By Jane Eisner
Published July 14, 2014, issue of July 25, 2014.

Jane Eisner’s special report, Across the Green Line, will run in two parts, starting today and continuing tomorrow.

Here’s how Ofra began as a Jewish community. Modern history puts the start date as April 1975. Ofra’s inhabitants will tell you that its real beginning goes back to the Book of Joshua, a lineage that makes them feel they have the right, and gives them the desire, to be there. That’s how it is in this part of the world. Time is dictated by ideology.

We do know that back in 1975, a group of Jewish activists wanted to establish a community at Baal Hazor, the highest mountain in the West Bank (which they call by the biblical name Samaria), where the fleeing Jordanian army had left a half-built military base. The activists quietly gathered supplies and moved in on April 20.

Meantime, one of them met with Shimon Peres, who was then the Israeli defense minister. And while accounts differ, it’s clear that Peres assented to the establishment of a temporary “work camp” with a limit of a couple of dozen men and women.
Within a month, the population grew with families and single people, who built a fence and toilets and cleaned the abandoned buildings. Within two years, apartments for more families were constructed, a cherry orchard had been planted and a synagogue was dedicated — built, actually, by the Religious Affairs Ministry.

If you go to Ofra now, you’ll find a gated community only 15 miles northeast from Jerusalem with — by latest count — 3,300 people, along with schools, markets, factories and an array of family homes that on a recent Thursday morning was as tranquil as any suburb.

Inside her home, Ruchie Avital gives me a welcome glass of cold water as she recalls how she came to Ofra 27 years ago and has raised five children within its cozy confines.

“It was very natural for us to come here, no different from the Galilee or the Negev,” she says in the clear tones of a professional translator, which is how she makes a living. “For us, living in Ofra is the same as living in Israel. It’s part of the biblical homeland.”

But Ofra is well beyond the Green Line that marks Israel’s internationally recognized border; well beyond the security barrier that the government erected seemingly to create its own de facto border; well beyond even Israel’s confusing official sanction, as many of its buildings are still considered “unauthorized” and Israel’s high court ruled that Ofra’s waste disposal plant is built on Palestinian land.

In fact, much of Ofra is built on land that was privately owned by Palestinians.

“Jewish activists wanted to establish a community at Baal Hazor, the highest mountain in the West Bank (which they call by the biblical name Samaria)…”

This sentence caught my eye. Obviously, the hint is that “Samaria” is an ideological term, whereas the “West Bank” is the accepted neutral term. Actually, this is not true at all. The “West Bank” was a term that the Jordanians gave to the territory with its annexation in 1950. The choice of the name was political: The Kingdom of Trans-Jordan became the Kingdom of Jordan on both the east and on the west banks of the Jordan River. But how was the area called by the world before its annexation by Jordan? Well, just read the UNGA decision 181 (the Partition Plan 1947) where it describes the territory of the proposed Arab state: “The boundary of the hill country of Samaria and Judea starts on the Jordan River at the Wadi Malih south-east of Beisan and runs due west….” Isn’t that interesting? Samaria is simply a neutral and legitimate geographical term in international discourse – even if it’s Biblical and even if it’s meant to be in the proposed Arab state.

The country was called Palestine for many centuries. If Jane Eisner had been reporting the events of 1948, would she have written that “the Jews have founded a state in Palestine (which they call by the Biblical name Israel)”? Probably not. It’s quite fine to use her Biblical name. Notice that she calls the mountain “Baal Hatzor”. She probably hasn’t even thought about the fact that “Baal Hatzor” is not how the Palestinians call the mountain. “Baal Hatzor” is its Biblical name which only the Jews use, and that’s also just fine.

So, what’s the problem here? Why are we told that “they” call the West Bank by its Biblical name (“Samaria”), but we are never told that “they” also call hundreds of other sites by Biblical names (“Israel”, “Petah-Tiqva”, “Eilat”, “Mt Hermon”, “Holon”, “Shefelah”, “Baal Hatzor”, etc)? The Forward singled out “Samaria”, believing that it is an ideological term – but it isn’t at all. “Samaria” is just as neutral as “Galilee” or as “Negev”. They all appear quite innocently on the maps of the British Mandate for Palestine, and in the UN Partition Plan. They’re just names that appear in the Bible, and the world (including Jews) is familiar with that ancient book. Ironically, it is the “West Bank” that is the ideological name. The insistence on saying “West Bank” is a political statement.

Read more: http://forward.com/articles/201866/what-kind-of-israel-do-settlers-want/?p=all#ixzz37v1NYwib