EXTREMISTS

Hard-Line Pioneers

The view from a West Bank hilltop.

Dina Kraft

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Havat Gilad, West Bank

T

he water is out again:' Batsie Zar
shouts to her husband, Itai, from
the kitchen.
He quickly gets on his cell phone, trying
to get one of the other young men in this
isolated hilltop — one of about 100 illegal
settlement outposts across the West Bank
— to turn it back on.
If it's not the water, it's the creaky gener-
ator for electricity that fails, Itai Zar cheer-
fully complains as a pitched wind whistles
against the window panes of his compact
home in Havat Gilad. In the winter, a fire
crackles in the wood stove Zar welded
together to cook meals for the family.
On a hardscrabble patch of land on the
edge of a steep cliff, Zar leads a band of

radical, anti-state Jewish settlers known in
Israel as the hilltop youth.
Several dozen have come to Havat Gilad
— Hebrew for Gilad Farm — to study at
the small yeshiva, to farm and take the
struggle of their parents.to settle the Land
of Israel to another level. Critics, including
some voices within the mainstream settler
movement, say they pose a violent and
dangerous threat to the future of Israeli
democracy.
"Our youth understands that the state
only understands force Zar said, citing the
gains Bedouin Arabs were able to make by
clashing with the Israeli army over evacu-
ations from unauthorized villages in the
Negev. The clashes have hampered govern-
ment efforts to force out the Bedouin.
When a rumor spread late last month
that Israeli security forces were about
to evacuate Havat Gilad, Zar's comrades
blocked nearby roads, threw stones at

Israeli soldiers separate Jewish settlers and Palestinians during a dispute in May at
Havat Gilad.

passing Palestinian cars and reportedly
set fire to nearby fields and olive groves
owned by Palestinians. They ended up
battling a blaze that crept up from the hills
below their outpost toward the mobile
homes of Havat Gilad — they said it was
set by local Palestinians.
Zar walks through the outpost, past

BerKman+sHaPiro

orrHoDonTics

Specialists in Orthodontics for Children and Adults

Where Dentists Send Their Families

Is your sports mouth
Is it time for

chicken coops, grazing horses and young
men driving a tractor through a wheat
field. He points out the new houses built
in the six years since he and his wife first
came, setting up a home in a shipping
container.

Hard-Line on page A20

• Evening and Saturday
appointments available

• Complimentary orthodontic
evaluations

• Featuring Invisalign, clear
braces, and iBraces lingual
treatment

fitting properly?
one?

FM CUSTOM-FIT SP

at the

This event is open to
EVERY NE and is

OUTIIGUARDS

Astautkpaarel Eittravagenreg

NE DAY NLY

so call T DAY with
questions or to
reserve your spot!

248.360.7878

* Thursday, July so, Leo +*

(By appointment)

At the office of

Berkman + Shapiro rthodontics

• 8898 Commerce Rd., Suite 5a • Commerce Township, MI 48382 •

fla DIPLOMATES
AMERICAN BOARD
OF ORTHODONTICS

utstanding rtho.com

Mark E. Berkman, DDS, MS • Lainie M. Shapiro, DDS, MS

Members American Association

of Orthodontists

1520740

July 2 • 2009

A19

