• by IPS Correspondents (dolev, west bank)
• Saturday, December 24, 1994
• Inter Press Service

DOLEV, West Bank, Dic 24 (IPS) - The view from the 90 little houses lining the paved streets of this Israeli settlement is gorgeous, with the Mediterranean Sea shimmering beyond the horizon, throwing hues of red and orange across the turquoise waters at sunset.

Cars park in the driveways and children play in the road, secure in the knowledge that the bubble of reality they have created on this once-empty West Bank hilltop is protected by an armed Israeli soldier at the steel entrance gate.

Miki Mendelson moved to Dolev 12 years ago with her husband, Yair, because, she says, they wanted a "calm quiet life". They had three children and watched the settlement grow from 40 families to the current ninety.

She says they lived in peaceful co-existence with the 13 Palestinian villages sprinkled in the valleys around the settlement.

"We moved here because it is a warm community of both religious and non-religious Jews," said Mendelson. "The children grow up close to nature and there is a sense of belonging."

Four years later, the Intifada -- the Palestinian uprising against Israeli rule -- exploded in the streets and her secluded paradise turned dangerous.

Three years ago, her husband, then 31, was shot dead while driving home one night by Palestinians belonging to George Habbash's Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

Mendelson did not move inside the 'green line', Israeli's internationally recognised borders then. And she flatly refuses to now. "When you feel something is yours, you don't give up so fast," she said.

But Mendelson's portrayal of the settlements is not how Palestinians view them. To the Arabs, the 125 settlements planted on the West Bank are intrusions onto Palestinian land made possible by force, and their existence makes an end to Israeli military occupation of the West Bank difficult, if not impossible.

Palestinians in the villages below Dolev see it as an unwelcome fortress. To get from Dolev to Jerusalem -- about a 40 minute drive -- settlers must drive through two villages and along side the major Palestinian town of Ramallah.

© Inter Press Service (2014) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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