High on the Mount of Temptation, the laughing group of fit young Israelis, guns slung easily over their shoulders, rushed happily past. 'Welcome to Israel,' one shouted. 'I hope you like my country. '

The Mount of Temptation is not, in fact, in Israel. This red-rock peak overlooking the lush green oasis of Jericho is traditionally the place where the Devil showed Christ all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. But from its windswept top the only kingdom that can be seen is that of Jordan, shimmering in the heat haze to the east. The rest of the stupendous view is over the occupied West Bank.

The youngsters, however, all born within a few moments of the Six-Day War in 1967, have never known a time when the mountain was not in Israeli hands. For them it is naturally part of this country. They cross no borders to reach it. Army instructors teach them Jewish history at the top, pointing across the Jordan to the mountains of Moab, where Moses at last saw the Promised Land.

For the average Israeli youngster the 'Green Line' just does not exist. The 'Green Line' owes its name to the trees Israel planted along its ceasefire line after 1948. Where today the motorway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem skirts the border the green trees of Israel to the south and the bare hills of occupied Jordan to the north show the dividing line more vividly than a fence of barbed wire. The older generation remember the wire before what many call 'the miracle' of the rapid victory in 1967. But the younger Israelis scarcely notice it. The very opposite is true of the Arabs. Nearly 60 per cent of the population of the occupied territories have been born since the war. Another 20 per cent were just children at the time.

‘No, no, no’: why Israel is still at war

On the eve of the 40th anniversary of the six-day war, stances taken back then still loom over the Middle East peace process

BACKGROUND

• How the six-day war was reported

• Stolen Iraqi jet helped Israel win six-day war

• Conflict still on peak of anguish

• West Bank proves explosive legacy of Israeli victory

• Islam seeks unity against Israel

Related Internet Links

• 40th anniversary Six Day War section

Yet these young people appear to feel the occupation much more than do their parents. It is among them that the longing for the land seems strongest and the 'Green Line' most real. They have never known another way of life, but they have grownup resentful of the occupation and prepared to resist. Life in the camps is so bleak that they fear prison scarcely at all and call it 'National Service for Palestine. ' It is easy and satisfying to resist.

Samir Rantissi is a 23-year-old student from el-Bireh who can still remember how frightened he was as a toddler when his family fled to Jordan before the Israeli advance. Now he refers to the older generation as 'the people of the shock'. They do not attempt to do much, he says, because they were so shattered by the suddenness and unexpectedness of the Israeli victory.

Recent figures from the International Committee of the Red Cross show that there have been half a million arrests or detentions out of only 1.3 million living in the occupied territories. Some have been in custody two or three times, but the figures mean that at least 300,000 know what arrest means, and detention has become so common that even children have grown blase about it.

Samir was arrested when he was 15 after a demonstration at his school in which stones were thrown at Israeli troops. 'The soldiers rejoiced as though they had caught fighting terrorists,' he remembers. 'They twisted my arm and started beating me. As a 15-year-old you feel fear, but when you get inside the station and are facing interrogation you cease to think of yourself as a 15-year-old. '

Stone throwing is the most persistent problem facing the Israeli security forces as they patrol the West Bank. It seems to grow out of the games of Palestinians and Israelis that the children play instead of cops and robbers. From that to throwing a stone at a passing Israeli car is simple. It is adventurous and exciting and the reward for hitting a car or a soldier is hero status and a feeling of pride.

The security services, known and feared as the Shin Bet, keep track of every youngster. By the time he is 17 every boy expects to have been called in for an interview and a detailed file is opened on him. Some boys, particularly the younger ones, are turned into informers by kindness or by fear. The consequence is that Shin Bet is highly successful at tracking down activists. Even the Palestinian defence lawyers admit that confessions by suspects are usually accurate, although they are often claimed to have been extracted under torture.

The arrest success rate seems to have changed the character of protest. There are fewer cells of armed fighters, but the number of spontaneous violent incidents involving young people has risen sharply. This rise began after the signing of the Camp David agreement in 1979 and accelerated during the 1982 Lebanese war. In 1977 there were on average no more than one or two reported stone-throwing incidents a day. In 1983 there were at least 15 a day and the figure has remained at about that level. The soldiers, trained to fight real battles, hate crowd control work, which they are ill-equipped to do.

Sent on patrol in West Bank cities like Nablus or Hebron, they will admit to feeling alone in a hostile world. 'You sense all those eyes staring at you and hating you,' a 20-year-old infantryman from Haifa said. Some of the young soldiers take it out on the Arab population, which they clearly hold in contempt.

While posted on rooftops, for example, they have been reported washing or even urinating in the water tanks. Other young soldiers, horrified by this attitude refuse to serve on the West Bank. Some agree to serve in order to restrain those who enjoy stopping and beating a passing Arab on the slightest pretext. Just as the Arab children play their games, so the Jewish children play theirs. In one a boy will draw a cross on the palm of one hand and Star of David on the other and hold his clenched fists out for his playmate to choose one. 'If he picks the one with the cross, everyone laughs and calls him a stupid Arab,' a 19-year-old girl soldier from Petah Tikva explained. 'If you do anything stupid at school they call you an Arab. '

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