ARIEL - a dagger aimed at the heart of any future Palestinian State.

by Janine Roberts c2008

Jewish Ariel, 40 years old, looms over the millenia-old Palestinian township of Marda in the heart of the West Bank.

Ariel's red roofs dominates the view for many miles around, making it very hard for any visitor to the Palestinian Territories to ignore it. We went up to it from the Palestinian township of Marda that lies next to it, for we were curious about this Jewish settlement of 25,000 that has had the effontrary to proclaim itself the capital of Samaria, in other words of the entire northern half of the Palestinain West Bank, including of larger cities such as `Nablus. We drove up along a road closed to all Palestinian vehicles, despite it being a former main road to the regional Palestinian capital of Salfit. Our car was Israeli so had the yellow number plates that gave us easy access through its military checkpoint. Israel's government says it will not withdraw from here - although such insistence is reported to make its military cringe. They believe that retaining it will force them to keep considerable military forces within the West Bank.

The Ariel colony was established in 1978, following the Camp David Accords, when Zionist Jews feared they might have to give up some of the West Bank. It was set up on land confiscated from the Palestinian towns of Marda, Kafl Haris and Iskaka . It claims to be 'located in the heart of Israel,' but in truth it is well outside Israel and in the heart of the proposed Palestinian state. It is 40 km (25 miles) east of Tel Aviv, 40 km west of the Jordan River and 60 km north of Jerusalem. It stretches 12 km (8 miles) along a high ridge, practically dissecting in two, if one counts its outposts, the northern half of the eEst Bank, It has large industrial zones with over 150 factories but over half of its population commutes to work in Tel Aviv. It's website boasts that its residents enjoy dry, clean air and gentle mountain breezes as it is over 600 metres above sea level. It's mayor, Ron Nachman, boasts that it is 'almost the same width as the state of Israel at its narrowest point before the 1967 war.' But so far it has not fulfilled all his dreams. In 1988 he announced plans to expand it to 100,000 residents. He has occupied the Palestinian farm land needed for this, but so far he has been unable to find the Jews wanting to come to live in the heart of the West Bank. Thus recently he started to invite in Zionist Christians from the USA and UK.

It is difficult to apprectiate quite what a threat it is to the establishment of any future Palestinian state based on the West Bank without studying the maps. The one from the Oslo Accords reveals one of the reasons why Prime Minister Arafat rejected it. All the lands in this map and beyond were once Palestine, but under these Accords the areas left to Palestinian control are only isolated islands, apartheid-like Bantustans, no basis for true independence. And look at the site of Ariel. See how it splts the West Bank in two - and then look at the more detailed map that shows the line of the segregation wall (in red) that Israel is now building into the very centre of the West Bank, around the many Jewish settlements (in blue) that make up the 'Ariel Bloc'. The international border of the West Bank is the green line - well to the west of Ariel. But what this map does not show is what we saw ourselves in 2007, the expansion of Zionist Jewish settlements to the east of Ariel, where Palestinian farmers took us to see recently poisoned large fig trees and market gardens ruined by the sewage directed down into them from the Israeli settlements above.

We were surprised by Ariel when we reached its heart. It felt much more like a drowsy, faded town from the American Midwest than what we imagined a militant dynamic Israeli colony would be like. It has a tatty Walt Disney-styled shopping centre with a focus on paper cups and junk food - although I have since learnt that there are bigger shops in one of its 'industrial zones. ' It gave the impression that it was the centre for a struggling, somewhat disillusioned, American colony - something quite alien after our time spent in Palestinian towns.

The woman above is in the almost obligatory uniform for settler women, of a long skirt, covered shoulders and a scarve tied in the nape of the neck - unlike modern Palestinian women who tie their head scarves under the chin. Ariel has a high birth rate - but recently more settlers have been leaving than coming. Its American feel is perhaps not surprising. It's development has relied greatly on American funding. A vast amount of money has been poured into it. The housing estates appeared well designed and expensive - although it also had a caravan park and hostels for presumably new arrivals. The housing is so substantial, and the road network and services, that we had to wonder just how much had been spent on creating Ariel and from where these funds had come. The photos are of typical housing styles. The tower block is however unique - and situated directly above Marda.

When, in 2003 a PBS American television investigation asked the Mayor of Ariel, Ron Nachman, how much had so far been spent on Ariel, he flippantly replied: ' What's the question how much this cost, is it for sale? Now people want to buy Ariel, give me a billion, two billion, let's talk, '

Israel has enormous military costs, yet it has found billions to invest in building these settlements. These are at the center of the debate over what's known as the roadmap, the US-backed plan that calls for a freeze on the growth of settlements and their eventual removal, to make way for a Palestinian state. Israel knew this when it built them. It used US provided funds to block this US-backed plan. Akiva Eldar, a journalist for an Israeli leading newspaper, Haaretz, commented: 'Ariel represents a sticking of a finger into the eye of the Palestinians, if you look at the map. The idea was of course to cut the West Bank all the way from the west to the east and to allow Israeli troops to get to the Jordan Valley... The cost of all the settlements ... it goes up to $60 billion, but it is very hard to figure out.'

The Mayor Ron Nachman

When Nachman was asked what he felt he had achieved with Ariel, he replied: 'I am deeply proud of what we've built here. A nice town, a clean town, full of nice people. We accept everybody.' He then paused and added: ''But I guess you're asking about me personally. No - I don't have anything against Arabs at all. I'm no racist: I have an Arab cleaning lady.’ He added that he trusted her with his children, and that not many Israelis can say they have this degree of trust.

When he met with a group of British MPs that were on a fact-finding mission to see if Israel will carry out its obligations under the road map to peace, he told them: "We don't touch any private property, we don't touch, we don't expropriate any land.' But one of the visitors asked: 'You are the only people in the world that say this. You do know that? The rest of the international community says this land has been appropriated. What do you say to that?' Nachman then replied: 'Because we need to educate the world... Because the world is making a mistake.' He added: 'If land is cultivated, then it is private property and not state land and it cannot be expropriated. If we try to move left or right, they block us with olive trees.' He very surprisinglyclaimed the Arabs deliberately planted olives in tubs in order to prevent the expansion of Ariel! He wanted it to grow to a minimum of 60,000 Jewish settlers - but preferably 100,000. 'As long as I live and I have the power and the strength I'll do everything in order to fulfill this vision.'

