Natalie's old neighbour in Tel Aviv is a journalist, and when she first moved here, within a couple of days her friend called her for help gaining access to a well-known associate of Yigal Amir. This was immediately after the Rabin assassination. Natalie was incredulous: "I barely knew my way around town. And she wanted me to put her in touch with some woman I didn't know, who, for all I knew, might live anywhere in the West Bank! Yet my friend insisted, stubbornly remaining under the assumption that everyone on the West Bank knows everyone else, that we're all the same."

As we leave Barkan, we pass through the industrial zone, one of the main such zones in this region. There is high-tech here, a hummus plant, a bagel company (from which Unilever is seeking to divest), and many enterprises. The Barkan winery used to be here, but moved to the other side of the Green Line because of boycott fears. International boycotts also hurt the 25,000 Palestinian Arab employees of settler industries, and their families. They work under Israeli (and not Palestinian Arab) labour laws, which include a minimum wage some three times higher than that prevailing under the PA, greater union protection, and more rigorous labour rights. The Palestinian Arab prime minister, Salim Fayad, called earlier this year for a double boycott of such industries: the commerce boycott went ahead, though with a limited effect, since the Palestinian Arab market is of limited importance; the employment boycott, however, whereby Palestinian Arab workers were called upon not to go to work, was utterly ineffectual.

We drive along Route Five. Naftali assures me that, contrary to the claims of that protester in Tel Aviv, the only apartheid on the West Bank is on the part of the Arabs. With the Oslo Agreement, the West Bank was divided into three portions: Area A, under full Palestinian Authority control, Area B, under Israeli security control but PA civil authority, and Area C, under full Israeli control. Since then, Area B has largely been absorbed into the Area A category. Thanks to Oslo, Area A became off-limits for Jews, says Naftali, but the upshot was that new roads were built around Arab settlements, so that Israeli drivers no longer had to travel through them to get to and from home. It is evident from the licence plates that these new roads are shared by Israelis and Palestinian Arabs. If there is any apartheid, Naftali declares, it is surely the double standard that the Arabs are free to access the Israeli roads but not vice versa.

And what of the Palestinians' rights? They have, Naftali says, full citizenship and voting rights under the PA, which is a de facto state. The Israeli residents of the West Bank vote in Israeli elections, and the Palestinian Arabs vote in PA elections. The only difference between what they have now and what they want, he says, is an army and the Palestinian Arab right of return, neither of which Israel can tolerate. He interrupts himself to note that we are passing the tomb of Joshua. Shortly thereafter, we arrive at Ariel.

Ariel is among the most contentious of the Yesha towns, as it is both in the geographic middle of the West Bank and of the land of Israel, and consequently very difficult to carve out of a future Palestinian Arab state, and it has a population of some 17,600. Picturesque and beautifully maintained, Ariel is an exceptionally warm and inviting place. It takes a pleasant while to drive through its streets, and we stop to observe a religious family in a playground.

Naftali tells me they are evacuees from Gush Katif (the former bloc of Israeli settlements in Gaza). In 2005, the then prime minister, Ariel Sharon, unilaterally disengaged from Gaza, but the exercise traumatised the nation.