Otherwise Occupied

My cousin and his family live in Alon Shvut, a town in Gush Etzion, a settlement bloc 20 minutes south of Jerusalem. There is archeological evidence of Jewish communities here dating back 2,300 years, and was settled again by Jews in the ’20s, ’30s, and ’40s. The communities in the region were evacuated or killed in 1947 and ’48, and once Jordan took control of the area in the 1949 Armistice Agreements after the War of Independence, all buildings were razed. Following Israeli assumption of control after the Six-Day War in 1967, Jewish communities were reestablished here.

The legal status of these communities remains in question. I am technically on the other side of the Green Line, meaning I am in the West Bank (where to list my location on Facebook?), though in an area that will likely not be included in any peace agreements (the same for which cannot necessarily be said for the community of Tekoa down the road to the east). Israel claims that the land these towns were built on was public Jordanian land, though some Palestinians dispute this and claim that some it was privately owned. Past the edge of town is a small cluster of caravans (what the Israelis call trailers, after their British overlords) in an outpost whose legality and foundation is more tenuous. I don’t fully understand the issues surrounding the outpost, but I heard that the builder of the one actual house there has a restraining order against him that prevents him from living in the permanent building he built, but the wood house, the only other non-trailer home, is fine because wood houses are legally considered temporary buildings.

I bring this up because I went to the outpost today do drop someone off and saw essentially a trailer park that is seen by some as a human rights violation and others as manifest destiny. I have complicated feelings about “land for peace” and a pragmatic endgame to the conflict, but the thing that bothers me the most is the supposition the Jews living here in the Gush would have to leave and their homes possibly demolished should this land become part of a future Palestinian state. It is a given that anyone of any religion or ethnicity can be a citizen of any modern country. Israel is an increasingly melting pot society, and roughly 10% of the Knesset is Arab. Why, then, would these residents not be allowed to stay as Jewish residents of a future Palestine? Settlement expansion in light of International Law is purportedly a hairy topic, but I see this as a fairly straightforward point. Any voices to the contrary?

The caravan neighborhood of Givat HaHish.