He later hesitatingly explained : 'What makes me very angry is the equation in the road map where they say stop the settlements, or freeze the settlements, and stop the terrorism... settlements equal to terror! You understand? Stop settlement, stop terrorism. So what remains, like in mathematics, settlements are terrorism. Am I a terrorist?'

Nachman has long been consumed with his mission to expand Ariel, as a regional centre for a large group of Jewish settlements. By 1987, the start of the First Intifada - a Palestinian explosion of anger, the 'Ariel Bloc' had added to it the Jewish settlements of Qarne Shomeron, Maale Shomeron, Nofim, Yaqqir and Immanuel – 'a man-made cliff' of houses, all in the centre of the West Bank. He told the New York Times in 1988: ' 'Here is the heart of Samaria. here is the future. This is in the heart of Samaria and under the surface of the land there is the water aquifer. One third of the Israeli water is coming from this area so if you controlled the land you controlled what is above and what is below.'

It is interesting that he mentioned the water aquifer - for Palestinians have long alleged that Ariel was deliberately set up in order to seize control of one of the very best water-resources within the West Bank. In this hot and arid land such resources are of enormous importance - and can make or break a state's economy. At Marda I had been taken to see the major water pumping station that Ariel had installed just above it in the valley, tapping into this very same aquifer. All the water produced was pumped up the hill to Ariel. They then resold some to Marda - down a single half-inch pipe. We were warned when staying there. 'Please do not put toilet paper in the toilet bowls. We don't have enough water to safely wash it away. It can block our systems.' This is now a common wanring in the West Bank.

But we saw there is clearly plenty of water in Ariel - for it has many swimming pools, water featuires and parks. Here are photos of a few of them.

It even had a strange pool and sculpture - a feature also of many other settlements

Nahman said Israel offered the Arabs plentiful water on good terms, but Marda’s Mayor, Khuffash, says this was 'Untrue.' A Palestinian from the nearby village of Qira reported: 'We collect rainwater in cisterns during the winter, but by the start of the summer, the cisterns run dry. Palestinian communities are thus obliged to purchase additional water from expensive and unsanitary tankers. A high proportion of children in Qira suffer from kidney problems thought to be related to drinking stagnant water. My 4-year-old daughter was forced to have a kidney transplant.'

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends 100 litres of water per person per day as the minimum quantity for basic consumption, but in the nearby village of Kafr Ad-Dik the allotment is but twenty-one litres per person per day. In contrast, Israel's per capita use reaches 350 litres per day A Joint Water Committee (JWC) was established to approve every water and sewage project in the West Bank - but it has proved to be a device to stop Palestinians getting water. It is made up of an equal number of representatives of Israel and the Palestinian Authority. But all decisions must be made by consensus with no mechanism ito settle disputes where a consensus cannot be attained. This has allowed Israel to veto requests by Palestinians to drill new wells and to install pumps to obtain the water to which they are entitled. But Nachman dismisses the lack of water in the Palestinian towns and villages as simply due to the lack of Palestinian initiative and drive. They clearly need some Israeli brains. He asked: "If we establish a Palestinian state, how would they make a living? What water would they drink?'

Locals in Marda say olives are rotting on the trees because Israeli troops keep them from harvesting groves close to Ariel but Marda's mayor. Khuffash, sees little hope of change: ‘The siege and poverty ... and hunger will go on. Nothing has changed and after Annapolis there will be no real change in our life.’ Hundreds of people from Marda have sought work abroad, he says. Many of them half way round the world, in Venezuela, making Spanish a major local language. Asked about an incident in which gunmen killed a settler nearby, Khuffash was reported as replying: 'This is our home and resistance is a legal right. If there is no respect for agreements and international law, things will go on like this, with violence.'

Nachman branded as a big lie ‘the charge that Ariel deposits its sewage on the Palestinian land. But we saw it. It is running down from Ariel itself - and we saw it flowing into a Palestinian market garden from one of Ariel's outposts. The woman in this photo, a grandmother coming back from picking olives on a hillside facing Ariel, and beneath antother settlement, told us how she had previously been stoned by settlers and had her donkey stolen by them. Her son, walking behind her, took us to see the sewage running into their crops - which are now poisoned and useless. He also showed us dead fig trees, poisoned by settlers., saying 'figs from here were famous for their goodness and now it is all wrecked. In the window photo the grandmouther is pointing out to a friend some of the places were these assaults happened. Fortunately some olive groves have still survived - as itn this photo. The farmers have to clear the land around the trees, nurture and prune them. The problem is - the settlers and the Israeli army scarcely give them time. The army frequently keeps them from picking 'in order to protect the Palestinians from settler violence.'

According to the Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem, 80 factories from Ariel's Barkan industrial zone discharge 0.81 million cubic meters of waste water per year into nearby valleys. They have formed a noxious river hrough the agricultural lands of the villages of Kifr al-Dik and Bruqin.

Ron Nachman arrived at the site of Ariel 25 years ago in 1978 by helicopter with 10 soldiers and a couple of caravans - and with such an arrival it was clearly a planned event with army support. The settlers themselves were also strongly armed. He recalls: ''We only had 10 Uzi submachine guns for 60 families, but we managed to get more.'' This was ten years after the Isreli military occupation of the West commenced. At first it had seemed that Israel might respect the international laws governing orcupations, including the one prohibitting settling one's own population on the lands of the occupied nation - but by the late 1960s this was changing. The Israelis who argued for pushing the Palestinians out to Jordan were gaining the day.

At the time of the 1967 victory, the Israeli government seemingly had no immediate interest in settlements. In fact it was stunned by the scope of its victory, - as also were the Palestinians. Neither side had plans in place to deal with the occupation. Defense Minister Moshe Dayan was reported to believe in self-government for the Occupied Territories, assuming the interim period of occupation would be soon followed by a negotiated end to the conflict. Dayan thus deferred to the Jordanians in matters of social and political concern to the Palestinians. The Jordanian dinar at first remained the local currency, local Jordanian law remained in place, and a revised Jordanian curriculum was taught in the schools. Palestinians were then invaluble for the Israeli economy - they provided one-quarter of Israel’s factory labour force - and one-half of its construction and service industry labour force. This was not surprising as Israel had not managed to bring in enough Jewish migrants.

