West Bank Arab-Americans: Force for Change Is Leaving
President Bush has demanded democracy, American-style, from Yasir Arafat's Palestinian Authority as the price for renewing negotiations toward a settlement of the conflict here. But many if not most of the Palestinians with the means and experience to drive such reforms — particularly the American citizens who built businesses in the United States and joined in its politics — are leaving.

Ziad Igbara, 41, regrets his own most recent experiment in democracy. In 2000, he registered Arab-American voters for Mr. Bush, and voted for him himself.

"The race was so close," Mr. Igbara said. "Probably if we didn't vote for him, it would have gone to Gore and Lieberman. But we have to keep voting. By electing our representatives to Congress, this is how we change things."

The residents of Turmus Aya, most of whom are American citizens, are trapped most days behind concrete blocks that Israeli soldiers have placed across the road into town, which is not a hot spot in the conflict.

Israeli government officials say such blockades are the only way to protect Israelis, including settlers in the West Bank, which like the Gaza Strip was occupied by Israel in the 1967 war. To Israelis and some American officials, it is Mr. Arafat and Palestinian militants who are to blame for the collapse of hopes — so widely felt such a short time ago — for peaceful coexistence.

In a town tugged between tradition and modern life, between a dwindling vision of a state of Palestine and immediate freedom in the United States, the groom, Waleed Rabie, 19, arrived on a horse, surrounded by friends joyfully clapping and chanting in Arabic, to collect his 16-year-old bride at her father's house. The couple departed in a white Lincoln Town Car with Illinois — "Land of Lincoln" — license plates. They did not leave the town's limits.

Even on the days that Palestinians defy the Israeli Army and use tractors to drag the blocks away from the town's entrance, they have to cajole soldiers to let them cross the checkpoints into Ramallah or else find paths through the hills. They must travel much of the distance on foot.

Universities are inaccessible, and beyond selling corn flakes at the Supermarket California or pizza at the local restaurant, there is little work to be had.

The days when Ziad Igbara would pile the kids into the car for a trip to McDonald's in Tel Aviv, or even to Domino's in Jerusalem, are long gone.

The travel restrictions have been drawn tight in the last month, since Israel seized seven of eight West Bank cities and towns after back-to-back suicide bombings in Jerusalem. Throughout the 22-month-old conflict, Israel has progressively made it harder for Palestinians not only to cross the West Bank boundary but also to move through the West Bank itself, with a combination of checkpoints, barbed wire, ditches, patrols and permits. For many Israelis, this is one way to prevent suicide bombers; for many Palestinians, it is a provocation to such attacks and a collective punishment.

"There was a lot of enthusiasm to come here," said Ahmed Kasem, 68, recalling the heady days of the Oslo peace effort in the last decade, when it appeared that the Palestinians were on the verge of statehood. "There was a lot of talk of Palestinians abroad coming to the West Bank to invest, because we had roots here. So we came, built a house, and here we are — can't go to the next village."

Meanwhile, although some Israeli-Americans are also leaving for the United States because of the conflict, other Israelis — some of them fellow Americans — continue to move into settlements in the West Bank. In the United States, Palestinians here say, they have Jewish clients and even friends; but here, they say, such relationships have become impossible.

Some Palestinians accuse Ariel Sharon, Israel's prime minister, of a secret plan to destroy their industries, universities and potential national institutions — particularly the Palestinian Authority — and to drive them out of the West Bank. Saleh Abdel Jawad, a professor of political science at Bir Zeit university, calls it "socio-cide."

"It's ethnic cleansing without killing people," he said. "You destroy the society." He said that if the United States were freer in providing visas, "half the young people would not be here — this is the Israeli policy."
West Bank Arab-Americans: Force for Change Is Leaving