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CNN Live At Daybreak

Neighbors No Longer

Aired January 23, 2003 - 05:36   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Well, this next story might be called neighbors no longer. In northern Israel, it is a sad conclusion to an even sadder story of a tragedy that ended decades of peaceful coexistence between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
CNN's Mike Hanna chronicles the victims, their families and their Arab neighbors.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MIKE HANNA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A kindergarten class on the Kibbutz Metzer, two children no longer here. Matan and Noam O'Hayon were killed by a Palestinian gunman last year. The teacher says the other kids still talk and ask about their two dead playmates.

AYALA YICHYEH, KIBBUTZ TEACHER: I look back for all kinds of things that helped bring back the self-confidence that the kids lost on the day of the shooting. This fence is one of the new things that has appeared on the scene.

HANNA: And she takes the children for regular walks along the new fence, a secure one replacing the ramshackle structure that served as the boundary between the kibbutz and neighboring Arab villages for the past 50 years.

YICHYEH: They call the new one the clever fence and the fence that was here earlier is the stupid fence. The clever one won't let in the terrorists and the stupid one is stupid because it did let in the terrorists.

HANNA: Doron Leiber sees the old fence in a different way. He regularly gets up before dawn and walks along it, taking in the smell of the fields he's farmed for three decades, fields that until recent months were bordered only by a few strands of wire.

DORON LEIBER, KIBBUTZ SECRETARY: The old fence was a good fence. It was there only to stop our cows from grazing in their olive groves and to mark what was ours. We never disturbed anyone and they never disturbed us.

HANNA: Never disturbed until a night in November last year when a Palestinian gunman crossed the fence and opened fire. Five Israelis were shot and killed at point blank range, including a mother and her two children. One of the dead, the secretary of the kibbutz, Yitzhak Dori. And among the hundreds of mourners who attended his funeral, a number of Arabs from neighboring villages.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are feeling the pain. The pain is inside us. We are neighbors.

HANNA: Abu Raqyah tells a story of how the kibbutz was established in the mid-1950s and how, since then, the Israelis on Metzer and the Arabs in nearby villages have lived peacefully side by side.

ATIYAH ABU RAQYAH, MEISAR RESIDENT: We are neighbors, good neighbors. We visit each other in celebration and in sadness. Even now, they welcome us and say it is good that you are here.

HANNA: Mustafa Shadi grew up in the Arab-Israeli village of Meisar to the west of Metzer. His childhood spent playing with the Jewish children next door and now all are adults, he works with them on the kibbutz. The killings, he says, were like deaths in his own family.

MUSTAFA SHADI, MEISAR RESIDENT: I didn't feel any change in our relationship after the killing. On the contrary, I think they reassured us and we reassured them. I think our belief in each other withstands what happened.

HANNA: To the east of the kibbutz, across the 1967 line that defined Israel's borders, is the Palestinian village of Kafin. Here the home of Muhammad Harashe. He also works on the Kibbutz Metzer and he, too, was devastated by the news of the killings.

MUHAMMAD HARASHE, KAFIN RESIDENT: Metzer is so close to us, we heard the shots. We called on them the next day. Thank god it turned out not to be the people from here because the two places are close to each other and we must keep the good relationship.

HANNA: It's a feeling apparently shared by all in the Arab villages adjoining the Kibbutz Metzer.

AHMED AMMAREH, MEISAR RESIDENT: Not one person liked the killings. No one agreed with it. I have always been against violence. The whole village here does not support violence.

HANNA: Adnan Harash drives his tractor along the perimeter road of the Kibbutz Metzer. He is another Palestinian from the village of Kafin who works on the kibbutz.

ADNAN HARASH, KAFIN RESIDENT: I have been working for them for 10 years and you can say we are mixed. The towns are mixed, the land is mixed, only the fence separates us.

HANNA: The fence Adnan refers to is not the old, stupid fence around the kibbutz, not even the new, clever one, as the children call it. It's one that's been built by the Israeli authorities about a mile away from the kibbutz border, a fence of separation between Israeli and Palestinian, a fence that Israel says is essential to protect the lives of its people from terror attack.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're asking us for security for them. But I want security for me, too. And where do you think they are building this fence for security purposes? They are building it on our land. They have pulled up the olive trees. They take our land and there will be a response to that.

HANNA: And among the Israelis on the Kibbutz Metzer, an awareness of Arab anger at the fence being built on Palestinian land and the fear that it's they who may bear the brunt.

LEIBER: When a person can't keep up his land and his living is taken from him, what will he do? He won't hit at those who took it from him. I'm really sorry, but it's us who the closest ones who will be hurt.

HANNA: And perhaps threatened, too, by this fence, the close relationship between neighbors, between Israelis and Palestinians, Jews and Muslims, a spirit of mutual tolerance that has survived 50 years of conflict, that more recently even survived the bullets from an assassin's gun.

