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Israeli election: liberal atheist settlers bring price boom to Ariel
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/middle-east/israeli-election-liberal-atheist-settlers-bring-price-boom-to-ariel-1.2133922Built on a rocky elevation 17km (10.5 miles) east of the Green Line that divides Israel from the occupied West Bank, Ariel was founded in 1978, when 40 families erected tents on a hilltop where Palestinian farmers grazed their flocks. Today, it’s the fourth-largest Israeli settlement in the West Bank, with a population of almost 20,000 and a direct motorway to Tel Aviv, less than 40km to the west. Accessed via a security checkpoint, the city has a university with 15,000 students, two industrial parks and its own hotel. It overlooks the Palestinian town of Salfit and 18 Palestinian villages.
Ariel has retained its self-image as a predominantly secular commuter town. Fewer than 15 per cent of its families describe themselves as religious, according to the mayor’s office, and 40 per cent of the population are immigrants, both secular and observant, from the former Soviet Union. “Ariel is not a religious place with religious people,” says Elazar, who plans to vote for the environmental party Green Leaf next week. “Most of the people are like me.”
...
“No matter what happens, whether it’s the Likud or Labor, because we have a consensus status this city will not be in harm’s way,” says Eli Shaviro, the mayor. That sense of certainty that Ariel is too big to give up, coupled with the years of relative calm since the Second Intifada,estate agents say, may explain why people are willing to pay so much for houses.
...
Paltiel Gold hopes that Israel can keep Ariel, but if it doesn’t he too would be prepared to leave. “I’m not connected to the land like the religious people, and if there’s any chance of real peace, I’m not going to make any trouble about moving.”
Ariel has retained its self-image as a predominantly secular commuter town. Fewer than 15 per cent of its families describe themselves as religious, according to the mayor’s office, and 40 per cent of the population are immigrants, both secular and observant, from the former Soviet Union. “Ariel is not a religious place with religious people,” says Elazar, who plans to vote for the environmental party Green Leaf next week. “Most of the people are like me.”
...
“No matter what happens, whether it’s the Likud or Labor, because we have a consensus status this city will not be in harm’s way,” says Eli Shaviro, the mayor. That sense of certainty that Ariel is too big to give up, coupled with the years of relative calm since the Second Intifada,estate agents say, may explain why people are willing to pay so much for houses.
...
Paltiel Gold hopes that Israel can keep Ariel, but if it doesn’t he too would be prepared to leave. “I’m not connected to the land like the religious people, and if there’s any chance of real peace, I’m not going to make any trouble about moving.”
Perhaps getting religion out of the equation could finally lead to a lasting peace in the Middle East?
7 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
So I'll do everyone a favor, and stick to my day job. But thanks anyway! 
PS- I'll concede that even though 99% of the issue is about land apportionment, there are occasional flare-ups surrounding holy sites. I considered stating that in my first reply, but worried that it would distract from the real issue.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/20/israel-palestine-conflict-religious-war
Although I'm sure he hasn't studied it as much as you have.
This is what a religious war looks like, and we should stop kidding ourselves that this is not what has been happening in the Middle East. In various degrees it’s been going on for a century. Yes, it is also a conflict over a piece of land between two nations, and not all Israelis and Palestinians – hopefully still a minority in both societies – want to see this as a struggle between Muslims and Jews, but there are enough of them who do.
It may have been easier to portray the earlier decades of the Palestinian conflict as a territorial dispute between Zionism and Arab nationalism. The fact that the founders of political Zionism were resolutely secular – most rabbis at the time remaining deeply suspicious of a movement seeking to pre-empt the Messiah – contributed to this view of the conflict. But religion was always a significant motivating force on both sides.
It may have been easier to portray the earlier decades of the Palestinian conflict as a territorial dispute between Zionism and Arab nationalism. The fact that the founders of political Zionism were resolutely secular – most rabbis at the time remaining deeply suspicious of a movement seeking to pre-empt the Messiah – contributed to this view of the conflict. But religion was always a significant motivating force on both sides.
Although I'm sure he hasn't studied it as much as you have.