But within weeks other occupation plans were drawn up. In 1968 Deputy Prime Minister Yigal Allon proposed what is now known as the “Allon Plan,” for a series of Israeli settlements along the Jordan Valley and eastern slopes of the mountain ridges from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea. The area, he argued, was critical to Israel’s ability to defend itself against attack from Jordan or Iraq . He proposed that these settlements be buttressed by a series of purely military outposts. Today there are twenty-seven Eastern Strip–Jordan Valley settlements and five military bases.

At the same time, the more Zionist of the Jewish immigrants were drawing up their own plans, seeing this as a golden opportunity to seize from the Palestinians the lands that accodrding to their Bible were occuped by Jews over two thousand years ago. In 1968 the Rabbi Moshe Levinger organized a movement to resettle all parts of biblical Israel, beginning with its most ancient city, Hebron. He and his followers advertised for fellow Jews who wanted to spend Passover in Hebron and wound up with eighty-eight celebrants at the city’s Park Hotel. Days later, Levinger announced his intention to stay in Hebron. But the Defence Miniser Dayan proposed instead that the settlers move to a military base overlooking the city.

In the north – Dainiella Weiss was involved in a similar scheme in Nablus – and similarly was persuaded to move to a former Jordanian army base, thus founding the settlement known as Kedumin to the north of Ariel - and within the same planned Fence line for, it was not long until the government found itself defending the new rextremist Zionist settlements set up deep within the West Bank.

The netxt big expansion it seems came with Ariel Sharon. Nachman now boasts: 'Here we have gone from two tents to 2,000 families - and are planning for many more' spread across seven miles of bulldozed ridge, anchored by an industrial park at each end. But he rejects the charge that they took private land to build their town, thinking that his vistors do not know enough to gainsay him: ‘There was nothing here, only boulders.' But the local Palestinians tell a very different story. In Marda we heard of the football matches that 'I used to play in' on the leval grounds taken by Ariel. We also learnt of the 'rich harvest of origano and other herbs that we used to pick every spring' on these same lands. They told us too of the 'ploughed fields' they had there. 'Did Ariel ever pay you compensation for taking your lands?' I asked. The reply came: 'Never. We would never have sold our lands to them.' But Nachman and the Israeli military forces clearly knew this from the first. Otherwise they would have had no need to found Ariel with a military-style occupation.

Nachman was so sure his visitors knew none of this that he continued on to claim: 'Many of the surrounding hillsides are covered with small olive trees, carefully planted in oil drums.Under Jordanian law, which applies - more or less - on the West Bank, cultivation is one proof of land ownership', and the Palestinian Arabs have put in the trees to assert their claim. Another Israeli, a demographer, Meron Benvenisti, explained this as a 'fight of trees. They plant olives, we pull them out and put in pines.' However although we saw pines had been planted, it seemed the settlers had also kept many of the olive trees they have seized. We has also picked these olive trees - and they were not in oil drums. They were on carefully constructed terraces that seemed centuries old.

But ultimately Nachman was sure the Jewish people owned the title deeds to all the Palestinian lands. 'We have all the rights to do it from the Bible, the origin of civilization. While no other country in the world can show it's rights to its territory. We are the only ones. And when you have the right and you are right you win.'

He is not shy about sharing the strategy that lay behind their seizure of this hilltop ridge. He says the 'genius' behind it was Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. This ridge dominates the corridor from Tel Aviv to the Jordan valley, Ariel was in the centre like a key and Sharon planned all the settlements spreading around, to spread around the region, 'in order to prevent a Palestinian state.'

Nahman shared something of the political solution he now envisions with a journalist from the New York Times. Maybe a few slivers of land on the West Bank could go to the Arabs. But politically these people should be participating in the Palestinian state that has become Jordan. 'You’ve already seen what we started with here,' he continued, referring to photographs of a single caravan resting on a pile of rocks. 'Well this here is the first row of houses I put up, rightalong the ridge line.” He paused long enough to allow his listeners to get a fix on Palestinian villages visible from the ridge. “I wanted the Arabs in those villages down there to see us every time they came out of their doors. I wanted them to know we are here. I wanted them to know we weren’t going anywhere.”

Ron Nachman also had told a New York Times journalist ,as he looked at an Arab village from his balcony: ‘Every house will be destroyed if they don't watch it.!

In the distance are the many Palestinian towns and villages that he was looking down on from Ariel - surrounded by the Salfit district lands that were once known as the 'bread-basket' of Palestine.

But between their homes and the Palestinians out of fear, perhaps of guilt, the people of Ariel have erected a multi-layer and electified system of security fences. "Apartheid fences' the Palestinians called them.

But, Ariel is a town that has surrounded itself in fear... for it is not the far poorer Arabs who are trying to keep out their neighbours and who are scared of them. Today Ariel is apparently surrounded by razor wire, motion detectors, electrified fencing and security roads. It almost feels as if the townspeople have a guilt complex about what they have done to their neighbours. Some of these fences are in these photos.

But to return to the role of Arilel Sharon. The New York Times reported that :'It was Ron's dream to build a city, but it was his close friend Ariel Sharon who made it happen.' Nachman explains: 'Without Ariel Sharon, there was not one Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria. He was the visioner, he was the father, he was the one who supported us, asked us to come. We brought the manpower, but he brought the government, and he is the father of all the settlements in Judea and Samaria.'

During the 1990s, Sharon succeeded in doubling the number of settlers in the West Bank, placing them in strategic places, giving their coloniesroom to grow, and reinforced their presence by putting other settlements nearby, all part of a strategy to make it near impossible for Palestinian towns and villages to expand, or to gain the territorial cohesion necessary to form a state.

