Life for Jews among the burning tyres

Press, 23 March 1988, Page 11

Life for Jews among the burning tyres

By

JEFFREY BARTHOLET

bf (Reuters

(through NZPA) in Ariel Where torches! once announced the. new moon across the ancient Jewish kingdom, burning rubber tyres now send plumes of smoke with a different message. } i Haim Spring, formerly from! Chicago and now a Jewish settler in the Israelioccupied West Bank, pays them no heed. ( I • “We’re absolutely happy here,” he said, shrugging off a 14-week Palestinian uprising, as well as the business and friends he left behind! in the United States. .}_ . i ' “I feel I’m part of the historical Jewish people, which is a! feeling of oneness that cannot be explained.” Between 60,000 and 70,000. Jews have created 120 settlements on j the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip, lands captured by Israel in the 1967 :Middle East war and delmanded by 1.5 million Palestinian residents as a future State. An additional 100,000 Jews live in new suburbs established in greater Jerusalem, annexed bV Israeli after the war. 7 . | They plan to stay. i I Some Jews were attracted to the occupied areas by good and! inexpensive housing. But saw themselves as pioneers, like those from earlier generations who escaped persecution in Europe and (the Soviet Union and came to Palestine to; re-establish the Jewish homeland. (. - [ • For them, the occupied areas are an indivisible part of ancient Israel and essential to the survival of the modern State. I Haim Makovski, a 20-year resident of Israel and spokesman for the Right-

wing I Gush Emunim organisation directed a! recent press ! four i of Samaria, the ancient Jewish term for the northern section of the West Bank. ( I Many sites on the route had!ancient names; which Mr Makovski ill said evoked a sense of Jewish history (come full circle. . ■ i.'! .1 lll'i !'! | The Icity of Nablus, home to 100,000 Palestinians, derived its name from the Greek Neapolis. Its earlier I biblical name was Shechem. ( ' ( The Israelis now put only Shechetp on road signs in English,! as if they were trying to write Nablus; off th a map. ! ( “We see ourselves as the (thorn in the conscience of the authorities,” said Mr Makovski. “We are the people Who keep reminding our leadership, the land of Israel and the people are one ' and the same.” !> I [ (HUI i Once-barren hilltops ‘are (j; now I speckled with hundreds of red roofs ja sign of Jewish habitation On hillsides still bare, Palestinians frantically plant olive trees to claim possession. :!(j Jj The settlers said they had aerial photographs to prove such lands were once uncultivated. They avoided} roads that ran through scores; of crowded Palestinian towns and villages, p i i| | “It’s a real nice place here,” said Bill Adelman, a resident of Ariel, hot so much a:settlement as a small town,} I “A better! idea would have been if we took the Arabs out of Shebhem arid threw them across the riyeri We could have settled there and wouldn’t had to tear this mountain apart,” he Said. ’ : - !lj 'h; IB Ariel’s planners hope that one day it will be the capital of Samaria, and home to 70,000 Jews. ; j. ',' ■ |