Devout Israeli Jews moving to Arab-Jewish cities

In this photo taken on Thursday, Sept. 20, 2012, Israeli Jewish activist Aharon Attias poses for a photograph in front of new housing project for religious Jews in Israel's mixed Arab-Jewish town of Lod, central Israel. Religious Jews who are the bedrock of the settlement movement have marked Israel's mixed Arab-Jewish cities as the new front to "reclaim," pushing into Arab neighborhoods to cement the Jewish presence there. The migration of several thousand devout Jews to rundown areas of Jaffa, Lod, Ramle and Acco has had a divisive effect far outweighing their absolute numbers, with Jews celebrating _ and Arab activists eyeing with mistrust and resentment _ the construction of Jewish seminaries and housing developments marketed exclusively to Jews. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

http://news.yahoo.com/devout-israeli-jews-moving-arab-jewish-cities-063209716.html

ACRE, Israel (AP) — Orthodox Jewish Israelis, the driving force of the West Bank settlement movement, have begun to turn their attention inward to Israel itself, moving into Arab areas of mixed cities in an attempt to cement the Jewish presence there.

Activists say that in recent years, several thousand devout Jews have pushed into rundown Arab areas of Jaffa, Lod, Ramle and Acre, hardscrabble cities divided between Jewish and Arab neighborhoods. Their arrival has threatened to disrupt fragile ethnic relations with construction of religious seminaries and housing developments marketed exclusively to Jews.

"Israel has to act as the state of its citizens," said Mohammad Darawshe, co-executive director of The Abraham Fund Initiatives, a nonprofit group that promotes co-existence between Jews and Arabs in Israel. "Ethnic preference is clearly inappropriate, violating the principles of democracy."

About 20 percent of Israel's citizens are Arabs. Most live in Arab towns and villages, with some notable exceptions, especially Haifa, the port city that is Israel's third-largest.

Before Israel's establishment in 1948, these mixed cities were populated by Arabs. Many fled or were expelled during the two-year war that followed Israel's creation. Arabs commemorate that as a "catastrophe."

The Jewish move into Arab neighborhoods for ideological reasons echoes the nationalistic fervor of the first Israeli settlers in the West Bank in the late 1960s and early 1970s. They set up trailer camps and squatted in unoccupied houses, determined to hold on to the territory for religious and security reasons.

The settler movement has grown into a huge enterprise that, with government backing, has attracted more than 300,000 Israelis into the West Bank.

While the settlements are seen as an obstacle to peace talks and considered illegal by the Palestinians and most of the international community, the current campaign is taking place inside Israel's borders.

Still, the movement of religious, nationalist Jews into the mixed cities is promoted along the same pioneering lines as the original West Bank settlements. The settlers themselves don't make the distinction between the two sides of the line, claiming it should all belong to Israel.

The Israel Land Fund, one of the organizations promoting the move, helps Jews buy property in both Israel and the West Bank with the goal of "ensuring the land of Israel stays in the hands of Jewish people forever."...READ MORE

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