ARIEL, West Bank — When a group of Israeli artists recently refused to perform in the new theater at this large Jewish settlement, local residents reacted with a mixture of hurt and defiance.
When scores of leftist Israeli academics, prominent writers and intellectuals said that they would not lecture at the Ariel University Center or in any other settlement, many here said that nobody had asked them to come.
But the protest broadened again this week when an American advocacy group, Jewish Voice for Peace, said that more than 150 international film and theater professionals, including Julianne Moore, Theodore Bikel, Vanessa Redgrave and Tony Kushner, had endorsed its statement in support of Israeli artists against performing in the settlements, which are viewed by much of the world as a violation of international law.
For many in Ariel, the growing boycott is something of a surprise. Ariel, an elongated urban settlement that lies about 12 miles inside the West Bank, has long been labeled in Israel as part of the “consensus” — local code for settlements destined to be included within Israel’s borders under any peace deal with the Palestinians. It often appears as one of the regular dots on Israeli weather maps.
Yet as Israel and the Palestinians embark on a new, American-sponsored peace effort, and with a temporary Israeli moratorium on residential construction in the settlements set to expire later this month, Ariel has suddenly found itself at the crux of Israel’s settlement conundrum, and perhaps not so much in the consensus as it likes to think. Linked to Israel’s coastal plain by a modern, high-speed highway, it underscores the bind Israel’s settlement policy has created for those who seek a two-state solution.
The settlement was founded in 1978 by a group of employees from Israel’s military industries, secular security hawks who wanted to ensure that the high ground of Samaria — the northern West Bank by its biblical name — would remain under Israeli control. They were supported by Shimon Peres, who was defense minister at the time. Now the country’s president, and a figure more recently identified with the Israeli peace camp, Mr. Peres attended the 30th anniversary celebrations in Ariel in 2008.
Successive Israeli governments have insisted that Ariel, with its sizable population and strategic location, must remain within Israel’s borders under any final peace accord. So far, no Palestinian negotiator has agreed to that. The Palestinians argue that an Israeli “finger” reaching that far into the West Bank would preclude the territorial contiguity of a Palestinian state. They also note that Ariel sits on a major aquifer.
Ariel’s 19,000 residents are mostly secular Jews, not messianic ideologues who believe in settling the biblical heartland. About half are immigrants from the former Soviet Union. Many say they came for the good air and cheap housing, but they are also living an inner contradiction. While considering themselves part of the Israeli mainstream, many say they are not certain about Ariel’s future, their anxiety compounded by the renewal of peace talks.
“A lot of people are thinking about it,” said Valeria Vishnevski, a Russian immigrant who has lived here for 15 years. “It would be a tragedy if we had to leave. It is so nice here, like Switzerland.”
Although Ariel juts deep into the West Bank, the town’s mayor, Ron Nachman, has toiled to give it a feeling of middle Israel. He is fond of pointing out that Ariel has all the characteristics of a normal city: a hotel; a nearby industrial park that employs thousands of Palestinians alongside Israelis; a university center; a sports and recreational complex with its central John Hagee Building, named for the American preacher whose ministries donated $1.5 million toward the project; and the theater, which is scheduled to open in November.
The Israeli artists’ protest began with the publication of the theater program for the 2010-2011 season, showing that five major Israeli theater companies were scheduled to perform.
Coming days before the peace summit in Washington, it was serendipitous for the Israeli left, which has been largely dormant in recent years. It also set off rare public debate in Israel about the legitimacy of the settlements in the territories conquered in the 1967 Middle East war.
“There was a big effort to turn Ariel into a consensus town,” said Amiram Goldblum, an Israeli professor of chemistry and a founder of Peace Now, the liberal advocacy organization, who joined the academics’ petition. “But it seems that Ariel is not part of the consensus, and people will understand that now.”
At the Ariel University Center, formerly known as the Judea and Samaria College, staff and students dismissed the protest as hypocrisy. “They are willing to talk to the worst enemies of Israel, and not to us,” said Eldad Halachmi, the university center’s vice president for resource development. “I pity them. God willing, their grandchildren will study here and become doctors.”
The managements of the major Israeli theaters, which are partly state-financed, lined up with the government and said that they would stage their productions in Ariel. Ariel Turgeman, the chief executive officer of the Ariel theater, said the artists’ boycott “did us a favor. They gave us a P.R. campaign for free. An unbelievable number of people are asking to perform here.”
Still, the settlement’s future is not clear. As well as an obstacle to an Israeli-Palestinian agreement, it could also serve as a crucial trade-off for negotiators hammering out a final deal.
In January, to mark Jewish Arbor Day, Israel’s conservative-leaning prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, planted a sapling in Ariel. He declared it the “capital of Samaria” and an integral part of Israel. But Oren Ben Uziyahu, the owner of a toy store in Ariel, said that in return for genuine peace, most people would “leave behind their fake leather couches” and give up their Ariel homes. “It is reasonable to assume,” he continued, “that in the end, Ariel will have to go.”
Front Page Features