|
Jewish World Review / Dec. 28, 1998 / 9 Teves, 5759
Don Feder
Zionist dream alive
(JWR) --- (http://www.jewishworldreview.com) HEBRON -- For the U.S. media, the typical Jewish settler on the West Bank
is an ultra-nationalist -- a religious zealot with a Hebrew prayer book in
one hand and an Uzi in the other, Attila the Yeshiva (rabbinical) student.
In reality, if the Zionist dream is alive anywhere in Israel, it's in
Judea and Samaria (aka, the West Bank), the land the patriarchs and prophets
trod, Biblical Israel.
Over 170,000 Jews live there in 140 settlements. They are as impossible to
categorize as any other diverse group.
Just a stone's throw from Ramallah is the modest settlement of Psagot
("the heights"). Ariel, on the other hand, is a thriving city of more than
16,000, with a college, industrial park and shopping mall.
In the ancient city of Hebron, deep in Apache country, 550 Jews live. Next
door, there are 7,000 settlers in Kiryat Arba. Efrata has 18 synagogues, two
high schools and a medical center.
Ron Nachman, who carries a cell phone in his holster, could be the mayor
of any American city on the move. He is the mayor of Ariel, 18 miles East of
Tel Aviv -- in territory the international community has assigned to the
Palestinians.
"Ariel has a reputation as a good quality of life -- good schools,
affordable housing, safe neighborhoods," Nachman says as he grabs my hand in
a Kiwanis Club grip.
He speaks of the 2,000 jobs that Ariel provides for Arabs in neighboring
villages. "We -- the Israelis who live in Judea and Samaria -- are the real
bridge to peace," Nachman tells me. "You can't coexist with your wife if you
don't live in the same house."
David Wilder, an American who's lived in Israel for 18 years and raised
six children here, is more subdued than Nachman. He's a spokesman for
Hebron's Jewish community. Down the street from his office is cave of
Machpelah, where the region's first Jewish settlers (the zealots Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob, and their wives) are buried.
Wilder notes that Jews lived in the city continually from 1540 to 1929,
when rioting Arabs slaughtered 59 Jews, driving out the rest. Abraham's
children returned in the wake of the Six Day War.
Hebron's community is an embattled outpost. In 1997, under intense
American pressure, Arafat got 80 percent of the city, including the
surrounding hills, which make excellent sniper posts.
Several months ago, Wilder relates, two pipe bombs were thrown into a
playground just minutes before the children arrived. In August, an elderly
rabbi was stabbed to death in his home.
The Israeli army, which maintains a presence in Hebron, does its best to
protect the settlers. But the government also severely restricts the
settlement's size.
"The reason we don't have more people here is we don't have a place to put
them," Wilder confides.
"We have to wait a long time to build even though we own the land. For
years, we weren't allowed to do any construction. The Arabs built and built,
and we could do nothing." The present settlement covers a small part of
Hebron's original Jewish Quarter, where Jews lived for almost 400 years.
Sholmo Riskind is the chief rabbi of Efrat (population 8,000). For 19
years, he was the rabbi of New York's Lincoln Square Synagogue, known for
its innovative programs, which drew 1,200 to Sabbath services.
He's even more satisfied with his work in Efrat, noting that residents
just built a pediatric center for a nearby Arab village. As an act of
neighborliness, "we're paying for 50 percent of their nursery school and
training the teachers."
"Israel is the place of the confirmation of God's covenant," the rabbi
says. "At best, in the Diaspora you're writing the footnotes of history. In
Israel, you're writing the chapter headings."
Nachman predicts Arafat will declare his Palestinian state next May, and
Israel will incorporate the 60 percent of the West Bank it then holds,
including Ariel. "Clinton and Netanyahu will build the Palestinian state,
Arafat will annex us to Israel," Nachman says with a touch of irony.
From Israel's pre-'67 borders to the sea is nine miles. It needs the
territories for strategic depth. The West Bank supplies 30 percent of
Israel's drinking water -- a resource the nation does not have in abundance.
The millennia-old dream of a resurrected Jewish homeland will survive or
perish on the West Bank.
When asked why she would subject her children to the dangers of settlement
life, Evita Mazor, who lives in Psagot, put it simply. "If nobody's here, it
will come to Jerusalem. If we leave Jerusalem, it will come to Tel Aviv."
The English learned the same lesson, in a different context, 1,000 year
ago -- you can pay the Danegeld, but the Dane won't go away.
and well on West Bank
12/18/98: Impeach or abandon the Rule of Law
12/16/98: Clinton moves Middle East closer to war
12/14/98: Why we lost interest in the homeless
12/10/98: No place at table for conservatives
12/07/98: The day America lost its innocence
12/02/98: Pilgrims Pilloried in streets of Plymouth
11/30/98: Caribbean dogpatch not a good candidate for statehood
11/25/98: Will Vermont force gay marriage on the nation?
