On a wind-blown hill in Palestinian territory, Elad Ziv, wearing sandals, a T-shirt and a Jewish skullcap, stands outside his home and speaks about the Old Testament’s Book of Joshua.
Across the dry, rocky valley that slopes behind him, Fuad Maadi says he just wants his land back.
Both men have become embroiled in a drama which has now taken on international importance because of concern over Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank, occupied by Israel since 1967.
An Israeli court has ruled that the wildcat Jewish settlement of Amona, where Ziv lives alongside around 40 other families in mainly caravan homes, is on Palestinian property and must be evacuated by December 25.
But Israeli nationalist politicians, settlement advocates and Amona residents have resisted the move, and the international community is watching closely over whether the court order will be obeyed.
There are concerns over how any evacuation will play out. In 2006, the demolition of nine permanent houses in the outpost led to clashes between settlers and Israeli forces. This time, there have been suggestions that the court order could be complied with — by simply moving the settlement nearby. That’s where Mr Maadi comes in.
Mr Maadi says part of the land being considered as a new location for the outpost belongs to his family and he has been unable to access it since the building of nearby Israeli settlements. Standing near his home in the Palestinian Christian village of Taybeh, he points to the spot across the valley and downhill from Amona where he says his family once grew olives, grapes and figs.
“It’s difficult to hear about that, that your land will just go,” said the 60-year-old shopowner, former mechanic and father of five who has a picture of the Virgin Mary on his living room wall.
Israeli settlers began to arrive on the hilltop they would call Amona around 20 years ago. The settlement takes its name from the Book of Joshua and is in the central West Bank, northeast of Ramallah, the Palestinian political capital. All Israeli settlements in the West Bank are seen as illegal under international law, but Israel differentiates between those it has approved and those it has not. Settlements such as Amona are called outposts — those that Israel has not approved. Outpost residents hope such authorisation will one day be provided, as has occurred in other cases. Amona, one of the largest outposts with between 200 and 300 people, has come to represent a list of issues at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The United States and European Union have grown increasingly frustrated by Israel’s settlement building and the retroactive legalisation of outposts.
