Story in Reuters

The new Reuters correspondent visited with me at Shiloh last week and here's the result:-

Israeli Settlers in West Bank Try to Regroup
Published: May 2, 2006
Filed at 9:22 p.m. ET


SHILO, West Bank (Reuters) - Yisrael Medad proudly shows a visitor around this Israeli settlement perched high on a hill in the heart of the occupied West Bank.

He points out a vineyard in a valley below where the Jewish settlers of Shilo make wine. Other settlers tend nectarine trees while some work in a small factory producing door frames.

As he watches children get off buses from nearby settlements to attend Shilo's school, Medad struggles to comprehend the government's plan to uproot dozens of Jewish enclaves, likely including his own community of 1,500 people.

``It would send a message of total, absolute defeatism,'' said the tall settler leader, a former New Yorker who moved to Shilo in 1981.

Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert aims to evacuate settlements across large parts of the West Bank while strengthening major blocs if peacemaking with the Palestinians remains frozen.

He has vowed to set Israel's borders by 2010 with or without Palestinian agreement, tracing the frontier along a barrier being built in the West Bank.

Palestinians see settlements as a hated symbol of occupation. They have said Olmert's unilateral ``convergence'' plan would not foster peace and would annex land they want for a state in the West Bank and in Gaza, which Israel quit last year.

Olmert, whose Kadima Party won March elections, has formed a coalition government which is due to be sworn in on Thursday. On paper, the coalition has enough seats to push through his plan for the West Bank.

Settler leaders are trying to shape a strategy to fight Olmert, but they also need to rebuild after their right-wing support base foundered at the elections.

Although there was some confusion about what to do next, some pledged to go door-to-door to hammer home what they see as the threat from rockets fired by Palestinian militants if Israel withdraws from the land settlers see as a biblical birthright.

Any withdrawal could allow militants to get closer to the so-called ``Green Line'' boundary that separated the Jewish state and the West Bank before the 1967 Middle East war.

``We will show people the maps ... The terrorists will be on the mountains and shoot rockets at us,'' said Emily Amrusy, spokeswoman for the settlers' YESHA council.

COMPROMISE

Olmert's unilateralism appeals to many Israelis worn down by a Palestinian uprising and concerned by the rise to power of Hamas after the Islamic militant group won elections in January.

Under his plan, a quarter of the 240,000 settlers living among 2.4 million Palestinians in the West Bank could be uprooted. The World Court brands all settlements illegal. Israel disputes this.

YESHA might be ready to compromise on unauthorized outposts, Amrusy said, referring to small communities living in caravans, shipping containers or tents on hilltops.

She said YESHA might suggest that some outposts, perhaps 30 percent of the around 100 set up without Israeli permission, be evacuated while the rest should be legalized. But those to go would have to be mainly uninhabited, she added.

For Olmert, getting the United States, Israel's closest ally, on board is vital.

He expects to visit Washington to present the outlines of his proposals to President George W. Bush in a meeting around May 23, Israeli government sources have said.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has left open the possibility Washington would back the unilateral steps, but said the administration preferred a negotiated end to the conflict.

The chances of that seem increasingly remote now that Hamas is in power. Olmert has said he will wait a reasonable time for Hamas to change its stance, recognize Israel and disarm -- all points the group has previously scorned.

Gershom Gorenberg, author of a recent book on the history of the settlements, said Olmert wanted to move fast on his plans as Israeli coalitions rarely serve out their full terms and because Bush's tenure ends in January 2009.

``(Olmert) would like to have some sort of agreement with the United States that it supports this and recognizes Israel's new boundaries before there is any change in Washington,'' he said.

QUAGMIRE

Gorenberg, who supports the evacuations, said the March polls were the sharpest statement yet from the Israeli public about the issue since the 1967 war led to settlement building.

``Overall the large majority of the Israeli electorate has accepted that the settlement enterprise is a quagmire and now the question is how do we get out at the lowest cost,'' he said.

While many settlers in Gaza believed divine intervention would halt the pullout of 8,500 settlers last year, few seem to have illusions about the West Bank. Some settlers are putting on hold plans to extend or renovate their homes, settlers said.

``I can imagine it happening because I saw it in Gaza,'' said social worker Yael Avraham, 49, as sun streamed in the window of her home in Shilo, a community of ideological settlers, established in 1978 about 45 km (30 miles) north of Jerusalem.

``The elections were very bad. The people of Israel don't know about these places, the roots of the nation are here.''

Some say that if the pullout goes ahead, violence could erupt that would make protests over the Gaza withdrawal seem tame. Fervent ideological and religious currents run through many of the settlements likely to be dismantled.

At Ofra, a settlement south of Shilo which would probably also be uprooted, the sense of betrayal runs deep.

Many settlers had previously voted for former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, a long-time champion of their movement. But after the Gaza pullout, Sharon left right-wing Likud to form Kadima before suffering a stroke in January that left him comatose.

``After Gush Katif I don't think anyone will say that it will not happen,'' said Elisheva Levin, a 43-year-old mother of eight, referring to the main bloc in the former Gaza settlements.

``I hope we can stop the plan,'' added Yechezkel Schatz, 36, who works for a software firm, ``but I realize I am limited in what I can do.''