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secular town about four miles far-
ther into the West Bank from
Ariel, grew from 99 families to
150 from August 1993 to October
1994. •
Shoshi, a 22-year-old secretary
who wouldn't give her last name,
moved to Eli with her policeman
husband about three years ago.
They left a rented apartment in
Jerusalem for a two-bedroom cot-
tage with a garden, which they
bought for $33,000. They re-
turned to Jerusalem after a year
"because it was too dangerous
and too difficult living in such a
little town away from every-
thing," she said.
Their car had been stoned a
couple of times passing by the
Jelazoun refugee camp and the
Arab villages.
But last January, the couple
and their infant daughter gave
up their Jerusalem apartment
and moved back to their Eli
cottage.
"We had no choice, we could
never buy an apartment in
Jerusalem. It's far too expensive,"
she said. "And we just decided to
Compensation was
never offered and
the exodus never
came.
live with the situation. In town I
feel safe. If somebody attacks you
in Jerusalem, people will look at
you and not know what to do.
Here, if something ever hap-
pened, you could just shout and
somebody would come out with a
gun. Everybody's got guns here.
"And I love the life," Shoshi
continued. "It's rural, and the peo-
ple are so nice ... I know that if
the government ever gives up Eli
... I would leave, but I would be
sad."
Peace Now's Amiram Gold-
blum believes that except for the
Jerusalem-area settlements such
as Betar, Givat Ze'ev and Ma'aleh
Adumim, 'There's no use in pop-
ulation, except for natural growth
[from births], which is about 3.5
percent."
But Haifa University Profes-
sor Amon Sofer, a geographer
who has studied the demographic
changes in the territories and is
no ally of the YESHA Council or
of Peace Now, agrees with the
settlers' statistics. Some are dri-
ven by ideology, some by cheap
housing, some by the confidence
that at least in the more built-up
settlements, their future is safe,
he said.
"A lot of the newcomers moved
into houses that were started be-
fore the Oslo accord and are now
being completed," Professor Sofer
said. "And the settlers who might
want to leave can't because they
have no place to go — they can't
sell their homes and get enough
money to buy apartments in the
suburbs."
He estimated that about 70
percent of the settlers are moti-
vated mainly by pragmatic, eco-
nomic reasons; 30 percent mainly
by ideology. Haim Makovsky, ab-
sorption director of Amana, the
housing agency of the religious
settler movement Gush Emunim,
said newcomers to the territories
generally have both motivations.
Most are young couples, with a
large proportion of Russian and
Western immigrants.
"We get a lot of young couples
who are attracted by the fact that
they can get started [as home-
own.ers] with very little money,"
he said. "But if they don't have
the ideology, they won't even con-
sider coming here."
A number of settler officials
interviewed said they too had
anticipated a rash of "For Sale"
signs in the territories this
summer. In fact, the settlers were
first expected to run back across
the Green Line when the intifa-
da began seven years ago. But
the movement kept growing, and,
for reasons political, spiritual,
social and financial, it is still
growing. ❑
c J
Ten Families
Flee Chechnya
Jerusalem (JTA) — Ten Jewish
families have escaped the battle
zones of the breakaway Cauca-
sus republic of Chechnya, where
the threat of a Russian civil war
is looming, according to officials
with the Jewish Agency for Is-
rael.
The agency is providing hous-
ing and additional aid to the fam-
ilies, totaling 30 individuals, who
fled the troubled region for the
northern Caucasus cities of
N _ alchik and Pyatigorsk.
Some 40 Jewish families still
remain in Chechnya, according
to Baruch Gur, head of the Jew-
ish Agency's unit for Eastern Eu-
rope and the former Soviet
Union.
The agency is also helping
some 50 other Jewish refugees
who managed in recent weeks to
flee the area torn by fighting be-
tween Russian and separatist
Chechen forces.
Russian troops and tanks
stormed the republic last week,
and President Boris Yeltsin has
been threatening an all-out war
on Chechnya, which declared in-
dependence from Russia three
years ago.
Amid fears of a violent military
confrontation, Jewish leaders
here and abroad are worrying
about how to protect and evacu-
ate the few remaining Jews in the
highly volatile region.
C: