tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-81604752437933757482011-12-13T01:16:15.800+02:00Israel’s settlements are rarely out of the news. But just who are the settlers? Are they all the same? And what motivates people to live on the most contentious land in the Middle East? 40 years on from the Six Day War, we are spending 2 months on settlements to discover the truth behind the propaganda. This is not your usual tit-for-tat Israel-Palestine conflict report. It is instead a detailed, personal and intimate study of some of the most controversial people and places in Israeli society.Joshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05179280185343824332noreply@blogger.comBlogger171100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8160475243793375748.post-24189001967737558992007-07-16T18:33:00.000+03:002007-07-16T19:21:07.241+03:00

For six weeks now, Josh and I have been travelling round West Bank settlements in order to write a book on life behind the Green Line. Whilst the pieces that I've written for Cif have focused on the extremists and radicals that we've encountered along the way, the vast majority of people we've come across have been anything but fanatic... (read on at commentisfree)

Joshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05179280185343824332noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8160475243793375748.post-70323269568755340812007-07-16T18:31:00.001+03:002007-07-16T19:25:29.458+03:00

Out pounding the streets of Efrat the other day, (my cousin and co-blogger) Josh and I walked past a building site where a few labourers toiled away in the afternoon sun.As we turned the corner, we saw another of the workers sitting down in the shade of an olive tree eating his lunch, so we stopped and struck up a conversation with him. What we learned from the brief chat served to reaffirm to us

Joshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05179280185343824332noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8160475243793375748.post-63423433411110088802007-07-16T18:26:00.000+03:002007-07-17T20:09:51.674+03:00

Peace Now's latest report into Israeli settlement activity might soothe the consciences of those who compiled and disseminated it, but it is cold comfort to those it seeks to assist...Given the reaction to Peace Now's efforts - reaction which ranges from silent apathy to outright opposition, depending on the recipients' political leanings - it would appear that no stack of paperwork hurled at the

Joshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05179280185343824332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8160475243793375748.post-22762820350034009102007-07-09T20:49:00.000+03:002007-07-09T20:51:53.933+03:00

According to Nadia, as well as to far too many others I've met lately, this is the opening salvo in "the war of Islam versus Judaism and Christianity. The Arabs have a saying - 'first the Saturday people, then the Sunday people.' If we cave in, then the next step will be turning Europe into Eurabia." Explaining her family's presence in the salubrious West Bank settlement of Efrat, she told us

Sethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14672731084718059782noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8160475243793375748.post-24848396068945522602007-07-09T20:45:00.001+03:002007-07-11T09:17:19.182+03:00

Yakov, a long-haired, post-army Israeli with dreams of India and Laos, is a student at the midrasha in Kfar Adumim where he has spent the last four months studying philosophy, religious texts and other material with a group of 15 others. He had no connection to the Shtachim before taking up his place at the school, yet is now seeking to extend his stay on the settlement well past July, when the

Sethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14672731084718059782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8160475243793375748.post-68207066975167721292007-06-26T19:35:00.000+03:002007-06-27T16:36:10.632+03:00

What is your favourite wall? I know mine, do you know yours? Mine is the one that is called the Wailing Wall – but don’t worry, it doesn’t really wail! That would be funny, wouldn’t it? You know, if there was a wall that cried real tears and felt sorry for itself! In fact, I am laughing so hard at the thought of it that I just fell off the wall I was sitting on. Now I feel like wailing! Or at

Sethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14672731084718059782noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8160475243793375748.post-75419093478701292372007-06-25T22:56:00.000+03:002007-06-26T00:44:15.598+03:00

Nothing would sway the average Maaleh Adumim resident from believing they have every legal right to live in the city – at least, not whilst their own government continues to indulge them by turning the area into an idyllic retreat not a stone’s throw from Israel’s capital. This is the turning of dream into reality, as far as the expansionist plans of Israel’s leaders are concerned, or – from the

Sethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14672731084718059782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8160475243793375748.post-48782094469254721912007-06-24T18:56:00.000+03:002007-06-24T22:45:07.494+03:00

The man on my right looked thoroughly bored. He had been cornered by a small, yapping man of 50, who was offloading half-baked conspiracy theories like an over-excited child, apparently driving his audience to distraction. The man on my right wore a blank, glazed expression and stared around the synagogue disinterestedly, as Yappy warmed to his theme, "I mean - the BBC actually apologised for

Joshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05179280185343824332noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8160475243793375748.post-13492374142936221942007-06-24T18:52:00.000+03:002007-06-25T12:45:01.048+03:00

"Yeah, we've got lots of famous NF leaders on the estate", said the mother of the household, bursting with pride. "He holds an annual dinner here, where he raises a lot of money from the neighbours to fund the NF Youth school over in Burnley." As we continued discussing the "Paki problem," as she so eloquently put it, she remarked: "me? I hate all them Pakis. Well, I say all, but not that

Joshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05179280185343824332noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8160475243793375748.post-3054198036200145932007-06-19T19:08:00.000+03:002007-06-19T19:21:44.467+03:00

You can hear some strange opinions in Israel. Among the stranger that I’ve heard recently is the theory of the mixed multitude, as follows: When the Israelites fled Egypt, it is believed that certain Egyptians and others were amongst them. This “mixed multitude” thus contained non-Jews, and it is held by some that the descendents of these non-Jews are still living amongst the Jewish people – an

Joshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05179280185343824332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8160475243793375748.post-63866169183395988202007-06-18T12:36:00.000+03:002007-06-18T12:53:49.337+03:00

Standing precariously close to the edge of the mountain, the two boys gazed down at the town below them as they waved their outsized flags with pride. But they weren’t a couple of valiant explorers who had successfully scaled a previously unconquered peak, and they weren’t inviting the villagers below to share their sense of jubilation. What they were, instead, were two religious settler youths

Joshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05179280185343824332noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8160475243793375748.post-91205806240288989182007-06-18T12:32:00.000+03:002007-06-18T13:00:21.380+03:00

“I feel we are part of the Bible. It’s a very spiritual experience.”Daniella Weiss, the mayor of Kedumim, sees her West Bank settlement as central to the Jewish people’s return to the Holy Land. On the wall behind her hangs a familiar looking landscape, but I find myself disorientated as I gaze at the unrecognisable and rather bizarre marble structure in the foreground. After a few seconds I

Joshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05179280185343824332noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8160475243793375748.post-22536251422172987382007-06-13T19:53:00.000+03:002007-06-13T19:56:05.933+03:00

...He told us about his experiences of Diaspora youth, such as the five days he spent with a Birthright tour group from Montreal. “They were the same age as me, but they were like little children – all the cared about was booze, girls and clothes… I felt this very strongly when I was with them”, he said. I asked him if he didn’t lament the loss of innocence that Israeli youth suffer when growing

Sethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14672731084718059782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8160475243793375748.post-21548132789480877182007-06-08T17:00:00.000+03:002007-06-09T11:30:07.806+03:00

...Upon hearing our plans for the book, he told us that he’d be shutting up shop shortly, and that he’d come outside and chat to us if we wanted as soon as he’d cleaned the place up. We retired outside to eat, then Yehiel – a stocky man with closely cropped hair in his mid thirties – came to sit with us and give us his views on settlements and Israeli politics. Wiping his oil-stained hands on his

Sethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14672731084718059782noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8160475243793375748.post-15684478459854908262007-06-08T16:59:00.001+03:002007-06-10T19:38:53.998+03:00

Boarding the bus at Jerusalem’s tahanat merkazit felt much like the start of any journey through Israel. A typical mix of childlike soldiers, scholarly datim and swaggering hilonim jostled for space as they approached the steps to the coach that was to take us to the Israeli settlement of Ariel - deep inside the West Bank. The first thing that struck me as we took our seats towards the front of

Joshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05179280185343824332noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8160475243793375748.post-18264589327824255292007-06-08T16:59:00.000+03:002007-06-09T11:30:59.209+03:00

...Visiting an illegal hilltop settlement near Nablus, our guide turned to us and asked "is this hilltop illegal or not?". When we shrugged our shoulders in response, he replied "I don't know either. If it's legal, they should stop telling the settlers to leave. If it's not, why did they build a water tower for the residents, and why did they hook up the caravans to the national grid?" - pointing

Sethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14672731084718059782noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8160475243793375748.post-58578024695822131952007-06-08T16:58:00.000+03:002007-06-09T11:54:09.992+03:00

...Haya, one of the founding members of Gush Emunim and a pioneering settler in the West Bank since 1974, admits that at first the group were viewed as a bunch of lunatics. Thousands of settler activists came to the mountains of the West Bank in 1974 and 1975 and stayed in tents until the army evacuated them. Seven more times they did this and every time the rest of Israel looked on in disbelief.

Joshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05179280185343824332noreply@blogger.com1