Thursday, May 30, 2002

Israelis Bury 6 Terror Victims as Angry Cabinet Meets
The settlement at Kohav Yakov looks like a cross between a California suburb overflowing with magenta bougainvillea, a military base with fences and guardhouses, and a construction site, with a big synagogue and whole new neighborhoods going up. It sits on a hilltop overlooking Ramallah, the Palestinian center, which is now cut off by Israeli troops, and the Kalandia checkpoint, which was almost impassible today because of warnings of another potential suicide bomber.

Every four years since its establishment, the settlement has doubled itself," its spokesman, Yaakov Pikel, said proudly.

"The settlement has an idealistic future in order to stop the expansion of Ramallah and El Bireh toward Jerusalem," he added, referring to the Arab towns down the slope. "The people come here, buy houses. Twenty years from now, there will be 5,000 families."

The men in the crowd carried pistols stuffed in their belts and rifles slung over their shoulders, and many of the eulogies dwelt on vengence.

The meeting of Mr. Sharon's Security Council today focused much attention on the plans to build a huge security fence along what Israelis call the seam between them and the Palestinians. The Israeli public, desperate for any solution, seems hugely in favor of such a scheme.

But it presents political problems for Mr. Sharon because it would leave the settlers isolated inside. The defense minister, Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, who in Israel's chaotic coalition government is also the head of the opposition Labor Party and a principal rival to Mr. Sharon, stands to make political gains by pushing for the wall.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/30/international/middleeast/30MIDE.html

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