In the Land Of the Lonely

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But that number may slip if the instability in the Palestinian territories--fueled by disputes between the Hamas government and President Mahmoud Abbas--gets worse. Israelis thought that leaving Gaza would give them a breather from terrorists; instead it has accelerated a downpour of rockets into Israel from Palestinian militants in Gaza. For the most part, the Palestinians in the West Bank live like ghosts on the periphery of the Jewish settlements. The nearby Arab villages are usually walled off, and settler-only highways, guarded by army checkpoints and concrete walls, have turned Palestinian communities into islands. But in the gray zone of Israeli-Palestinian affairs, some Palestinians are grudgingly accepting of the settlements, because the settlers hire Palestinian workers. Modi'in Ilit, an ultra-Orthodox community of 35,000 along the Green Line, is growing so fast that 1,000 Palestinian construction workers are allowed in from nearby villages to build 10-story high-rise apartments. "Every week 40 babies are born here," says Mayor Yaakov Guterman, who predicts Modi'in Ilit will swell to 200,000 inhabitants in the next two decades, all on land purchased controversially inside the Palestinian territories. And nobody is stopping them.

Taking the painful step of leaving the West Bank will require Israelis to accept what the country's founding father, David Ben-Gurion, recognized in 1949: that the longer Jews hold onto land seized from the Arabs, the more likely they are to become a minority in their own homeland. (There are currently 5.7 million Jews living in Israel and the occupied territories, in contrast to 5.4 million Palestinians.) The problem is less one of ideology than of political will. Too many Israeli politicians, including Olmert, owe their rise to the support of the settler communities, which are among the most active and well-organized forces in Israeli politics. Back at Migron, Itai Harel turns up the collar of his blue plaid jacket against the wind and points out the asphalt road, the electricity lines leading up the hill, the water tank--all built by the Israeli government. Harel says five Cabinet ministers have visited his hilltop and all pledged support. "They're helping us through the back door, with a wink," he says.

Harel envisions that someday 500 religious families will inhabit Migron. He speaks with the confidence of both a true believer and a pragmatist, one who knows that settlements like his have outlasted many previous attempts to uproot them. At his wintry outpost, Harel is not worried about Olmert pulling back the settlers. "The Israeli public will go wherever a strong leader takes them, but for now, we have no strong leaders," he says. That's good news for Harel--but hardly a solid foundation on which to build peace in the Middle East.