Mike Hanna, CNN, on the Kibbutz Metzer.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired January 23, 2003 - 05:36   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Well, this next story might be called neighbors no longer. In northern Israel, it is a sad conclusion to an even sadder story of a tragedy that ended decades of peaceful coexistence between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
CNN's Mike Hanna chronicles the victims, their families and their Arab neighbors.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MIKE HANNA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A kindergarten class on the Kibbutz Metzer, two children no longer here. Matan and Noam O'Hayon were killed by a Palestinian gunman last year. The teacher says the other kids still talk and ask about their two dead playmates.

AYALA YICHYEH, KIBBUTZ TEACHER: I look back for all kinds of things that helped bring back the self-confidence that the kids lost on the day of the shooting. This fence is one of the new things that has appeared on the scene.

HANNA: And she takes the children for regular walks along the new fence, a secure one replacing the ramshackle structure that served as the boundary between the kibbutz and neighboring Arab villages for the past 50 years.

YICHYEH: They call the new one the clever fence and the fence that was here earlier is the stupid fence. The clever one won't let in the terrorists and the stupid one is stupid because it did let in the terrorists.

HANNA: Doron Leiber sees the old fence in a different way. He regularly gets up before dawn and walks along it, taking in the smell of the fields he's farmed for three decades, fields that until recent months were bordered only by a few strands of wire.

DORON LEIBER, KIBBUTZ SECRETARY: The old fence was a good fence. It was there only to stop our cows from grazing in their olive groves and to mark what was ours. We never disturbed anyone and they never disturbed us.

HANNA: Never disturbed until a night in November last year when a Palestinian gunman crossed the fence and opened fire. Five Israelis were shot and killed at point blank range, including a mother and her two children. One of the dead, the secretary of the kibbutz, Yitzhak Dori. And among the hundreds of mourners who attended his funeral, a number of Arabs from neighboring villages.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are feeling the pain. The pain is inside us. We are neighbors.

HANNA: Abu Raqyah tells a story of how the kibbutz was established in the mid-1950s and how, since then, the Israelis on Metzer and the Arabs in nearby villages have lived peacefully side by side.

ATIYAH ABU RAQYAH, MEISAR RESIDENT: We are neighbors, good neighbors. We visit each other in celebration and in sadness. Even now, they welcome us and say it is good that you are here.

HANNA: Mustafa Shadi grew up in the Arab-Israeli village of Meisar to the west of Metzer. His childhood spent playing with the Jewish children next door and now all are adults, he works with them on the kibbutz. The killings, he says, were like deaths in his own family.

MUSTAFA SHADI, MEISAR RESIDENT: I didn't feel any change in our relationship after the killing. On the contrary, I think they reassured us and we reassured them. I think our belief in each other withstands what happened.

HANNA: To the east of the kibbutz, across the 1967 line that defined Israel's borders, is the Palestinian village of Kafin. Here the home of Muhammad Harashe. He also works on the Kibbutz Metzer and he, too, was devastated by the news of the killings.

MUHAMMAD HARASHE, KAFIN RESIDENT: Metzer is so close to us, we heard the shots. We called on them the next day. Thank god it turned out not to be the people from here because the two places are close to each other and we must keep the good relationship.

HANNA: It's a feeling apparently shared by all in the Arab villages adjoining the Kibbutz Metzer.

AHMED AMMAREH, MEISAR RESIDENT: Not one person liked the killings. No one agreed with it. I have always been against violence. The whole village here does not support violence.

HANNA: Adnan Harash drives his tractor along the perimeter road of the Kibbutz Metzer. He is another Palestinian from the village of Kafin who works on the kibbutz.

ADNAN HARASH, KAFIN RESIDENT: I have been working for them for 10 years and you can say we are mixed. The towns are mixed, the land is mixed, only the fence separates us.

HANNA: The fence Adnan refers to is not the old, stupid fence around the kibbutz, not even the new, clever one, as the children call it. It's one that's been built by the Israeli authorities about a mile away from the kibbutz border, a fence of separation between Israeli and Palestinian, a fence that Israel says is essential to protect the lives of its people from terror attack.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're asking us for security for them. But I want security for me, too. And where do you think they are building this fence for security purposes? They are building it on our land. They have pulled up the olive trees. They take our land and there will be a response to that.

HANNA: And among the Israelis on the Kibbutz Metzer, an awareness of Arab anger at the fence being built on Palestinian land and the fear that it's they who may bear the brunt.

LEIBER: When a person can't keep up his land and his living is taken from him, what will he do? He won't hit at those who took it from him. I'm really sorry, but it's us who the closest ones who will be hurt.

HANNA: And perhaps threatened, too, by this fence, the close relationship between neighbors, between Israelis and Palestinians, Jews and Muslims, a spirit of mutual tolerance that has survived 50 years of conflict, that more recently even survived the bullets from an assassin's gun.

Mike Hanna, CNN, on the Kibbutz Metzer.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com