Matthew Bell

Matthew Bell

Matthew Bell is a Jerusalem-based Middle East reporter. He has been with The World since 2001 and has filed stories from cities across the US and abroad.

  • |
  • ALL POSTS

West Bank Israelis Hoping to Woo Obama

March 19, 2013 ⋅ Post a comment
Houses in the Jewish settlement of Eli (left foreground), sit above Route 60 in the West Bank, which runs from Jerusalem to Nablus. (Photo: Matthew Bell)

Houses in the Jewish settlement of Eli (left foreground), sit above Route 60 in the West Bank, which runs from Jerusalem to Nablus. (Photo: Matthew Bell)

Barack Obama’s Middle East tour kicks off Wednesday and the White House says priority number one is for the president to speak directly to the Israeli public. One of the highlights of the trip will be on Thursday, when Obama’s makes a speech in Jerusalem to an audience of Israeli university students. The event has already generated some controversy though.

Students from Ariel University got on buses Tuesday morning to hold a protest outside the US Consulate in Jerusalem. They say they’re being excluded from President Obama’s big speech.

American officials invited students from other Israeli universities, so why not Ariel? The US Embassy says it doesn’t have a joint program there. But the young people here suspect the real reason has more to do with location.

About 14,000 students attend Ariel University, which sits deep inside the West Bank, on the edge of a large Jewish settlement. It took a long and noisy legal battle, but the institution was granted full status as an Israeli university last year.

Most students I spoke with on campus Tuesday morning told me that’s old news now. And they’re disappointed President Obama appears to be giving them the cold shoulder.

“I see Ariel as part of this country,” said Reut Menahem, a 26-year-old psychology student. She said Obama would be missing an opportunity if he doesn’t engage with students here.

Ariel University students demonstrated outside the US Consulate in Jerusalem on Tuesday. They say they were excluded from President Obama's upcoming speech this week. (Photo: provided by Shai Gill of Ariel University's student council)

Ariel University students demonstrated outside the US Consulate in Jerusalem on Tuesday. They say they were excluded from President Obama’s upcoming speech this week. (Photo provided by Shai Gill of Ariel University’s student council)

“Even though you don’t agree with some people, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t hear them,” she said. “It doesn’t mean, you know, answer some questions they have. Just hear what the other has to say. This is the main principle that I think we should all follow. And it will be a better place if we all know it. Just listen to what the other has to say and we cannot agree. We can agree to disagree.”

In that same spirit of engagement, activists from Israeli settlements say they would be keen for a visit from President Obama this week. Avi Zimmerman is with the Ariel Development Fund. After decades of a failed peace process, Zimmerman says it would make perfect sense for Barack Obama to engage Israelis living on the other side of the “Green Line” that divides Israel from the West Bank.

“You cannot solve any situation by talking about communities, either about the Israeli or the Palestinian communities. The only way to make peace is between neighbors,” Zimmerman said.

“Perhaps we don’t need anyone from the outside meddling in our business, but if we do, they need to come here. To have meetings elsewhere is simply irrelevant.”

If Obama did decide to tour the settlement of Ariel, Zimmerman says he would show him the industrial zone that employs several thousand Palestinians. He would talk about joint research projects at the university between Israelis and Palestinians. And he would introduce him to some of Ariel’s 20,000 residents. But what about long-standing US support for the two-state solution?

“It’s really easy to think about a Palestinian state when you don’t have to pay the price for it,” said Tamar Asraf. Asraf is spokeswoman for the Binyamin Regional Council of West Bank settlements. Around 60,000 Israeli settlers live in her region. She said any peace agreement that requires evacuating tens of thousands of Israeli settlers from their homes is no solution.

Around 15,000 students attend Ariel University, which is located in an Israeli settlement deep in the West Bank. (Photo: Matthew Bell)

Around 15,000 students attend Ariel University, which is located in an Israeli settlement deep in the West Bank. (Photo: Matthew Bell)

“I think that we have to be here because first of all, it’s our homeland. And second of all because I think the future of Israel will be under a huge question mark if we’re not going to be here. I think we cannot allow ourselves to have another enemy country in this area. We have enough enemies around us,” Asraf said.

Asraf helped produce a YouTube video to woo President Obama. It features down-home bluegrass music. And she said the president will already be visiting Ramallah – the de facto capital of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank – so, why doesn’t he also visit one of the settlements nearby?

But to get the setters’ view of things, Obama doesn’t really have to. And that’s because of the makeup of the new Israeli government. The new defense minister advocates expanding the settlements. The new housing minister lives in a settlement and belongs to a political party that opposes the creation of a Palestinian state. And then there’s the foreign minister-in-waiting, who also lives in a settlement, and says freezing settlement growth as a concession to the Palestinians is not an option.

