The New York Times · New York, New York · 17 March 1999

CP-1999-018

How Jews Turn Houses Into Homes on West Bank

By DEBORAH SONTAG

Scan 712 × 1042 pixels

Transcribed from the clipping

ELI, West Bank, March 16 — From this entrenched Jewish settlement on a bluff above the Palestinian territories, the vista is dotted for miles around with what the Israelis call “facts on the ground.” Almost every hilltop bears a scattering of mobile homes, evidence of the continuing and willful expansion of the Jewish presence in the West Bank.

The hills are truly alive with the sound of hammers, buzz saws and bulldozers as Israelis — with the help of Palestinian laborers — dig into the land. They aim to sink their roots as deeply as possible in the hope that the acres they occupy now will never be turned over to the Palestinian Authority.

“When they built the hill, we climbed on up,” said Oria Levinstein, 17, whose family moved from Eli, which is almost suburban, into a tin shack on a barren hillside nearby. “We felt like pioneers. At first it was horrible — no water, no electricity. But now we have our trailers, and it’s gorgeous. Look at this view!

At night you see all the land of Israel. What, we should let the Arabs have it?” For months Palestinian leaders have criticized the growth of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, particularly in the rocky hills between the Palestinian cities of Ramallah and Nablus.

And in the last few days, American diplomats have turned up the pressure on Israel to contain the expansion, butting heads with the Israelis in a war of words played out through the media.

How this transcription was made

Read from the scan by a machine looking at the image of the page, not by optical character recognition and not by a person. The clipping carries no masthead or date line, so its date and newspaper rest on the record it arrived with, not on anything visible in the scan.

Context added by this archive

Date check: The running head across the top reads “THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL WEDNESDAY, MARC…” — the rest of the date is cropped off the right edge of the scan. March 17, 1999 was a Wednesday, and the story dateline reads “ELI, West Bank, March 16”, both consistent with the slide date.

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