Israeli Settlements and Palestinian Conflict

Southern Turkey.

That's the Persian Empire,

Syria, Iraq,

Jordan, of course,

Lebanon and Sinai

It's not a question of whether we should invade Gaza or Lebanon.

It's an obligation. It's all the land of Israel.

That's just how it is.

It's going to happen. There's no other choice.

The people of Israel have returned to their land,

and if other countries don't like

it, we'll fight them.

Whoever wants peace will have peace, and whoever wants war will get war

In 1993,

the Oslo Accords signed between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin

and Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat called for a gradual

Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and the future creation of a Palestinian

state

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you

Meanwhile,

they divided the West Bank into several zones.

Zone A

around the big Arab cities is under exclusive control of the

Palestinian Authority. Zone B is administered by the Palestinians,

but secured by Israel.

Zone C, which makes up 60% of the territory,

is occupied by Israel.

But 30 years later, Israel hasn't withdrawn.

Today, 500,000 settlers live in the West Bank,

and the most extreme among them keep taking over Palestinian land.

To do that, they take control of farmland.

At 32, Amishav sees himself as a pioneer.

At the end of July,

he came to harvest the wheat he sowed a year ago with his wife and five kids

You can do a bit more here, and Yosef Chaim,

come look over here. There are some nice wheat stalks here

But here, no combine harvester or tractor.

Everything's done the old-fashioned way,

just using sickles

Look, come see.

Look here.

See that?

You grab it like this

with your hand

Except this field doesn't belong to Amishav.

He believes his claim to the land comes not from law, but from

holy texts

This is part of the land of the people of

Israel,

and the basic principle for all these land ownership questions

is that they belong to the people of Israel.

Anyone who says otherwise, well, let them prove it

This ideology Amishav inherited from his father and

grandfather, settlers before him

It's part of my family and our people.

We're a people of farmers,

a productive people.

After 2,000 years in exile when we mostly did business,

well, now we're slowly coming back to the land,

to working the land.

The harvest is already over for this year.

I hope the sheep will eat what's left

Amishav lives in the heart of the West Bank,

right in the middle of Palestinian territories.

In this area, settlers have gradually taken control of

land and roads.

Some are now off-limits to Palestinians.

Army checkpoints control the entrances,

but seem to turn a blind eye to his illegal settlement

This land is entirely ours,

and what the Arabs want to do here is clear.

Just read the Fatah Charter or that of Hamas and the others.

What they want is to wipe out the Jews,

for the Jewish people not to be in Israel, but good will win.

The positive always overcomes the negative

Amishav is going to set up his house illegally at the end of this rocky path up

on

the hilltop

The conditions are tough, but we're happy.

All this is God's will

He's lived for about 10 years in this prefab overlooking the valley.

We call this an outpost,

an illegal settlement.

20,000 settlers live in illegal outposts like Amishav's across the West Bank

according to the American organization Israeli Policy Forum

We come here to build settlements.

We build, we plant, we work, and we're happy about it all.

It's our duty, our freedom

Amishav puts his religion above everything,

so in his outpost almost as a provocation,

he set up his synagogue right across from the Palestinian villages

This is our holy ark.

Here's the holiest thing, true freedom.

It's our right to be in Israel.

Inside it says, "The people of Israel were given the land of Israel."

That's our truth, and with that we move forward.

That's why we came here

His whole way of life and that of his family

is dictated by religion.

Come see Daddy.

Can you get another bottle of water?

In their makeshift home,

religious books and banners that, according to him, show Israel's true

borders.

This is the map of Israel, the full map, our map.

Like many extremist settlers,

Amishav claims an Israel that would stretch across much of the

Middle East.

That's southern Turkey.

That's the Persian Empire. Syria, Iraq,

Jordan, of course.

Lebanon and Sinai.

It's not a question of whether we should invade Gaza or Lebanon.

It's an obligation. It's all the land of Israel.

That's just how it is.

It's going to happen. There's no other choice.

The people of Israel have returned to their land,

and if other countries don't like

it, we'll fight them.

Whoever wants peace will have peace, and whoever wants war will get war.

By taking over the hills, the settlers are gradually pushing Palestinians into

enclaves.

And to drive them out, some don't hesitate to use violence.

Settler attacks have skyrocketed.

The UN has recorded an average of seven per day.

The shepherd village of Al-Mughayir is right in the middle of the West

Bank

in an area under Palestinian Authority control.

But Israeli settlements have sprung up all around,

and extremist settlers are getting dangerously close.

Their outposts multiplying.

The residents here live in constant fear because last

April they were attacked.

That day,

hundreds of settlers came down from their hills after a 14-year-old shepherd was

killed, killed a few days earlier by Palestinians

from another village.

They then burned about 100 cars, around 60 houses, and

killed sheep.

The Israeli army kept its distance.