‘People Have Had It’ With Peace Process

As Israeli and Palestinian leaders talk peace this weekend at a secluded Maryland retreat, the families of this isolated Jewish settlement in the Hebron hills are worrying about war.

The reason, say Perry and Ayelet Attias and many of their neighbors in this tiny community, is that if Israel agrees to give another chunk of the West Bank to the Palestinians, the ceded territory could well include areas around Beit Haggai and a handful of other Israeli settlements.

And that will lead, inevitably, to conflict with the Palestinians, the settlers believe.

“It would not be a question of if there would be a war between us and the Palestinians, but when and under what conditions,” said Perry Attias, a 13-year resident here and father of seven.

With its tidy houses and small gardens just steps away from the Palestinian-ruled city of Hebron, Beit Haggai has a clear stake in the discussions underway near Washington between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, and hosted by top U.S. officials--who consider settlements such as this one an obstacle to the peace process.

The summit is intended to break a nearly 19-month impasse in Middle East peacemaking.

Officials for all sides say they hope that it will produce a long-delayed deal in which Israel will pull its troops from an additional 13% of the West Bank in exchange for specific Palestinian steps to rein in Islamic militants. If all goes well, they say, it could also lead to a renewal of much thornier talks on a final Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.

While polls have shown that a majority of Israelis support the idea of land for peace, here at Beit Haggai, a religious community of about 500 where men wear embroidered skullcaps and women cover their hair with hats or scarves, the fervent prayer is that the Maryland negotiations end in failure.

“We don’t want to panic,” said Lindsey Hababou, 37, an Irish-born teacher who has lived here for 10 years. “But if there is an agreement, we know that our lives here will change dramatically. We will feel very threatened.”

The subject of a troop pullback is so sensitive that Netanyahu reportedly has never shown his entire Cabinet the various maps under consideration. Still, unless the Israeli leader chooses to evacuate some West Bank military bases, the land around Beit Haggai--and perhaps a dozen other isolated settlements--is widely expected to be included in any deal.

It would become part of what’s known here as “Area B,” territory in transition to Palestinian rule.

For the near future, Israel would maintain authority over security matters. When and if a final agreement is signed, however, Beit Haggai and other affected settlements would become Israeli enclaves in a Palestinian state, an idea that is horrifying to the settlers for religious and ideological reasons.

To Attias, Hababou and others here, the West Bank is part of a sacred trust. They say it is not theirs--or Israel’s--to give away.

“We believe this land, and all of the Holy Land, was given to the Jews by God,” Mindy Rabinowitz, 33, said as her five children played around her one recent evening. “It’s ours to use and develop, but it’s Jewish land; we can’t just give it away.”

They also believe that they have a holy responsibility to expand the settlement, to claim more of the land for the Jewish people. To that end, Beit Haggai has no fence or wall around it. Its residents also believe in large families; a baby is born every month or two.

Beit Haggai was founded in 1984 by a handful of Jewish seminary students and their families. They set up mobile homes on twin hilltops just south of Hebron and named their community in honor of three friends who were killed by Palestinians in a 1980 attack on a Jewish settlement in the divided city.

In the years since, the temporary homes have been replaced by permanent ones, and the olive and fig seedlings planted that first spring have grown into trees. And as the settlement has expanded, its presence has helped ensure that Hebron grows no further, at least to the south.

Otherwise, the aim of Beit Haggai has been that of most of the other 140 settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip: to make it difficult, if not impossible, for future Israeli governments to withdraw from the territories captured from Arab nations in the 1967 Middle East War.

Each year, the number of Jewish settlers has risen, making the communities an ever more formidable barrier to the idea of swapping the land for peace.

According to the Israeli Interior Ministry, 161,000 Israelis now live in the occupied territories, with 155,000 of those in the West Bank, which most settlers refer to by its biblical name of Judea and Samaria.

The settlers also boast some powerful political support from the right-wing National Religious Party, a member of Netanyahu’s governing coalition, and from Ariel Sharon, the former general who was just named to the powerful post of foreign minister.

Leaders of the National Religious Party had initially threatened to topple the government if Netanyahu agreed to any further withdrawal but have softened their tone in recent days, urging only that he ensure that the Palestinians meet all commitments in conjunction with an agreement.

As a key minister in previous governments, Sharon was responsible for expanding the settlements, choosing sites for new communities on strategic hills throughout the West Bank. However, it was also Sharon who helped former Prime Minister Menachem Begin make the politically difficult decision to evacuate and destroy Jewish settlements in the Sinai after Israel and Egypt made peace.

The settlers say they are not sure they can trust either Netanyahu or Sharon to safeguard their interests, given the pressure they expect will be brought to bear on the Israelis in Maryland.

In Beit Haggai, residents say they will be watching the news throughout the weekend, nervously awaiting the results.

“We just need Netanyahu and the others to be strong for us,” said Perry Attias, who works in Tel Aviv as the manager of a quarry company. “They have to remember that we are here as messengers of all of the governments of Israel. We’ve built houses here, we’ve buried friends here, and our children were born here.

“These are things one doesn’t erase in a day.”