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PARTISAN REVIEW
patients past both the highly visible Israeli forces and the covert rem–
nants of the routed Palestinian Authority. A woman not much given to
fuss, Fitzpatrick waves me into her dusty vehicle, a generic car so unas–
suming that I fail to note its make.
It's a spooky ride. Within minutes the boutique-lined relative sanctu–
ary of the German Colony gives way to rocky, terraced hilltops covered
with Jewish settlements and Arab villages.
For the past eighteen months, before Israel's recent incursion into the
West Bank, the area had been the site of an ongoing firefight between
IDF and Palestinian snipers that had escalated-in response to the Pales–
tinians' use of armor-piercing bullets against residential homes-into
full-scale warfare. The battles involved tanks, Cobra helicopters armed
with Vulcan machine guns, and, it is rumored, shoulder-held Stinger-like
anti-aircraft missiles deployed by the terrorists. The Palestinian snipers
were not targeting military installations but the kitchen, bathroom, and
bedroom windows of a defenseless block of apartment bui ldings that
strikingly resemble any average one-bedroom community in America.
As you drive past you can imagine the armor-piercing rounds smash–
ing into shower stalls and piggy banks, and it makes you shrink a little
in your seat.
The buses that travel this route are bulletproof, yet for the most part
the road stays empty-even the orneriest residents prefer alternative
routes and take another hour and a half to avoid using this road. The
sniping here has been continuous and accurate.
Breda says quickly, "There, on your left, the Church of St. Elijah, a
Palestinian Authority meeting place." Now we enter a tunnel. "There
was sniping here yesterday," says Breda.
"Here where?"
"Right here, in the tunnel. They drove past and fired shots. No one
hit, I think."
We're charging at high speed. The only other vehicles are a Land
Rover black-taped with the word "TV," a U.N. Forces Military Jeep,
and an IDF armor-plated truck. Breda's fragile no-name car rattles
among these like a tenacious beetle as the speedometer climbs. Then we
burst into light, and on the left rise a haunting row of sniper barriers.
"Those are new, put up in the last two months.... Not perfect, no, but
better than nothing."
We enter a second tunnel, the only ones traveling in it, and emerge on
a curving stretch of sun-hammered blacktop that branches to the left
and right.
