Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
For Israeli parents, settlements in the West Bank are a great place to raise children. I
could have played all day with the kids I met.
I also enjoyed a beer and a chat with a resident of a simple and rustic settlement in
the Jordan River Valley. He said he was here not as a Zionist, but because it was quiet and
offered his young family a back-to-nature home with wonderful neighbors. “You never
see the stars in Tel Aviv like we do here,” he told me.
In another settlement, I met a 24-year-old man who had just bought his house and was
thrilled to invite me in. He and his buddy talked with me on their balcony, overlooking
a vast and unpopulated view. They said that the land was going unused anyway, so why
shouldn't industrious Israeli Jews develop it? They can pump in water from desalination
plants and build a slick freeway to provide a fine place for people to live within a short
drive to jobs back in Israel proper. When I asked these young men if there's a good and
peaceful future in this region, I was struck by how matter-of-factly they said, “Only if the
Palestinians move east across the Jordan River and into the country of Jordan.”
Walking through an Israeli settlement, I can see the appeal of these neighborhoods.
But history has taught us that when a government plants its citizens in disputed territory,
the descendants of those original settlers are likely to pay the price. Ultimately, rather than
