burned down on the street and theorized that there was a connection.

I’d like to make a note about the sign in this picture. It says that the entrance to a Palestinian village is dangerous for Israeli citizens. The reason it says “dangerous” and not “illegal” is because it is in Area C. In the past I encountered a similar sign that used the word “illegal,” because the road we were driving on was in Area C but the village was in either Area A or B.

You need to understand how things worked during the Oslo years to understand why it ended up like this. There was a specific amount of territory that Arafat was allowed to liberate from Israeli control, but he was free to choose where the territory was located, so instead of dividing the West Bank into three neatly organized sections, he chose over a hundred little splotches in order to maximize the amount of people who would be able to live under the Palestinian Authority.

The people who made that sign don’t know anything about the people who live in Tayibe. The reality is that it is much safer for me as an Israeli than the people who live there, however the settlers have become less hesitant about assaulting Israeli and international volunteers in recent years.

An Israeli guy arrived on the other side, ready to leave from an overnight shift of protective presence. A Palestinian taxi driver and another Palestinian car showed up. We........

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