New Generation Digs In at Jewish Outpost

Shimon Riklin looked out across the barren hills surrounding this remote Jewish outpost and grinned at the sight of dozens of young people streaming toward him, trudging up dusty paths to the rise on which he stood.

Dressed in the skullcaps and modest clothing of religious Jews, they gathered here recently to dance, dedicate a Torah scroll and show support for this tiny West Bank settlement, one of 12 illegal outposts recently ordered dismantled by the Israeli government.

And they came in answer to a call from Riklin and other leaders of a new hard-line group of young settlers that already has blocked two evacuations and vows to resist further efforts to close outposts on the West Bank--in defiance of mainstream settler leaders who agreed to the removal.

“Our older generation is a little tired now,” Riklin said, gazing at the crowd drawn by his militant message. “We want to revive the spirit of this nation, to let people remember why they came to live in the Jewish state.”

Leaders of the new organization, which includes the sons and daughters of veteran settlers and is known as Dor Hahemshech, or Next Generation, insist that the group will not resort to violence in its struggle to save the illegal communities.

But analysts and mainstream settler leaders say the emergence of the movement could point to trouble in the coming months as the government of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak attempts to reach a final peace agreement with the Palestinians, a deal under which at least a handful of older, well-established settlements would probably be abandoned. Those negotiations are to begin at the highest level today in Oslo, where Barak will be joined by President Clinton and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat for a two-day summit.

Even Riklin worries that he and other leaders of Next Generation may not be able to control some of its most radical members, including those living at this outpost south of Hebron. The residents have declared that they will try “by all means” to thwart their evacuation, which could come as early as this week.

“This is our holy land, and we will stay here no matter what,” one resident told the cheering crowd at the Oct. 20 rally. “God gave this land to our forefathers, and they will have to drag us forcibly out of here.”

What to do with the Jewish enclaves in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, where 170,000 settlers now live, is one of the most explosive issues in the Middle East peace process. And it looms ever larger as the sides embark on the final, most difficult phase in their long-running peace talks. The Palestinians, who hope to declare an independent state at the negotiations’ end, regard all settlements--not just the new outposts--as illegal and demand that all be evacuated.

Most of the international community also considers the settlements illegal; the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits an occupying state from transferring population to the captured territory.

Israel seized the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 Six-Day War. Israeli officials defend the settlement policy by claiming, in part, that the Fourth Geneva Convention does not apply to the West Bank because Jordan’s claim was tenuous. Israel also argues that the settlements are necessary for the state’s security.

The seeds of the current struggle, which pits the youthful, mostly religious hard-liners against both the government and an increasingly pragmatic older generation of settlers, were sown in the weeks following last year’s Wye Plantation accord, in which Israel agreed to transfer 13% more West Bank land to the Palestinians.

Small groups of settlers, mostly young people, began to grab strategic hilltops near existing Jewish settlements. Eventually, 42 outposts were established, with many of them consisting only of a couple trailers, a generator and a few residents.

The aim, many said, was to establish “facts on the ground” that would allow Israel to hang on to the hills after the Wye accord was carried out and even if a comprehensive peace accord ultimately was reached.

But the roots of the new movement go deeper, planted firmly in the soil of the rocky West Bank.

Next Generation’s members were born and grew up on the settlements, steeped in the ideology that first sent their parents to the territory three decades ago to claim its biblical lands for Israel. While some of the first generation have now moderated, accepting the idea that concessions may be necessary for peace, many younger settlers rule out any political compromise with the Palestinians that involves giving up territory.

“It’s our land, but it’s not ours to give away,” said Hillel Merzbeck, 17, a Jerusalem seminary student who wore a brightly colored skullcap and purple T-shirt with jeans at the recent rally. “We have to keep it for the next generation.”

Despite those differences, the two movements are closely linked.

Many of the new group’s leaders are descendants of prominent members of the older settler movement. Among them are children of Rabbi Moshe Levinger, the founder of the Jewish enclave in Hebron; of Yisrael Harel, the founder and first leader of the umbrella council of the settler movement; and of Elyakim Haetzni, an outspoken hard-line settler from Kiryat Arba.

Riklin, a man with an intense manner and a skullcap often slightly askew, is a 36-year-old archeologist who is one of the young movement’s founders and its primary spokesman. His parents are not settlers, but he is married to Harel’s daughter and has lived in a settlement for more than 10 years.

He said the aims of the new movement, which was formed less than two months ago, are not entirely defined. But they go well beyond the West Bank and its outposts.

“We want to build a society based on Jewish traditions and Jewish values in all of Israel,” Riklin said. “We want to stop the destruction of the peace process, where the only question is how much land is Israel going to evacuate. We want to change the minds of the Israelis who agreed to accept the formula of land for peace.”

For now, though, Next Generation’s focus is firmly on the settlement enclaves and how to stop the evacuations, he and others said. They will block the dismantling operation wherever possible; where they cannot, they will return later to claim the empty hilltops, they said.

Barak negotiated the recent agreement with the mainstream settler leadership, represented by the Council of Jewish Communities of Judea, Samaria and Gaza, known by its Hebrew acronym, Yesha. The government said the deal set a positive precedent, establishing the idea that settlers, through negotiation, would agree to give up land.

The settler council also hailed the deal as a victory because it left intact more than twice as many other outposts that have sprung up across the West Bank in the last year. But Next Generation and its militant young followers called it a sellout.

“Everybody hates Yesha now; they should not have given away even 1 meter of the land of Israel,” said Choni Karniel, 15, who lives in the Jewish enclave in Hebron and hitchhiked to the gathering here.

Nonetheless, it’s not clear yet how truly distinct the two movements are, or whether they are cooperating, at least in part, in what sometimes seems an orchestrated effort to ratchet up pressure on the government as final talks with the Palestinians begin.

Throughout Yesha’s recent attempts to remove two uninhabited outposts, settler leaders stayed in close cellular phone contact with Riklin and others heading the young settlers group. The evacuations failed after the roads to the hilltops were blocked by young people, in their teens and 20s, singing prayers and folk songs.

The elder generations often sound almost indulgent.

“We think they’re a wonderful success story,” said Yesha spokeswoman Yehudit Tayar. “We are really proud of them and of the fact that we have young people who are not going off to India or the United States after the army. They’re staying here and continuing the work we’re doing.”

But other veteran settlers insist that the council will carry out its agreement with the government, and say they hope the young people will allow the remaining evacuations to take place without force.

“We made an agreement with the prime minister, and we have to fulfill it,” said council director Benny Kashriel, who is the mayor of the large Maale Adumim settlement near Jerusalem. “Most of these young people will cooperate with us, but there are maybe 5% who are extreme and trying to provoke something.”