Sharon visited Ariel in July 2005 and told residents exactly what Nachman wanted them to hear. “I want to make it clear,” he emphasized, “that this bloc will always remain a part of Israel and there will always be territorial contiguity between the Arielbloc and the rest of Israel.” His government had announced months earlier that the West Bank security wall would protect Ariel, its bloc of at least fourteen settlements, and some thirty-seven thousand settlers

But apparently Sharon did not have everything his own way. It was then reported that quiet U.S. pressure caused Sharon to postpone building the wall around all the Ariel Bloc. The rapid Israeli colonizaton of the West Bank was disturbing the Arab friends of the USA - and so more delicacy seemed to be needed. The US with Israel devized a way of separating the new settlements into 'legal' and 'illegal' - despite them all being thoroughly illegal in international law. It was now reported that 'At least seven illegal outposts also reside within the Ariel bloc. - and their apparent purpose is to further isolate the Palestinian villages while providing the Israeli settlements in the area with greater contiguity.' Quietly the government got on with its private aim of making even these 'illegal' settlemnet safe and providing them with a full range of social and educational services. It also had another use for Ariel. Its remote site would be useful for military research. The government-owned Israel Military Industries built a factory in the Ariel Industrial Zone -and its college gained a major laser facility.

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A military tower by Palestinian olive groves at Kedumin.

But as it seemed that not enough Jews were religiously motivated to occupy Palestinian land - so the government now set out to make the settlements attractive to the secular Jew, advertising to persuade them to leave the cramped expensive housing of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv for the fresh air of the hills that the settlements had occupied for military reasons within the West Bank. They were told they would have more room for less money and a barbecue pit; all within an easy drive of work in the city, like suburban commuters all over the world. ''That was the genius of Likud,'' said a Western aid worker who studied the growth of settlements around Jerusalem. ''They changed it from an ideological goal to just moving to the suburbs.'' The result is a belt of fortress suburbs commanding the hills outside Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, many linked by new roads that avoid any need to contact a Palestinian.

Israel also needed to replace its Palestinian work force - for the Israelis were getting increasingly troubled by the possibliies of Palestinian resistance to the planned take over of their lands. The Russian Jews were needed - and Ariel recruited over 3,000, by sending speakers to Russia - not telling the Russians about the Palestinians but about the subsidies and easy life.

Lawrence Shafer, a salesman, moved to Ariel with his wife Menucha and their two children 12 years ago. Like most settlers, he commutes to work on the other side of the green line, the border between Israel proper and the West Bank. He told a journalist: ''We've always wanted to buy our own house. And to buy a house inside inland Israel costs three times what it costs in Ariel.' The government also offered the Shafers a 5% income tax reduction and a grant worth about $12,000 dollars to move to the west bank. They were also told: 'If we stay here 15 years in Ariel we don't have to repay it.'

Another Russian, Irena Gurskay, reported: 'At the airport they gave us the first half of our settlement package. They gave it to us right there, together with our papers. When we arrived we opened a bank account and the Ministry of Absorption immediately began paying us through it. Also for the first year we receive a discount on our land tax. Our television is subsidised as well.' Before coming she had been told about Ariel's 26 schools, university and first-class medical care, but not that it sits in occupied territories.

Russian and Hebrew seemed to be the only languages in Ariel. No sign of Arabic here - although it boasts that some 5% of the students at its 'univesity of Samaria' are Arab citizens of Israel. This seemed to be true, from what we saw. We noticed some female students dressed identically to most of the Paletstinian women standing outside its college.

Shortly after the Russians started aarriving in large numbers ( incluidng thousands of Russian Christians as well as Jews), the Palestinians now mostly out of work as well as disposssed of their ancient land, exploded into popular revolt in 1987, in what is now known as the First Intifada. It was mostly low-tec - stone throwing, but it was extremely extensive. The accompanying boycott of Israeli goods also damaged the Israeli economy. But it also gave the settlers in Ariel an excuse to savagely attack the Palestinians

Robert Friedman reported in The New York Review of Books, on November 29, 1989, that: 'Ariel's Ku Klux Klan-style armed raids on neighboring Arabs have been extensively documented by Israeli and American reporters, as well as by Israeli police and Knesset members. Since the publication of my article, which recounted a number of specific attacks on local Arabs by Ariel's citizenry, the settlement's hotheads have been busy. On May 30, marauding settlers from Ariel rampaged through a village located one hundred yards from Ariel and shot a sixteen-year-old Palestinian girl to death. Palestinian witnesses and Israeli news reports said thirty to forty settlers from Ariel entered the village and set fire to wheat fields and olive groves while indiscriminately shooting into the air. The girl was shot in the chest when she left her house to see what was happening. She was the five-hundredth Palestinian fatality of the intifada.

On June 3, Ariel's mayor Ron Nachman was criticized even by Likud party leaders when he proposed that Palestinian workers entering Ariel be forced to wear yellow tags identifying them as ‘foreign workers’; Nachman backed down after Israeli critics compared the tags to the yellow Stars of David that Jews were forced to wear in Nazi Germany. The US State Department also protested the tags, mildly calling this 'undemocratic.' (This reminds me of the current practice of the Israelis issuing all Palestinian cars with green number plates, while the Israeli cars have yellow. We drove the latter, and discovered that Israeli cars scarcely have to slow down at army checkpoints - while the Palestinian cars line up, with their occupants frequently interrogated at gunpoint by teenage Israeli soldiers. We felt contaminated. It was very much as if we were considered a superior race. Also, because we had such a car, we were also able to drive on the apartheid roads where no Palestinian vehicles are allowed. This is happening today right over the West Bank and Gaza - with no US or European protest.)

Five years later, in 1994, William Dalrymple described Ariel as ‘a modern Western town with shopping arcades, sports centres and supermarkets.' He added: 'No Palestinian, either Christian or Muslim, ever needed to bother applying to live in Ariel: its houses were available only to Jewish settlers.' We found it had scarcely changed by 2007 - except that it now allows in as settlers Zionist Christians. He also recorded how on June 21, about five hundred armed mourners at Ariel, enraged over the killing of a comrade by a Palestinian, attacked Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's motorcade when he came to Ariel to pay his respects. The settlers then went into a nearby Arab village, shooting and stoning the residents, according to Israeli press reports. Shortly after the funeral, Israeli police arrested a settler who shot and seriously wounded two Arab road workers as he drove through a busy Tel Aviv highway junction.'

On September 25 1994, Israeli police questioned eight settlers from Ariel on suspicion of firebombing Israeli property and stoning settlers to stir up anti-Arab sentiment. Israel Radio, quoting Israel's northern district police spokesman Gideon Arbel, reported that the settlers, pretending to be marauding Arabs, had attacked Israeli settlers and hurled a firebomb on an Israeli-owned car as a pretext to launch ‘counterattacks’ against Arab villages. The Israeli press also reported that Ariel settlers had stepped up vigilante attacks against Arabs in the northern part of the West Bank. But at the time, according to New York Newsday, Ron Nachman had called these allegations ‘a bit of a fantasy. I just can't believe it.’ Friedman commented: 'This is the same Ron Nachman who told me as he looked at an Arab village from his balcony: "Every house will be destroyed if they don't watch it.!"'

Friedman's earlier 1989 report continued to say that Friedman was travelling to Biddya near Ariel with a local Palestinian named Usamah. He reported: 'Only a mile before Biddya did the scene change. Turning the bend of a dry wadi, we saw Ariel which, Usamah explained, was now home to eight thousand Israelis, but was projected ultimately to house a hundred thousand — a gloomy prospect for Biddya, as it is sited precariously beneath Ariel. It looks certain to have all its remaining land requisitioned for new housing estates from which Palestinians would be banned. ''

'That was my grandfather's land,' Usamah told him as they passed by Ariel. '''t has belonged to this village since the time of the Canaanites [who lived here 3,000 years ago]. But the Israelis took it 1977. We've never received any compensation.' Just recently, said Usamah, 'a further series of olive groves separating the village from the settlement has been seized and bulldozed to provide room for a thousand new houses being built for Soviet Jews fleeing a resurgent Russian racism. Yet again it was the Palestinians who were being made to pay the price for European anti-Semitism. ' 'A Russian can come to my land tomorrow and have more right to it than me, my wife or my children,' said Usamah. 'Now the cultivated land has all been taken, and nearly all the olives cut down.'

By 1989 in Biddya, of a total population of 3,300, more than five hundred villagers - most of the younger generation - were in prison, and forty families had had their houses destroyed. Moreover, since after every incident the army made a point of cutting down an olive grove: so far two thousand trees had gone, and only a few remained. Ninety per cent of the village's income used to come from its olives, and it is now bankrupt -and most of this due to the establishment of Ariel.

'The curfew was due to resume in less than ten minutes'. Friedmann continued. 'I got up and said my goodbyes, while Usamah hurried me out to the car. We drove out of the village and past the gates and gun towers of Ariel. Under the razor wire, the settlers' bulldozers were at work clearing Biddya's olive groves. He stopped the car by a pile of uprooted olive trees and got out, indicating that I should do the same: 'Such trees are 150 years old - three times the age of the State of Israel,' he said, pulling out a clod of earth from the roots and crumbling it in his hands. 'Generation after generation our people have come three times a year to dress, fertilise and harvest these trees. All our life, all our traditions, are connected to such trees. But now they bring their powerful machines from the USA and destroy our inheritance in fifteen minutes. Like us, these trees have deep roots. Look how strongly these roots bond the trees to the soil! But now they are uprooted, and if the settlers get their way we will be next. Sooner or later they will expel us all. It is only a matter of time.'

Palestinians picking their olives - while just a hundred yards away the olive trees have been burnt and killed in 2007. The Palestinians suspect this was done by the settlers from the Ariel outpost in the background. They also accused the Israelis of releasing wild boar into the groves both to terrify them and to destroy the trees. We saw one of these dead by the road side.

But meanwhile in Ariel life went on much the same. If they ran into any trouble - why Ariel also had an Israeli army base to protect it. That is where the soldiers came from that came down to us while we were picking olives below Ariel.

The calls to prayer from Marda's mosque below are still heard in the heart of Ariel. We recorded this while there.

The vast amount that Israel has invested in this and the other major 'settlements', or 'colonies' as the Palestinians call them, has been carefully concealed. Not only do they put the vast subsidies paid by the USA to Israel into one common pot with Government moneis, it was reported by Talya Sason, in the “Summary of the Opinion Concerning Unauthorized Out-posts' prepared by the Prime Minister’s Office, (Communications Department, Israel, March 10,2005.), that the Ministry of Construction and Housing had 'not only knowingly distributed funds to illegal outposts but it has cooked the books by entering the funds in an account whose purpose was the expansion and improvement of existing 'lawful' settlements. Furthermore, it reported that the Settlement Division of the World Zionist Organization was systematically establishing illegal outposts.

An American Zionist now living at Ariel, Homer, recently stated: 'God laid, gave the boundaries and they are very clear in scripture. The hills of Zion, the hills of Samaria this is the heartland of Israel. Many of the Jews are willing to give part of it away for peace. They shouldn't do that. They really shouldn't do that.' In fact he and the Jewish Zionists really cannot understand why Ariel Sharon ultimately seemed to betray them, by closing down the Jewish settlements in Gaza. Ariel instead made these 'Jewish refugees' most welcome, taking in a large number of them, giving them housing and placing their children in Ariel's schools.

Nachman also is deeply disappointed in Prime Minister Olmert's talk of having to create a Palestinian state and give up some settlements. This for him must seem like heresy. Recent meetings of settlers have talked over the far-fetched possibility of establishing a separate 'settler state', Olmert in contrast has said: 'The day the Palestinians decide that there is no room for two states between the Jordan and the Mediteranean and simply ask for the vote, that day Israel is finished." [meaning by this as a 'Jewish state'. It would have to become a state where all citizens, whether Jew or not, are of equal standing - given the demograhcs.] Such demographics are alien to the settler movement - they would rather drive out the Palestinians from the West Bank, just as they did to most of them to set up Israel in the first place - as Mayor Daniella Weiss of the Kedumin settlement has explained 'The Palestinians are only here temporarily.'

The shops in Marda reflect the poverty of the people - while Ariel shops are full - and much more European.

When the Second Intifada broke out in 2001, this brought insecurity to Ariel - and a stopping of its expansion. Fewer Jews were keen to live there and some started to leave. As for the Arab Israelis - they simply were not welcome as settlers. Nachman sent that year a letter tto Prime Minister Ehud Olmert saying, 'There is no marketing [of homes] in Ariel and we are stuck on a dead-end road … Ariel is aging, as seen by the fact that we were compelled to close down eight of 30 kindergartens.' This he blamed on: 'he uncertainty about the town’s future and the non-completion of the separation fence.'

