Zaid was one of the founders of the secret defence organisation HaShomer (The Guard), a group of horseback-riding Jews in Palestine who dedicated themselves to protecting fellow pioneers from marauding bands of hostile Arabs.

In the mid-1920s Zaid, who had been living in the Galilean settlement of Kfar Giladi, moved to the Jezreel Valley where he set up home on the hilltop near Kiryat Tivon. Today, he is immortalised there with a bronze likeness.

Zaid was hired by the Jewish National Fund to keep a watchful eye over workers turning the valley into a cradle of agricultural achievement.

Today he would be horrified at the prospect of a section of the Trans-Israel highway blazing through Kiryat Tivon's historic and pastoral valley. It is Israel's largest valley, stretching from the Galilee in the north to Samaria in the south. Afula, a rapidly developing town, serves as the main shopping and business centre for valley residents - the majority of whom live in kibbutzim and moshavim. The Kishon River - nowadays a mere trickle of a stream - winds through the valley floor.

Deborah the Prophetess scored a victory over the Canaanites on these shores and the present-day fighters of Esdraelon are hoping to be equally victorious in re-routing the motorway.

The wellbeing of Tabor oak trees is concerning residents from Tivon and Kibbutz Sha'ar Ha'Amakim, whose thickly forested nature reserve is threatened by the tunnel's entrance. Locals feel they are in the fast lane to destruction.

Huge monsters of ground-moving equipment are working hard on the Menashe Hills, whose lower slopes are in Jezreel Valley, to forge Section 18 of the road. But it was held up after ancient graves were discovered around Kibbutz Regavim - leading to violent clashes with the police. Following an extensive archaeological dig, the diggers returned.

Behind the Sheikh Abrek ridge where Alexander Zaid takes permanent command over HaEmek are the excavations of Beit-Shearim, the House of Gates. In 200CE the town housed the supreme court - the Sanhedrin.

Behind the Guardian of the Valley Zaid are the ruins of a second century synagogue - the largest in the country at that time - destroyed by the Romans in 352 as punishment for resisting Roman rule.

In the chambers of the catacombs is a lead sarcophagus decorated with four carved menorahs.

How can the planners destroy an area shrouded in so much history just to solve traffic problems?

Alexander Zaid is probably yelling out "On your horse" to the planners of the Jezreel spaghetti junction.

E-MAIL: laisenberg@jewishtelegraph.com