Israelis speak out about "settlements"

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Amid Controversy, Jewish Settlers Speak Out

By Chris Mitchell

CBN News Middle East Bureau Chief

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

EFRAT, Israel - President Barack Obama has called for a total freeze on all construction, including natural growth, in Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria, known as the West Bank.

Such a freeze would disallow residents to add a room onto their home or prevent their children from building a home of their own in the neighborhood.

The Jewish community of Efrat in the Gush Etzion area of southern Judea, Israel's biblical heartland, is such a community.

Efrat, which was established in 1980 and is home to some 10,000 residents, is located between Bethlehem and Hevron.

. . .

Radio host and activist Eve Harow says the Jews' attachment to this area began with Abraham and continues right up to the present day.

"The settlements are simply Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria," Harow said. "If Jews can't live in Judea, which is where the term comes from, then where can we live," she asked.

"Aside from the thousands of years attachment to this land and Jews having always lived here, a good century before Israel was declared an official state, Jews were coming here and building up institutions, paying taxes, planting trees and orchards, draining swamps and putting up all the institutions," Harow said.

"We were ready for a state before we had it, but way before the Holocaust ever happened," she said.

Click here for transcript and/or video presentation.

[mizzdy]

Way to go Netanyahu for standing strong against Obama and the rest of the world! I pray he continues to do so.