Some of the Russians left but not all. Some took on the settler mentality. One of them, Vodislavsky, announced her intention to built a museum in Ariel - to both the Holocaust and 'Jewish Heroes" The mayor heard about the idea and was enthusiastic,saying: 'Is there an answer to the Holocaust more to the point than the creation of Ariel out of naked scrubland in the heart of Samaria?' It is now open.

During this intifada the Palestinians attacked with stones the cars on the Trans Samarian highway that links Ariel to Israel, highlighting for potential settlers, and to the sixty percent that commute to Israel, the risks of being isolated in the midst of a Palestinian state. The Mayor in exasperation asked why are Israelis not rallying to repel the dangers that have befallen him and his city during the past 10 months? Why aren't the Israeli leaders visiting the town to raise morale? Why are they remaining silent in the face of the delegitimization campaign that is going on against Jewish settlement beyond the 1967 borders? He was particularly annogyed by the lack of support for Ariel in the media. Why are they not supporting the poor Jewish settlements surrounded by bloodthirsty enemies, as he put it.

Areil's indusrial parks still give it strength. To Israel Military Industries have been added Carmel carpets, Lipski, Bagala/Bagala, Shamir foods, Abir textiles and some 100 other companies. Ariel also has a 150 room hotel with a large outdoor pool. But, while during the 90's, Ariel absorbed nearly 8,000 olim (new immigrants) from the former Soviet Union - it was now losing people.

Fareed Taamallah lives in the West Bank village of Qira in the Salfit distict, next to Ariel and stated: ''Every morning I see through my window the settlement of Ariel, lying atop the hill adjacent to my village. I've never visited Ariel's beautiful homes and green gardens, so different from our poor, parched community, because as a Palestinian I am forbidden to enter Ariel.'

But in 2003 the Israeli government decided to extend its de facto borders for the West Bank from the internationally recognized borders - the 1967 Green Line - in salients into the very heart of the West Bank. It decided to fund the building of major defensive perimeter fences and a security road for Ariel

Bulldozer clearing Palestinian land to construct Ariel Segration Fence in 2003\

By June 5, 2005, the Israeli army had uprooted at least 1500 Olive trees south of Marda for what the Palestinians called the ‘Segregation Wall.'

But Ariel wanted more. It was now the centre of a major group of Jewish settlements , and it wanted them all protected by a continuous wall - thus taking complete possession of much Palestinian territories. In September 2005, the Israeli deputy defense minister Ze'ev Boim supported the construction of the so called 'Ariel Finger,' east of Ariel settlement bloc towards the Jordan valley, should be constructed as soon as possible. The Wall around Ariel bloc now stretched for 114 km and enclosed within it 30,000 acres (120,000 dunoms ) of Arab lands. Its very existence, the New York Times said, made increasingly difficult, if not impossible, any Middle East solution that involved the exchange of land for peace, as had been proposed by US Secretary of State George P. Shultz.

Nachman was however dismissiive about this US 'peace effort': ''When Mr. Shultz is speaking about withdrawing or giving up land, it's ridiculous. He should come here and see. We've put up 140 settlements and cities, mostly in the last 10 years. We start with small settlements and grow and grow. Eventually these settlements will grow towards each other and merge.'We have created facts on the ground.' Nachman is a strong supporter of the the right-wing Likud political party bloc.

So, as usual in all the Palestinian-Israel peace negotiations for the past forty years, anytime negotiations start about start about founding a Palestinian state on the remaining Palestinian lands, Israeli land grabs have greatly accelerated - evidently to make this near impossible. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had been blatent about this. He told the settlers to grab all the hill tops. He was committed to "dividing the territories of Judea and Samaria into tiny Palestinian cantons," It was reported that they will be "cut off one from the other, fenced in and surrounded by a plethora of Jewish settlers." He declared in 2005: 'There's no need to talk, we need to build, and we're building without talking about it.' (Online Ynet News, September 5, 2005) Nachman is reported as saying Israel cannot be secure living next to an independent Palestine. He is thus against setting up any Palestinian state in the West Bank. The Arabs can all leave and go to Jordan. The formula of handing over land in return for peace does not work, he insists.

But still the people of Marda, along with most Palestinians, remained determined to hold onto what they had left - and to keep the colonialists in Ariel aware of their bitter opposition to these blatent thefts.

Sadeq al-Khuffash, the mayor of the 2,400 people of Marda, said 'These are settlements built illegally on our lands. They should be removed ... You can't expect me to live with the people who took our land by force,” The World Court says settlements, home to some 270,000 Jews among 2.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank, are illegal. And should be removed.'

But Israel has continued to spend and spend on strengthening the settlements and fortifying the access roads. The photo below is of a guard tower by the road from Israel to Ariel as it passes the Palestinian town of Haris. The map gives the routes of some of these roads, but it leaves out the 'Israeli vehicles only' road up from the road near Kifl Haris (the Trans Samaria highway) into the west end of the main block of Ariel. This road was once the main link between the Palestinian townships of Haris, Qira and Marda to the regional centre of Salfit. The large Palestinian town of Jamma'in was totally cut off from this highway by the Israeli Army while we were in Marda in November 2007. The army blocked the main way in with concrete blocks - and piled rocks acoss all the tracks from the road into its olive groves. Marda itself has only been allowed one road in from the highway - and a gate has been installed on this so the army can lock this at will (See the Marda webpage for photos) This has highly damaged the local Palestinian economy.

At Haris, the bus stop is fortified to give waiting mostly Jewish passengers some protection. The army has placed concrete blocks in front of bus stops across the West Bank. Ariel has also hired its own 'privatised' security force. Here one of them is watching the Palestinian farmer and pickers (including ourselves) at work beyond the security line. Half an hour later the army sent in soldiers to inspect us.

The northern side of Ariel borders the townshop of Marda, whose farmers used to farm the very site of Ariel - and who were dispossessed without compensation. They told they got no compansation, but would have refused to sell to Ariel any of their lands. The trees in the twon and about it are mostly farmed olive trees, some very old. This makes for me, the Ariel mayor's claim to visitors that Marda only got into planting olives in order to block Ariel's expansion, frankly ridiculous.