11/23/98: The ACLU wants your kids to get a love life
11/18/98: Why liberals hate tobacco and guns more than drugs and crime
11/16/98: "Pleasantville" a countercultural morality play
11/13/98: Ads are a tough sell for abortion
11/09/98: Why gutless Republicans lost
11/06/98: Historians against the Constitution
11/02/98: Loving response to a hateful conference
10/28/98: Professor Death will fit right in at Princeton
10/26/98: Plymouth caves to Pilgrim foes
10/21/98: On '98 election, keep a critical eye on polls
10/19/98: Clinton could yet be 'prosperity president'
10/16/98: Working families -- Dems love 'em (stuffed)
10/09/98: Majoring in 'weirdness'
10/07/98: Friends of Billy Clinton
9/29/98: Letter from ex-soldier highlights defense peril
9/28/98: Answering arguments against impeachment
9/18/98: The nation that doesn't exist
9/14/98: Bubba isn't the only one who should be ashamed
9/11/98: Resolution of Clinton crisis will define national character
9/09/98: We're still just wild about Harry
9/07/98: Mexican banditry didn't end with Pancho Villa
9/02/98: Clinton forgives us!
8/31/98: Ashcroft's plain talking touches responsive chord
8/26/98: Public opinion be damned
8/24/98: Why liberals condone Clinton's lies
8/20/98: Time to move on -- to impeachment
8/12/98: With Bubba in the sexual privacy zone
8/10/98: The truth won't set Clinton free
8/06/98: Truth about Hiroshima is incontrovertible
8/04/98: Clinton not the first hollow president
7/30/98: "Small Soldiers" -- a fractured Vietnam allegory
7/27/98: Crime wave hits hometown
7/22/98: Love in an Internet fishbowl
7/20/98: Ads bring ex-gay movement out of closet
7/15/98: Brian and Amy -- the children of Roe
7/13/98: Why are we scared of obnoxious 'activists?'
7/6/98: Fonda still resists reality
7/1/98: New York blesses domestic partnerships
6/29/98: Teddy and Calvin stood for virtue
6/24/98: Will Clinton betray Taiwan?
6/22/98: Big tobacco? What about big casinos?
6/15/98: Religion -- God for what ails you
6/10/98: Planning Clinton's China itinery
6/8/98: Republicans' Custer offers advice
6/4/98: Oh, Dems Christian-bashers!
6/2/98: Goldwater did conservatives more harm than good
5/27/98: A Clinton-hater confesses
5/15/98: Giuliani's assault on marriage
5/13/98: Hillary knows what's best for everyone
5/11/98: To honor her would not be honorable
5/6/98: Conservative chasm: pragmatism vs. worship of marketplace
5/4/98: Anglo-saxon me
4/29/98:
Needle exchange programs are assisted-suicide
4/27/98: Chretien's mission of mercy to Fidel
4/22/98: School-choice is a religious freedom issue
4/20/98: Corporate execs deliver body parts to Beijing
4/14/98: National sales tax --- looks better all the time
4/13/98: The U.N. sinister? Hey, where did that idea come from?
4/8/98: Unions fight workers rights in 226 campaign
3/30/98: Africa's leaders should apologize
3/25/98: GOP shouldn't look to media for advice
3/22/98: You should care about Clinton's 'private life'
3/19/98: Color-coded reading, product of obsessive minds
3/16/98: Amendment will end exile of G-d from our public lives
3/9/98: Havana will break your heart
3/2/98: Vouchers Terrify Teachers' Union
2/25/98: Presidential politics starts at a resort hotel
2/23/98: Hillary's support comes at a price
2/18/98: How many times must we say "no" to gay rights?
2/16/98: Enoch Powell spoke the truth on immigration
2/11/98: Bubba behaving badly
2/9/98: A conservative dissent on the flag-burning amendment
2/5/98: We get the leaders we deserve
2/2/98: Send a signal that could penetrate boardroom doors
1/27/98: State of the president: hollow rhetoric
1/25/98: For Monica's playmate, we have no one to blame but ourselves
1/22/98: At Yale, bet on yarmulke over gown
1/19/98: Commission tackles America's fastest-growing addiction, gambling
1/15/98: Capital punishment and the hard case: no exceptions for Karla Faye Tucker
1/12/98: Partial-birth abortion and the GOP's future: the "big tent" meets truth in advertising
1/8/98: IOLTA: the Left's latest scam to crawl into our pockets
1/5/98: Connect the dots to create a terrorist state
1/1/98: The Unacceptables of 1997: Long may they rave
12/28/97: Hypocrisy is a liberal survival mechanism
12/23/97: Chanukah is no laughing matter
12/22/97: No merry Christmas for persecuted Christians around the world
12/18/97: Bosnia, Haiti, and how not to conduct a foreign policy