Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Syrian President Bashar Assad (AP)
On a hilltop far enough from the existing Israeli settlement of Givat Zeev that one needs directions to get here stands the framework of a settlement meant to house up to 750 families. Eli Yishai stood on an unfinished balcony of one of the new development’s shell homes. He’s a key coalition partner of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and the leader of the religious party Shas, which is feted by some and decried by others for having broken Israel’s "settlement freeze." …
A new spate of West Bank settlement construction not only complicates efforts to resume Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking, but points to a palpable rightward shift in Shas, a party that used to be considered moderate and amenable to the land-for-peace formula on which any solution to the conflict is based. …
Shas’s aging spiritual leader, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, once made a ruling that territorial concessions, were they to save lives and lead to true peace between Arabs and Jews, were acceptable under religious law. Today, however, the young generation of Shas seems to be less concerned with the ideal backdrop for peacemaking and more driven by coalition politics and the demands of their constituents, who will benefit from new homes at relatively inexpensive prices. The neighborhood to be constructed here will be designated for the ultra-Orthodox, who constitute the fastest-growing portion of the West Bank settler population. Access the full article>>