West Bank: Jewish settlers say they are only following orders - God's

Sourced from AFP. Criticism over Israeli settlements in the West Bank is absurd since God gave this land to the Jews, says Rabbi Yaakov Savir. The Arabs, he says, should make their home elsewhere.

‘This territory is Jewish territory,’ says Savir, a settler who runs a religious school in the Havat Gilad outpost which consists of little more than a few tin huts and weather-worn trailers, some horses and chickens and several car wrecks.

‘This is our home,’ he says, making a sweeping gesture towards the Jewish settlements that dominate nearby hilltops to show he means the entire West Bank, which Israel captured from Jordan in the 1967 Six-Day-War.

‘We must settle here, God has ordered us to live on this land,’ says Daniel Landesberg, 20,

Havat Gilad, which 20 families call home, is a wildcat outpost, meaning that unlike full-scale settlements, it is not authorised by the Israeli government.The international community considers all settlements illegal.

Published by Mike Hitchen, Mike Hitchen Consulting
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