Watch the Binyamin Regional Council video:

The Israeli Government Woos Obama:

Discussion

10 comments for “West Bank Israelis Hoping to Woo Obama”

  • 65noname

    After hearing this political ad for the illegal settlers, you have to ask (at least) two questions: if its true that you need to talk to the illegal settlers because they are part of the community, then why don’t you have to talk to Hamas, the elected government of occupied Palestine. (And please don’t say that they are “terrorists”; the israelis are terrorists and certainly the settlers do acts of terror on a daily basis). Second, if the illegal settlers have the right to be there because of some sort of claim that their ancestors were from there, then why don’t the exiled palestinians have the right to return to israel where many of them were actually born? And why is it o.k. for the israeli ocuppiers to constantly displace palestinians, both in the west bank and in israel?
    Just asking. But why didn’t you ask the guests those questions?

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Yisrael-Medad/805045034 Yisrael Medad

      To: 65noname • you write: “you have to ask (at least) two questions: if its true that you need to talk to the illegal settlers because they are part of the community, then why don’t you have to talk to Hamas, the elected government of occupied Palestine”. No, you don’t have to talk to a terrorist organization (yes, they are since they attack exclusively civilians) whose charter boasts horrendous anti-Semitic content. You can argue about the legality of Jewish residence in Judea and Samaria (but you’re wrong to think our presence “illegal”) but we are not terrorists.

      • 65noname

        Sure it’s illegal. You are welcome to adhere to the bible or whatever other religious superstitons that make you feel good. But the palestinians have a right to the land. As for terorrists, hamas may or may not be terrorists for attempting to get rid of the illegal occupiers. But the israeli government and the settlers are certainly also terrorists.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Yisrael-Medad/805045034 Yisrael Medad

      “Claim our ancestors were here” is a correct claim. Come to Shiloh, where the Tabernacle was, where Joshua divided up the tribal portions. We have the archaeological proof of over 1500 years of Jewish residency until foreigners came and destroyed our Jewish political sovereignty. And then, 500 years after the destruction of Jerusalem, along come the … Arabs – also foreign occupiers.

      • 65noname

        see below

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000604208180 LeaVerne Noble

    First of all that is the palenstein peoples land, when the cold war ended and russia tore down the wall isreal told all you jews to come back to jersaleum when you came back there was no where for you to live and isreal began to bulldoze trie homes and kill them and make a settlement for you jews to take these peoples land, the president has been trying to get you to do the right thing give those people their land back and you all make peace and live side by side each other and their be a jewish state and a palenstein state.How would you like it, if someone cme into your home, threw out all your stuff, and said you could not live there anymore put you out in the desert and then they claimed where you were born at as their property, that was you jews did and you don’t want to give it back, the same thing soul happen to you, then you will know how it feels! Moses did not bring yu out of the wilderness for you to act like the same people who held you captive as slaves before Moses freed you! yet you are doing the ver same thing that was dodne to you even with the killing of jesus christ cause he told you about the wrong that you was doing! These palenstein people furthermore according to the q’ran and the five books of Moses and the Tora are your cousins yes you both are the seeds of abraham, remember Ishmel and Isaac, Ismael is arab muslims and Isaac is you jews, you just choose to kill and steal and you think that Yahway and Allay is going to be pleeased with the way you have treated and killed your brother, I don’t think so, you should sit down and talk peace and give there share of land and you take your share of land and stop this religious wars cause you are not the chosen people, we the african american is the one the the muslims worship walking around the karabah and the one that Billah went into heaven before you represents us the black bing the head, remember the bottom rail being the top and the top being the bottom that’s ya’ll keep it up and Allah will destroy all of you ya heard! get it together people and make peace and live together recognize each others culture and stop taking and killing then you killings wil end too ya heard! holla back, at a sista, holla back, holla

    • thankgodforpbsandnpr

      “… that was [what] you jews did…”

      One of my pet peeves is when people refer to Israelis as “Jews”. There are many Jews who are not Israeli and do not support what Israel is doing to the Palestinian people, so please refer to Israelis as “Israelis”, not as “Jews”.

  • thankgodforpbsandnpr

    I am an American and I believe President Obama should NOT go anywhere near Israeli settlements.

    Menahem: “Just hear what the other has to say.”

    We already know what you have to say. You sound like a broken record. You’re like the early American settlers who believed they had the God-given right to take land from Native Americans by any means necessary because they (the settlers) were better than the Native Americans. The settlers’ actions were immoral, and so are yours.

  • Ruth Lieberman, Gush Etzion

    Although you fall in the common trap of using terminology that skews the real story, this is a great piece that covers alot of the personalities involved. One thing: Road 60 goes from around Nablus in the north through Jerusalem to Hebron in the south and further. It is the historical Route of the Forefathers, or the ancient path used from Abraham’s times, through the Maccabees and Romans who all left their mark (see milestones..). You are invited to see it for yourself!

  • Weeble1150

    I wonder how people living in California, Nevada, Utah, and parts of Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona would react to the President of the People’s Republic of China demanding of the U.S. that it revert to its 1845 boundaries, that it cease building any homes in the affected area, and that it begin talks with Mexico to return land to Mexico which is presently “occupied” by the U.S?