Posted on 06/23/2002 6:31:23 PM PDT by Phil V.
A ground-breaking settlement
In the Gilboa hills, a new kind of ecologically-aware Jewish settlement is being set up within the Green Line.
On taking up the post of construction and housing minister last year, Natan Sharansky was surprised to learn that no new Jewish settlements were planned inside pre-1967 Israel before 2020. Sharansky decided to renew "this historic Zionist project" and proclaimed his intention to renew the ministry's village-building activities after a hiatus of more than a decade.
Two weeks ago, he announced plans to establish 12 new Jewish villages within the Green Line in the next few years, in the Negev, Galilee, Wadi Ara and the Gilboa hills.
Four are slated for the Galilee, and one in the Wadi Ara area to help redress the perceived demographic imbalance in the vicinity. In the northern Negev, four proposed villages are seen by Construction and Housing Ministry officials as a "safety belt" for Beersheba that will help prevent the ongoing commandeering of state-owned lands by Beduin. Three other villages are planned in the Arava and Ramon crater area, and possibly a fourth in the Ramat Hanegev district.
"I see these new settlements as a fair answer to terrorism and an important instrument in the struggle for national security," Sharansky says. "Three months ago, we inaugurated the first new village in the Negev in 12 years, the communal settlement Halukim, with the help of the Jewish Agency. We're helping to realize Ben-Gurion's vision of settling the desert."
The cornerstone of the first new settlement in the north of the country for almost two decades was laid yesterday at Har Yitzpor in the Gilboa hills. Sharansky attaches great importance to settling the strategically important Gilboa-Ta'anachim area in the Lower Galilee, located along the Green Line between Jenin (from where dozens of suicide bombers emerged this past year) and Afula.
"I hope that this will signify a new construction boom on the Gilboa - we intend to eventually bring 1,000 families to live on seven hilltops along the ridge," says the housing minister.
But the prospective residents of Har Yitzpor do not see themselves primarily as a human defensive shield. They are more excited about pioneering a different frontier: building what is slated to become Israel's first Ecovillage.
"We represent a different type of Zionist than the mainstream," says Eyal Barad, spokesman for the settlement group, which is due to begin moving onto the 300 dunam plot of pine forest in September. "We're a heterogeneous group of secular and religious, veterans and new immigrants, who share the vision of living an environmentally-friendly lifestyle, in peace with our neighbors. Our credo is to live in a sustainable way that doesn't harm the land. That doesn't mean that we don't want televisions or computers - on the contrary, several of us work in hi-tech. We want a different type of village, like dozens of modern, ecologically-conscious communities in Europe and North America."
"Many of us have lived abroad, and bring ideas that are still new to mainstream Israelis," continues the Canadian-born Barad, who sees a role for environmentally aware Diaspora Jews in supporting the project. "Most of us are in our 30s and early 40s with small children who we don't want to bring up in a crowded, polluted city. What unites us is the desire to live in harmony with nature."
OVER the coming years, Har Tzipor is planned to expand to 150 families and include an eco-tourism center offering environmental workshops, holistic treatments and children's activities.
"Israel is one of the world's most densely populated countries," notes Barad. "Pristine natural areas and resources are being squeezed by ever-expanding human construction. We hope to influence the authorities' mind-set, so that this model will be integrated into the planning of future communities in Israel to help us preserve our country - this is contemporary Zionism.
"It wasn't easy to persuade the authorities to accept our vision," admits Barad, "but ultimately we've been pleasantly surprised by officialdom's openness to new, radical ideas."
Architect Arie Rahamimoff, who oversaw development of the Gilboa master plan, is more cautiously optimistic.
"I think the official attitude is ambivalent," he says. "This process is new to everyone, and can be traumatic at times. It's a challenge, an opportunity to prove that it is possible to design a tailor-made community."
Rahamimoff, who designed a recently opened "green neighborhood" of energy efficient houses at Ben-Gurion University's Sde Boker campus, is encouraged by the Har Yitzpor vision. "The way that this group organizes itself is extremely unusual. This is the only settlement that I know of where the prospective residents are actively involved throughout the planning stage."
Barad asserts that "this will be the first time in Israel that a new settlement will be constructed from scratch along ecologically friendly lines. This will be an attempt to live within, rather than dominate nature, with no asphalt roads or concrete castings, and no construction on the hilltop. Waste water will be recycled for irrigation to help revitalize the soil, and as much as possible, we'll use alternative energy sources such as solar and wind. Construction will be from recycled, reusable or bioregional materials."
The plans include linking Har Tzipor with the other Gilboa settlements via an eight-km. promenade for walkers, joggers and cyclists, with lookout areas every one to two kms. offering majestic views of the historic Jordan and Jezreel valleys below.