The photos below are of two exceptionally dedicated Palestinian lawyers who work throughout the West Bank - including with people from Marda who introduced us to them, particularly Abu Hassan, the head of the Popular Committee Against the Wall in the Salfit District. He helped initiate the first permaculture and sustainable agricultural centre in Marda. This opened its doors in November 1993 and was designed to support farmers to maintain their self sufficiency despite the loss of much of their lands to Ariel and other settlements. It became a hub of development supported by organisations in Germany, Canada, Holland, Australia the US and UK. Over 200 varieties of native seeds were cultivated and preserved and trees were distributed. There was training in composting and in the use of organic pesticides, in computing and English language - but on November 8, 2000, at 5 pm, Israeli soldiers invaded and wrecked the centre, saying it was a security hazard as it was too close to the Trans Smaria Hiqhway. We saw its wrecked ruins.

The settlement on the hill below is across the valley south from Ariel. Half of this hillside, the part above the visible road, is seized by this settlement . The seized terraces of Palestinian olive trees are clearly visible. The road is there to service its 'apartheid' fence. The farmers here are regularly stoned by the Israeli settlers, shot at and have guard dogs set on them. We picked here with 'Rabbis for Human Rights' - with a Rabbi and twenty rabinical students who are opposed to what Israel is doing in the West Bank - one real sign of hope.

However the kids in Ariel are apparently bored and sometimes not at all happy about Ariel. This graffiti is in very public places in Ariel. A newspaper report stated there was no shortage of enthusiasm among the adults but the children seemed less keen on Ariel than their Mayor. "'Boring' was the opinion of most of the teenagers I spoke to, 'no nightlife'"

With the drying up of new settlers from within Israel and from Russia, Ariel city officials became very eager to persuade US and UK 'olim ' to make their homes in Ariel. In 2007, the Israeli government funded this effort, and they appointed Avi Zimmerman, an English speaker, as director of this project. Their goal is to attract 500 religious Zionist families from the UK or USA into the city and to work with them 'in building a new, thriving religious community in one of the most Anglo-compatible locations in Israel.'

Christian fundamentalist churches in the USA have also adopted the Israeli settlements. The 'All Nations Convocation ' recently brought hundreds of Christian Zionists to Ariel to demonstrate their support. Also came the Valley Chrisitan Fellowship led by Pastor Leo Giovanetti of San Diego, CA. that had previously helped Ariel absorb immigrants from the former Soviet Unio. The photo below is of Pastor Leo and his wife Sandra leading their annual solidarity mission to Ariel. They 'toured the route of the security fence being constructed around Ariel and visited with the IDF (Israeli army) on Antenna Hill, where they prayed for the welfare and safety of the soldiers. The MVCF tour completed their visit to Ariel by planting grapevines in fulfillment of the prophecy of Jeremiah (31:5) and praying for G-ds blessings on Ariel.'

Pastor Leo and his wife planting a vine by an Ariel Security fence.

A joint British-USA group of Christian Zionists also recently visited Ariel, from the Fellowship Church in Casselberry Florida and from Britain, a combined Exobus/Christians For Israel group led by Phil Hunter. The latter warned against Annapolis. 'If the proposed Middle East “Peace Summit” in Annapolis comes to pass late November or early December, the State of Israel is in real danger. It seems that the Bush administration is still determined to establish a Palestinian State.' An Exobus spokesman said however that he didn't expect any significant increase in olim migrants from the UK. He acknowledged the treatment new olim receive at the Interior Ministry can be a deterrent for those seeking to make aliya. It seems it sometimes questions if all these migrants are really Jews!

Above Mayor Nachman's desk a plaque reads: 'TO MAYOR RON NACHMAN. For representing the people of Judaea, Samaria and Gaza. For reclaiming our Biblical roots in Eretz Israel. For courage and conviction and deep vision. Presented by Americans for a Safe Israel, April 1990. ' This support from Zionist Christians for Ariel also translates into real money as seen in this cheque presentation.

Evangelical Christians in fundamentalist circles are Nachman's best friends and his main pillar of strength in the United States. At every turn, he draws a parallel between the contents of the New Testament and the act of settling in the territories, as if they were made for each another. One Easter, he was the guest of a church in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and wrung accolades from thousands of believers. He aimed at proving to the congregation that the settlements are nurtured by divine command.

Homer and Ruby Owen are Zionist Christian immigrant to Ariel from Waco, Texas. They came in 2004 with the divinly inspired ambition to set up a miniture golf course - or to find Jacob's well. He said: 'If God was really in this thing of Ruby and I of going to Israel to put in a miniature golf course, He could at least give us Jacob's well.' Apperently the Biblical Jacob had a well that could be in Ariel.

'When we moved to Ariel, we felt the Lord leading us to build the mini golf on a different location'. And he makes a warm invitatio to all: ' We would love to meet you in Ariel and have a cup of coffee with you at our mini golf. We serve Texas Burgers and homemade ice cream along side of the mini golf course and you are always welcome.' He had also some words of advice about Palestinian clams. Their constant 'references to the 'occupatione.' are, he claimed, 'used to delegitimize, not only Israel's presence in the territories, but also to justify terrorism .' He added: 'Of course, we that embrace the God of Abraham believe that God made an everlasting covenant with the land and these people and we believe that Israel should never consider giving land for peace. The land is truly God's and He does not want it to be divided.'

Christian-Zionists are now pouring money into Israel as well as some settlers. But - they believe God only promised the land to the Jews temporarily in order to pave the way for the second coming of Christ. Homer added: 'We are really the people that God's bringing from the four corners of the earth to encourage the Jewish people especially in the so-called disputed territory God does not want you to give not one single inch away that you are to possess. And we are here to help you do that.' And ultimately to convert them to Christianity lest they be dammed. (Below - their slogan and golf course.)

Vicky Hearst is the granddaughter of the late press mogul William Randolph Hearst, whose life served as the inspiration for Orson Welles' film 'Citizen Kane'. She donated part of the huge inheritance from her father to open a rehabilitation workshop in Ariel named after him. She has also promised to donate money to build a tennis court. She is angry, said an Ariel official spokesperson, at the Palestinians for ' disobeying the divine command that deeded the land of Israel to the Jews.' She added: ''There is not a conflict between Jews and Arabs but a conflict between Islam and God. There will be no peace until the Messiah comes. I do not understand the forgiving attitude toward Yasser Arafat. For me he is a new edition of Adolf Hitler and he hates Christians just as much as he hates Jews.'

