What the red signs say

Where I live in the Judean mountains, Jewish Israeli communities exist alongside Palestinian Arab communities. Visually in some places, we coexist so close to one another it’s as if clutching your own hands together as your fingers would be intertwined between one another.

Driving where I live in the Judean mountains, as in Judea of Judea and Samaria, it’s common to see red signs in Hebrew, Arabic, and English, warning Israelis that it is both illegal and unsafe for them to enter areas under the full control of the Palestinian Authority. These signs are often used to contradict the allegation by Israel’s detractors that Israel is an apartheid state. It is not. That’s a topic for another conversation. However, these signs also do not specifically or directly contradict that trope.

Let me tell you why, what the signs say, and why it is important.

First of all, it’s important to note that the signs clearly state it is illegal according to Israeli law for Israeli citizens to go into the Palestinian Authority (PA) controlled areas. This applies both to Jewish and Arab Israelis equally. The reason it is illegal is because it’s unsafe. There are numerous accounts of Israelis defying this in order to shop for products or get services such as dentistry or car repairs substantially cheaper in the PA than they would in Israeli Jewish communities.

No, it is not apartheid by the Arabs that these red signs exist, nor are they an indication of apartheid in Israel as detractors scrounge for any trope no matter how baseless to delegitimize Israel. Rather than these being an indication that the PA wants to keep Jews out, the signs represent something more nefarious: that it is dangerous and therefore illegal to go in. That’s not apartheid, it’s a warning that Israelis who enter could be at risk for their lives. It’s the right thing for the Israeli government to post these signs to protect its citizens. No apartheid here. 

The reality that it is possible for millions of Israelis to be within a short drive of cities in which millions of Palestinian Arabs inhabit emphasizes a geographic reality of why the Palestinian Arab controlled areas risk being a danger to Israel. If someone can drive to these PA areas from Israeli cities and towns so easily, the converse is true as well. Until Israel began placing physical barriers to prevent the free passing of non-Israeli Palestinian Arabs, it was commonplace and easy for terrorists to penetrate Israeli communities and carry out obscene carnage. Thousands of Israeli victims are sad testimony to this reality. 

While it’s more common for Arab Israelis to frequent PA controlled areas, the reality is that Islamic extremists are rarely less kind to any Israeli, regardless of ethnicity or religion. This was proven with the Hamas attack, massacre and kidnapping on October 7, 2023, when Moslem Israeli Arabs were also kidnapped and killed. As long as they drive in with a yellow Israeli license plate, they are at risk. 

From time to time, it is also still the case that sometimes Israelis miss the literal warning signs and accidentally enter one of these PA controlled areas. In the past few decades, there have been notable instances of the Israeli cars or people being attacked, threatened, or worse. There was the gruesome incident in October 2000 where two reservist soldiers made a wrong turn, and were lynched and mutilated as Palestinian Arab crowds cheered as their blood literally poured from their bodies and the murderers displayed their bloody red hands celebrating the murders. 

You don’t realize how easy it is to make a wrong turn until you make that wrong turn yourself. I have done it and it is indeed quite harrowing.

So, while the signs do not indicate anything about apartheid in Israel, the opposite of what the signs say is a pretty good indication that apartheid does not exist. Even, or perhaps specifically, because of where I live, it remains common to see Palestinian Arabs working and shopping within Israeli communities and businesses. Yes, there are security protocol to make sure Arab workers in my neighborhood do not come in armed with weapons to carry out a terror attack. You would want and indeed expect that where you live too. It’s never good or healthy for the plumber, electrician, or contractor to come into any community armed and threatening that very community. But there are no signs prohibiting them from doing so or, for that matter, any indication for them that it is either illegal or unsafe, according to anyone’s law.

Come visit and I will show you how daily interaction along the roads, in the grocery stores, construction sites, and in small businesses, both Jewish and Arab owned, contradict the allegations of an apartheid. 

Whereas it’s common for tens, if not hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs to work and shop in Israeli businesses and communities, doing so is not only not unsafe for them, they are largely treated with respect and dignity. Workers are well paid in good conditions. Consumers get good value for their shekel, whatever the product or service. 

I have often wondered what those red signs say to the Palestinian Arabs who drive-by on their way home from Israeli communities. When they read Arabic warnings that it is illegal and unsafe or Israelis to enter their communities, are they ashamed? Do they feel that they have somehow vanquished Israel from these areas and are successful in their goal to eliminate a Jewish presence in the entire land of Israel? Do they even notice or care about the imbalance of the fact that someone may be coming from work or shopping in an Israeli community or business in safety, and pass a sign that warns Israelis not to follow them?

The red signs also point to the legal and diplomatic reality that exists on the ground since the 1993 Oslo Accords, for more than 30 years. With the advent of the Palestinian Authority, both Israel and the PA agreed to an administrative arrangement in Judea and Samaria, dividing the area into three administrative areas. Area A is the portion under PA control, and to which it is illegal and dangerous for Israelis to travel. Area A represents the vast majority of the Arab population of Judea and Samaria or, pejoratively, the West Bank.

Area B is jointly administered under PA civil control, but Israeli security control. Area C is the portion that is fully administered by Israel, both civilian and security. That’s where I live. Unlike Area A where I am not allowed to go, that reality is not the case for Palestinian Arabs in Area C.

The significance of this is that barring any other diplomatic agreement, these are the terms by which both Israel and the PA have agreed to coexist for more than three decades. Therefore, when people falsely claim that my community and communities like it - or any Jewish presence in “the West Bank” - is illegal, the very fact that there is an Area A, B, and C with an Area A in which it is illegal for me to enter, that disproves the very allegation of anything being illegal because the PA in fact signed and sanctioned this geographic and demographic reality. 

Three years ago, I hosted a group of black South Africans in search of a true understanding about the claims of apartheid, and all the other tropes against Israel were not true. They wanted to see for themselves. I showed them physically, geographically, historically, and with simple facts on the ground, that these were all lies. Come see for yourself. I’ll take you and show you in person. But I won’t take you into Area A.