Surrounded by hostility, living on land most of the world wants turned over to Palestinians for a state, they meet quietly in Jewish settlements like this one, plotting the future. But these besieged West Bank settlers, widely viewed as an obstacle to peace, want only one surprising thing: to get out.
While the vast majority of settlers vow never to abandon the heart of the historic Jewish homeland — these ancient and starkly beautiful hills whose biblical names are Judea and Samaria — thousands of other settlers say they want to move back to within the pre-1967 borders of Israel.
They say the West Bank settlement enterprise — at least that part beyond the barrier of wall and fence Israel has been building — is doomed and their lives are at risk. Many say something else as well: The Israeli occupation of land claimed by the Palestinians is wrong and they want no part of it. But their houses are worthless, and they are stuck. They want help.
“I came here 25 years ago to live in the countryside and raise my family,” said David Avidan as he sat in a neighbor’s living room here one recent evening to discuss an exit strategy. “We wanted to resettle the whole land of Israel,” he added. “But now when I see how our soldiers treat Palestinians at the checkpoints, I am ashamed. I want us to get out of here. I want two states for two people. But I can’t get any money for my house and I can’t leave.”
There are 280,000 settlers in the West Bank (200,000 more Israeli Jews live in East Jerusalem, also captured in 1967), and the vast majority are firmly committed to staying and oppose a Palestinian state here. But 80,000 of them live beyond the barrier, and surveys indicate that many would leave. If they did, others might follow voluntarily.
“We did a survey three years ago and again last year, and the results were the same,” said Avshalom Vilan, a Parliament member from the left-wing Meretz Party. “Half the settlers beyond the barrier are ideologically motivated and do not want to move. But about 40 percent of them are ready to go for a reasonable price.”
Mr. Vilan is a leader of a movement called Bayit Ehad, or One Home, which wants a law budgeting $6 billion to buy the homes of 20,000 families so they can start over inside Israel. Much of the leadership of the governing centrist Kadima Party and the left-leaning Labor Party supports the law in principle, and the government has heard several presentations about it.
But the leadership has stopped short of supporting passage of the law now for fear of creating an explosive rift in Israeli society. There is also concern that such a step would amount to giving away an asset without getting anything in return from the Palestinians — a unilateral act similar to the withdrawal from Gaza three years ago, which strengthened the militant Islamist group Hamas and is seen in Israel as a failure.
The law’s advocates say Gaza is a false analogy because a settler withdrawal from the West Bank would strengthen the Palestinian Authority under President Mahmoud Abbas. The authority is trying to convince the Palestinian public that two states are possible.
The advocates add that the whole point is to start the movement early in order to encourage others to follow suit and begin an orderly process for a politically and emotionally complex undertaking.
Nothing will happen before elections in February, but the law’s advocates hope that if Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni of Kadima wins enough votes to form the next government, she will move ahead with it quickly. Ms. Livni has said that as soon as there is a framework for a two-state solution, she is willing to look more seriously at passing the law.
Settlers who have taken a stand in favor of such a move say life has been hard.
Benny Raz, 55, who has lived with his family in the settlement of Karnei Shomron since the mid-1990s, began to call for a way out in the past few years, asking the government to buy his house and those of his fellow settlers.
“My neighbors looked at me like I was a traitor or from another planet,” he recounted. He said that he was fired from his job in charge of settlement bus drivers and that his wife’s sandwich stand was boycotted and driven out of business.
“I get threatening phone calls telling me I am going to be killed,” he said. “Today, I carry a gun because I am afraid of the Jews, not the Arabs.”
Herzl Ben Ari, mayor of Karnei Shomron, said that Mr. Raz was fired for incompetence and that the sandwich stand had hygiene problems, both unrelated to his political activities. Dani Dayan, chairman of the settlers’ council, said that while real estate in a few communities had lost value, most houses in West Bank settlements still fetched high prices.
“This bill is psychological,” he said in reference to the proposed law. “They want to put pressure on us and on the Israeli public to give the illusion that our fate is already doomed. They like to say that everybody knows that in the end these communities will not exist. I say the opposite. More and more people here and abroad are beginning to understand that there is not going to be a Palestinian state here.”
Some houses that have been abandoned by settlers unwilling to stay have been filled by young religious families that pay minimal rent and are directed there by the settlers’ leadership. Mr. Vilan, the leftist lawmaker, said that under his law, moving into settlement houses bought by the government would be an offense punishable by up to five years in prison.
One Home has held several dozen meetings around West Bank settlements urging those who want to leave to become active in the movement.
At a meeting here in Rimonim, several people said they were afraid that what had happened to Mr. Raz would happen to them.
One of those whom Mr. Raz helped persuade at an earlier meeting was Monika Yzchaki of the Mevo Dotan settlement, which like Mr. Raz’s settlement is in the northern half of the West Bank and is on the other side of the barrier. She moved there 16 years ago with her husband and young children.
“We came for a house we could afford in a good environment,” she said by telephone. “Many don’t understand that there are a lot of us who are not extremists or crazy. Now I have to show a passport at the barrier to get home. I am now living in Palestine. It used to be that I thought it was my country and they thought it was theirs. Today it is very clear it is their country.” She added, “I can name 40 families that want to leave but are afraid to say it aloud.”
Asked for her view of a Palestinian state, she said: “I think there should be a two-state solution. You cannot live with people who don’t have independence. They have to learn their own language, teach their children their own heritage. But that is their problem. My problem is that my government has left me behind.”
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