Pink-tinted apartments would stand empty in Yitzhar. Next in Har Bracha would stand the roofless walls of homes that the Israeli government “froze”, their glassless windows offering a pristine view of the nearby hills.
And this is the scene that would, G-d forbid, unfold:
The only intact building in Havat Gilad? A trailer home with a cistern. Horses were stabled there, you can tell by the troughs.
Hilltop activists built the last eight-foot-high Star of David covered with light bulbs, so the Jews in nearby communities and the Arabs in the villages below could see it.
The only sign of life in Mevo Dotan - the echo of the call to prayer by Jenin’s muezzin.
In Ganim, with its stunning view of Afula, someone wrote Sa-Nur, which in Hebrew means “bearer of light”.
“Will the settlers fight their countrymen to maintain their communities, or will they accept their fate?”, says an old Haaretz left inside a house.
Banners reading “Evacuation is a prize for terrorism” and “Our love will triumph” hang outside the homes of Elon Moreh. The road has been blown up, after the Arabs resumed the shootings and started throwing bombs at the buses and mortars over the fences.
Electric cars are abandoned along the way to Midgalim, like a huge flock of dead birds.
No more Israeli cars are seen driving through the tunnel road built by Israel to be a safe bypass between Jerusalem and Gush Etzion. An Arab local committee renamed it “the way of the thieves”.
Just a cold wind whistles through the hills of Shiloh, which used to be the spiritual capital of the Jewish nation. Arabs would be climbing up a former water tower in the center of the town to see from one side of Israel to the other. At the end of the horizon, the deep blue of the sea meets the light blue of the sky.
A Jewish sticker says: “The eternal people aren’t afraid of a long road”. Someone else left a placard in memory of the baby Yehuda Shoham, who was killed by a rock thrown at his head as he and his parents were driving back from a visit to his grandparents’ house. Another plaque commemorates the loss of a 20-year-old soldier.
Psagot would be just a cluster of darkened buildings, its famous vineyards uprooted. A sculptured, gaping mouth of a house gutted by mortar is left in memory of the victims of terrorism.
In Kochav Yaakov, closer to Ramallah headquarters for the Palestinian Authority, everything destroyed except a barren coffee shop. An Israeli flag on the roof of a simple townhouse might still flutter in the wind.
Floating in the swimming pool of Karnei Shomron are the bodies of two Palestinian “collaborators” killed after the IDF withdrawal.
No more prayers are held at the synagogues in the Kfar Etzion. In front of the door to a study hall, a memorial depicts the residents’ last stand.
During the night, the streets of Tekoa are filled with masked Arabs shooting rifles in the air. Their dark glittering eyes and bold faces are telling their desires of turning the Mediterranean Sea red with Jewish blood and erecting a “Palestine” on the ruins of Israel.
The old Jewish cemetery in Hevron is now the area’s favorite public park, while the old city’s playground in the line of fire of Abu Sneineh, the hillside neighborhood some 300 meters away, is covered with Jewish books burned by a local mob.
Up on the hill in Alfei Menashe, the view reaches all the way to the tall buildings of Tel Aviv. The town still looks immaculate and green, the sun is setting with a huge round ball of gold sinking into the azure Mediterranean sea. Inside a house, a graceful vase is still in the center of the table. But there are no more Jewish lives. The town, battered to death, has been sold to the Aga Kahn Fund.
Migron is a pile of rubble, broken tiles and pots of hot soup made by the women for the soldiers on cold nights. “Will the settlers fight their countrymen to maintain their communities, or will they accept their fate?”, says an old Haaretz left inside a house.
Alon Shvut is a hamlet of twisted steel rods. The legendary loan oak has been uprooted. In the municipal building, an Arab boy finds a tape with the discussions between the settlers’ leaders and rabbis on the best way to resist evacuation.
The inside walls of what’s left of the Itamar’s synagogue are filled with graffiti against the Jews. Its famous vegetable hothouses with green fields, orchards and flowers have been blown up.
Beit El? Every tree and plant and dwelling has been bulldozed. There are no more cheerful shouts of kids playing echoing through the streets or theiir headscarved mothers, only shrapnel holes in the bedroom walls. Every wall in the school is covered by colorful displays prepared by the children for the last Purim.
The buildings of Rimonim are used by alley cats.
From Ofra to Kfar Adumim, the land is covered only by the voice of Al Jazeera. The outposts’ military watchtowers are now used by the Arab snipers against the IDF.
In Ariel, so quiet that during the day it feels like a ghost town, empty three-story villas dot winding streets.
At one of the checkpoints along the former fence, a sign reads in Hebrew, English, and Arabic: “Entrance for Jews not allowed”.
The day after this nightmare "disengagement", rockets begin to rain down unabated on the Gush Dan area. The PA Mufti proclaims: “Next year in Ramat Aviv”. And the world stands by.