The 'Ariel University Center of Samaria' is said to be 'one of the fastest-growing academic institutions in the country (meaning Israel), with 8,500 students, 70% from the greater Tel Aviv area and central Israel and the remainder from northern and southern Israel. The Ariel official website states: 'As a demonstratively Zionist institution, the University Center has two key requirements: every student must study one course per semester on some aspect of Judaism, Jewish heritage or Land of Israel studies, and the Israeli flag must be displayed in every classroom, laboratory and auditorium on campus.' This is despite some 425 students being Arabs from Israel, according to a claim on its website. (We also saw what seemed to be Arab women among the students.)

  On December 4, 2005, the American Friends of the University Center of Judea and Samaria (AFCJS) paid tribute to Moshe Arens, Chairman of the University Center’s International Board of Governors and Israel's former Defense and Foreign Minister. The dinner's co-chairmen were Vidal Sassoon and Lou Lenart, who joined Mr. Arens during the course of the evening to talk about the events in 1948 that led each to leave their respective homes and come to Israel to fight for the country’s independence. Vidal Sassoon is much better known for his hair styling skills , but in 1948 he joined the Palmach in the fight to establish the Jewish state. During this dinner telegrams of congratulations were read out from President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

But some Israeli students have expressed great discomfort at going to such an overtly Zionist institution situated within the Paletinian Territories. When it was first named an 'Israeli Univeristy' many Israeli academics formally objected, but it is now offically “Ariel University Center of Samaria.”

The plans for university expansion in 2007 - and a protest about it the Ariel college being made into a university.

Ariel's Mayor is now a bit less ambitious. He tells people he is aiming for 60,000 residents - not 100,000, the target he set twenty years ago. Ariel is still only a quarter of this at 25,000.

But he is still campagnging about their 'security fence.' He now wants it to include a vastly greater area, effectively dividing the West Bank from east to west, just as the West Bank is also divided through Jerusalem and its associated settlements and military zones. He wants the Ariel wall or fence to include many more settlements, saying that 'Ariel is now the heart of the most populous bloc of settlements, which includes Kedumim, Karnei Shomron, Ma'ale Shomron, Bet Arye, Ofarim, Nofim, Yaqir, Immanuel, Peduel, Alei Zahav, Brukhin, Barkan, Kiryat Netafim, and Revava.' This bloc is approximately 47 square miles and includes about 37,000 settlers - still only a third of his original target ard spread far thinner across the land.

Fareed Taamallah lives in the West Bank village of Qira in the Salfit distict, next to Ariel. He points out that the district supports twice as many Palestinians. 'If the Ariel settlement bloc becomes part of Israel through the territorial exchanges proposed by Israel and supported by the US, it would be disastrous for the Salfit district's 70,000 residents. Ariel forms a physical barrier. We must travel around the entire settlement and through Israeli checkpoints to reach the town of Salfit, our district's urban centre. It typically took me 90 minutes to drive from my village to Salfit, even though it is only four miles away.'

On February 20, 2005, the Israeli government approved a route for the security barrier that included this Ariel bloc,"but this highly expensive fence has not yet been completed, in part because of opposition from the United States. In April 2006, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert stated the fence would include only two salients - one from Beit Aryeh to Ariel, and the other from Alfei Menashe to Kedumim. But in 2007 it seemed the Israeli government under pressure was changing its mind... and thinking instead of giving each of the Jewish settlements separate secuirty fences, rather than ring them all within a single major fence that also protected their access to Israel, - thus taking less land from the Palestinians.

The Mayor of Ariel has fiercely reacted against the government's reconsideration of the route of the fence. In 2007 he accused Defense Minister Amir Peretz of endangering tens of thousands of citizens for the sake of political spin prior to the Labor Party primaries. He said: 'Defense Minister Peretz, whose days in office are numbered, is carrying out a political spin and tries to attract voters.' According to a report from the Defense Ministry, it is indeed exploring the possibility of placing a hold, for the long term, on constructing a single separation fence around all the settlements between Elkana and Beit Aryeh.

In practice, claimed Nachman, nearly nothing has been done to build a fence in the area of the salients, and a 6-kilometer gap remains open, making the area difficult to secure - and he blames US pressure for this. So, in 2007, he wrote to U.S. President George W. Bush, hinting that if Bush dares to hurt the settlements, God could hurt him back. He wrote: ‘Your decision in this spirit will be a declaration of war against God's promise to the Jewish people.’ But Bush in 2008 has deeply disappointed the Zionist Christian of America - as whell as ~Nachman. He has instead spoken on his trip to Israwl of the 'occupation' and the need to return settlement land to the Palestinians, utter heresy to his supporters among Zionists.

The Outpost Jewish movement agrees however with Nachman and not with Bush. 'Sixty Minutes', a leading US televsion progaram, intervewed Mickey Vastrille, as a typical racist West Bank Jewish settler. He said he believed the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would be to expel the Palestinians to Arab countries. He also went beyoud Nachman possibly, by saying the Paletinians are less than human. ‘It's hurting me to think that all of us were named human beings. These are not even animals. Animals are killing for eating. Those are killing for the sake of killing. Nothing is... they're getting nothing. And they're stupid enough to know... not to know even, not to admit, that they're losing.’ There is a very active Religious Zionist youth movement in Ariel whose members meet twice a week/

But this alien fantasy land on a hill, is it really built well enough to survive unchanged in the Middle East?

From all I saw, I felt it's long term future was very dubious without major changes. I think it will not survive in its present form anywhere nearly as long as the crusader castles. In the short term, even the Americans are not now fully behind them - at least to the next US presidential election. The Palestinians are proposing that the Jews in Ariel become Palestinian citizens and continue to live in Ariel Is this also a fantasy? I would hope not - but achieving it clearly would be extremely difficult.

If ever the Israeli army decides Ariel is ultimately indefensible - if ever a Palestinian state comes about - then Ariel will probably suffer a mass exodus, leaving its mascot 'frog' perhaps to the Palestinians. But would the investment here be so easily deserted - or would ultimately this wealth draw both sides together to ensure a continued future for Ariel? As things stand this fantasy town is likely to last some more years.

END.

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