The Gilboa's three existing settlements - the religious kibbutzim Meirav and Ma'aleh Gilboa, and the drug-rehabilitation center at Malkishua - have a total population of only 750, half of them under 18. A fifth Gilboa settlement is eventually planned at Har Avner.
"Malkishua is, unfortunately, in demand as it answers a growing social need," says Rahamimoff. "At present, 120 addicts live there in a supportive environment. We foresee expanding the facilities so that graduates can be permanently housed and employed there.
"The aim is to strengthen the existing settlements by developing what I call 'regions of quality' in the periphery," continues the architect. "We want to attract a quality population - people who want to live there not because they don't have a choice, rather because they do. In recent years, there's been a significant shift toward organic agriculture and advanced agricultural industry in the area. Together with the local council, the Electric Company is setting up a wind farm of 20 turbines for generating pollution-free electricity. We plan to construct a waste water purification installation to recycle water for irrigation. All these are signs of an evolving ecologically-aware culture in the area."
IT IS NO coincidence that yesterday's cornerstone-laying ceremony at Har Yitzpor took place on the final day of the World Zionist Congress.
"We're eager to get involved again in settlement," says Chaim Chesler, treasurer of the Jewish Agency and World Zionist Organization. "The Jewish Agency was involved in getting the government to decide on this settlement - we actively encouraged them to set it up. Even before the Jewish Agency was founded in 1929, Diaspora communities were helping to settle the land. These settlements defined and defended the borders of the state."
Two large Palestinian villages, Fakua and Jilaboon, with a combined population of 12,000, sit on the other side of the Green Line across from Har Tzipor.
"The strategic value of this area is high," notes Rahamimoff. "We also have to think about an organized border once things calm down, to allow continued commercial and social contact with our neighbors in the Palestinian Authority."
In the last decade, 225,000 new immigrants, including 16,000 from Ethiopia, have made their home in the north of the country. Chesler foresees the Galilee's Jewish population increasing by a further 500,000 in the next 10 years, alongside accelerated development in the Arab sector.
"We want to bring in new populations," explains Yael Shaltieli, mayor of Beit She'an Regional Council. "The area has a demographic problem: its population is shrinking and ageing. Our first aim is to strengthen the existing populace by expanding existing settlements, with new neighborhoods under construction in two kibbutzim [Sde Nahum and Meirav] and soon to start in three moshavim."
The council administers 23 rural settlements: 16 kibbutzim, six moshavim and Malkishua - a total population of only 11,000 spread over 240,000 dunams, bordered by Jordan to the east and the Palestinian Authority to the south.
Some 28 percent of the local workforce is employed in agriculture (the national average is 2.5 percent), and unemployment is negligible - only 7 percent in the local town, Beit She'an.
"Our problem is not employment, but variety of employment," says Shaltieli. "Our children are well-educated, so they cannot find suitable employment in the area. We're suffering a brain drain.
"The Gilboa is the last area in northern Israel that remains relatively undisturbed," adds Shaltieli. "We have wonderful potential tourist attractions such as the Gan Hashlosha (Sakhne) and Ganei Huga parks, and, of course, the Gilboa. Its environment is sensitive, and we're very happy that the Housing Ministry accepted our view of a string of small communities, rather than large towns that necessitate bulldozing the hills. It is important to maintain the view."
It apparently will be, at least as long as Sharansky sits in the housing minister's chair.
"There is a vision behind this settlement, beyond Zionism," he says. "Sixty families of modern pioneers are coming to build their lives at Har Tzipor, along the principles of Zionism and ecology."
Arguments over whether or not Palestine was or was not populated and what to call the indiginous inhabitants are fun, but enviro-wakos F*%K things up . . . B-I-G---T-I-M-E!
Do you suppose that the Bedouin will be considered in any of the over-all environmental impact studies?
But you are also seeing keenly into the future. Last summer my wife and I were involved in the Klamath Basin protests . . . you know . . . the one where the Indians and the enviro-wakos were teaming up with "endangered" suckerfish. The goal was to "restore the land". (heal the earth) tikun olam
I posted a thread a few months back from the JP and within that thread I received one of my most severe ass whippings yet WRT alleged anti-Semitism. I'm a big boy, Yehuda, but some of the most dangerous characters prowling about, pal, are (excuse me) BELIEVERS. . . . BELIEVERS in the notion that it is part of their Covenantal relationship with G_d to repair something that they BELIEVE is broken. You deal with them, Yehuda. I don't know how.
Their tools ate keen and cunning. If they choose to assert that the Bedouin are the solution then what is happening in Oregon with the suckerfish will be played out in Israel. Your call, pal.
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