The New York Times · 4 December 1991

CP-1991-056

Another West Bank Settlement Starts

By CLYDE HABERMAN

Scan 944 × 1272 pixels

Transcribed from the clipping

JERUSALEM, Dec. 3 — On the eve of the scheduled resumption of Middle East peace talks, the Israeli Government took steps today toward starting a new settlement on the site where snipers killed two Jews recently in the occupied West Bank.

Soldiers from the army’s Nahal unit moved into mobile homes that Israeli settlers had put overnight at Kefar Tappuah, 25 miles north of Jerusalem. Just before the start of the first peace conference in Madrid on Oct. 30, unidentified gunmen fired on a busload of settlers at an intersection near that town, killing two adults and wounding half a dozen children.

A small group of angry settlers quickly pitched tents, and they have since occupied the site, invoking what they call a Zionist imperative to establish new communities wherever Jewish blood is shed. By moving Nahal soldiers there, the Government is now suggesting that that will become a permanent civilian settlement.

That has been the normal pattern, and even though Defense Minister Moshe Arens said the purpose of the latest action was to “guarantee security in the area,” he acknowledged that a new full-time community was likely.

The Government move came two days after another ambush attack, in which a Jewish settler, Zvi Klein, was fatally shot while driving through the town of el-Bira, six miles north of Jerusalem. Israeli radio said that settlers might try to set up yet another community not far from where Mr. Klein was shot.

For his part, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, who is committed to building such communities in the face of Arab demands that they stop, declared today that “these murderous acts will not deter us from founding, expanding and establishing settlements.” “We will have the upper hand,” he told the state-run radio. “The Land of Israel is ours.”

Left-of-center opposition parties denounced the army move, and warned that it could undermine the peace process, which has already been unsettled by Israel’s refusal to show up in Washington Wednesday for the scheduled restart of negotiations with Palestinians and Arab countries.

But it was not clear how much of an effect the formal start of the new community, called Rachelim, would have, even though a settlement freeze is a Palestinian priority, one that the United States endorses. As the Madrid talks ended on Nov.

4, the Israeli Government inaugurated a new settlement for Soviet immigrants on the Golan Heights, territory that Israel had annexed but that Syria wants back. That action was swiftly condemned by Secretary of State James A. Baker 3d as not helpful to the peace talks.

But in this case, there is an emotional component in that the settlement marks the spot where civilians were gunned down. That might make a difference in how Washington and the Arabs react, some Israeli commentators said.

Cite this clipping

More from The New York Times

• The Maine Colony in PalestineThe New York Times · 12 November 1866
• Jewish Colonization in PalestineThe New York Times · 9 December 1883
• Jewish State in Palestine OpposedThe New York Times · 9 July 1897
• ZIONIST CONGRESS IN BASELThe New York Times · 31 August 1897
• ROME FEARS THE ZIONISTSThe New York Times · 12 September 1897
• PROGRESS OF ZIONISMThe New York Times · 16 December 1901
• 852 more from this paper in the full text →

More from the 1990s

• 2 killed in West Bank protestsThe Kansas City Star · 2 January 1991
• Two top men in PLO assassinatedTimes Record News · 17 January 1991
• Both Saddam Hussein, Israel blamed for PLO slayingsLa Crosse Tribune · 18 January 1991
• Palestinians Are Buoyed By the Attacks on Israel(newspaper unidentified) · 21 January 1991
• ‘Administrative detention’: Israelis skip due processThe Baltimore Sun · 6 February 1991
• Books About the Arab WorldSyracuse Herald Journal · 24 February 1991
• All 374 clippings from the 1990s →