PERSPECTIVES ON MIDEAST PEACE : ‘We Will Pay the Price of Folly’ : A settler’s view: Our enemies on the West Bank can now assume that the Bosnian precedent of ethnic cleansing can be repeated with impunity.

My neighbors and I at times are overwhelmed by the attention and, at times, unreasonable deprecations directed at our existence and purpose. As “settlers,” it is intimated we do not belong. As an “obstacle to peace,” the hint is that we are to be removed.

This current Israel government, in misguided zealousness, has been drying us out. In a quirk of diplomatic topsy-turvy, our communities effectively have become islands of Camp David-style autonomy within an eventual Palestinian self-governing polity. Our trust is to be placed in the hands of a Palestinian militia after our army re-deploys.

Shiloh is all of 180 households; almost 900 persons, half of whom are under 18. In the six years of the Arab intifada, we’ve doubled our population with new families being absorbed as well as a high birth rate. Last week, four families applied for acceptance. The surrounding Samarian hills are not some far-flung foreign lands. Nor are they what Algeria was for France, as is suggested. We are motivated, in large part, by the message that was charged to the Jewish people 3,000 years ago by Joshua: “How long be you slack to go to possess the land?”

For us, it is the most natural of all rights that Jews live, make our fortunes and pursue happiness in the land of their forefathers. We have an educational system from infant nurseries through to 8th grade as well as a Talmudic academy that combines military service in a special five-year program. There is minor industry down the hill and 40% work in or around Shiloh. We are one of the 144 communities of all types--villages, kibbutzim, towns and cities--spread throughout Judea, Samaria and Gaza with a total population of 135,000.

The slogan “territories for peace” makes little sense to us, knowing that before the 1967 war, Israel possessed no territories. How then could the “return” of territories achieve peace? Will the refugees be content without the homes they lost when they initiated the 1948 war?

Moreover, why are the Jews to be treated differently from any other non-Arab, non-Muslim minority anywhere in the Middle East where populist fundamentalism is the trend?

Shiloh was re-established in January, 1978; former President Jimmy Carter specifically demanded that it be dismantled. The original eight families have grown since that time. Nectarines are picked where the slopes were once barren. We are high on three rock-filled hills where no Arab lived or extensively tilled the soil.

Our children walk among the ruins at Tel Shiloh, where young Samuel the prophet spent his time in the Tabernacle. This Rosh Hashanah holiday, we’ll visit the Seilun spring, whose name preserves that of Shiloh. Our junior and high school children daily ride the roads for distances of between 11 and 28 miles to attend classes. Their buses have been stoned and at times have been targets of Molotov cocktails aimed at them by their Arab peers. My neighbor, Rachela Druck, was murdered on the eve of the 1991 Madrid conference.

We’ve always viewed ourselves not as obstacles but as the bridge to peace. Peace, we know, real peace, exists between people and not states. Our government, frightened by a specter of demographic demonology, of too many Arabs, has recognized the arch-terrorist PLO in the vain expectation that Arafat and his cohorts will replace their former goal of destroying Israel and help to eliminate the Hamas and Islamic Jihad. A new Middle East logic.

Our enthusiastic foreign minister, Shimon Peres, has placed us in an invidious position. We will pay the price of his folly. Without consulting our country’s professional security experts, he has led the government into an agreement that invites our enemies to assume that the Bosnian precedent of ethnic cleansing can be repeated with impunity. More than that, the military, economic and water-supply dangers to a pre-1967 Israel are quite obvious. Israel’s citizens are awakening to the intolerable situation they will soon face.

As we move into a different dimension of Middle East reality, we are concerned by both the content and the conduct of these negotiations. Peace will not be served by declarations of principles.

Our determination to remain where we are, in the historic homeland of the Jewish people, faces its greatest challenge. We can but do all that is legitimately, humanly possible to offset our government’s direction for our own future and that of the sovereign Jewish presence in the Land of Israel.