THE West Bank and East Jerusalem have been transformed since they were occupied by Israel 30 years ago.
Israel sits on windswept hilltops in settlements of highrise blocks and red roofed row houses surrounded by tall fences of barbed wire. Guards in watch towers peer down into Palestinian villages of low, flat roofed stone houses in the sheltered valleys. Israel sucks the water from the aquifers deep beneath the Judean and Samarian hills and carries 80 per cent eastwards to its cities and farms.
But in spite of their nation's omnipresence, few Israelis cross into the Palestinian neighbourhoods of Israel's "united, eternal capital", except those who live in the halfdozen colonies planted there since 1967.
Slouching soldiers mount checkpoints on roads leading into and out of the six Palestinian self rule towns, to monitor the traffic in goods and people. Israel licenses farmers to plant eggplants, tomatoes and fruit trees, and it registers, taxes and harasses the 1.5 million Palestinians living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem (as well as the one million in Gaza).
At present, Israel holds 3,500 Palestinians in its prisons; in recent years more than 5,000 have passed through the system annually. Israel expropriates Palestinian land and demolishes Palestinian homes built without permits which the Israeli authorities do not grant.
Although Palestinians expected the 1993 Oslo accords to end the occupation in 90 per cent of the West Bank by now, this has happened only in the towns ruled by the Palestinian Authority - 4 per cent of West Bank territory.
Inseparable from the dramatic changes made by the occupation is the transformation wrought by time. In 1967, East Jerusalem, Hebron, Bethlehem and Ramallah were small, quite separate Palestinian towns; now, they are an urban agglomeration by a combination of Palestinian sprawl and Israeli settlement.
Five universities have been founded in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since 1967: the occupation has made Palestinians more than ever reliant on education to secure their future, rather than uncertain employment as hewers of wood and carriers of water for the Israelis.
According to Dr Mahdi Abdel Hadi, of the Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs, a local think tank, East Jerusalem and the West Bank have been treated by Israel in much the same way they were treated by Jordan, which ruled from 1948-67 - as "provincial backwaters" undeserving of investment and development.
But Jordan and Israel had very different motives for adopting this behaviour: Amman did not wish to build up the West Bank as a competitor to the East Bank, the geographic base of the Hashemite monarchy, while Israel has used neglect and development to encourage Palestinians to emigrate.
But Dr Abdel Hadi said the occupation had a positive impact on Palestinians, as they earned cohesion through diversity. Through resistance and "steadfastness", staying put, they asserted their national identity and secured international recognition as a people with a right to self determination.
"Before 1967, the Israelis were always looking for a telephone call: from one or other of the Arab leaders . . . with the occupation, the Israelis learned they had to address themselves to the Palestinians," he said. "Unfortunately, both sides did not seize the opportunities they had to achieve a settlement until the Oslo accord was signed in 1993, when they granted one another recognition.
"By then, it was almost too late (because of Israeli settlements) to reverse the occupation. As a result we may continue to fight and wound one another as long as there is an occupation.
