we built this city on rock and roll and ideology

the lewis clan is in town. annie’s parents know the cousins of the wife of the mayor of ariel, who insisted that they come on a private tour of his city (and they invited me to tag alone). ariel is a city of 18,000, established in 1978 in the heart of samaria. samaria is the northern part of the west bank, making ariel one of the largest jewish settlements in the occupied territories.

our tour guide has not only been the mayor for 25 years (now his full time job), he was a founder of the settlement when is was just a collection of tents on a hill top (something that might now be considered an illegal outpost, but was sanctioned, and even encouraged by the Israeli government at the time). he is a secular ideologue with a lot of vision. it is one of the leading cities for immigrant absorption (approximately half the population arrived recently from russia), houses a college with 10,000 students (mostly commuters) and plans are in the works to expand the settlement to 60,000 residents.

no stranger to tours and publicity, he had many rehearsed lines. he talked to us non-stop for 2 hours, both in the modest city hall and while driving us around the sausage shaped settlement. as a politician, he answered very few of our questions. besides the fact that he and I don’t see eye-to-eye on many issues, I was also irritated by the condescending tone he used and the assumptions he made about us as american jews. granted, I may not fit the typical american or jewish american mold.

his main point seemed to be to show us that the citizens of ariel are not gun-carrying, bible-thumping, black-hatted, arab haters who throw dirty diapers and beat up palestinian olive harvesters. but rather, they are normal people, who a have a modern town, with tourism, advanced technology and industry and his city is shaped like a hot dog because they took care never to steal a single olive tree from palestinian owned land. he insists that they are not occupiers because he legally owns the land his house is built on. and despite his pride in being a secular mayor of a largely secularly city, he referenced abraham’s biblical purchase of land in hebron as another reason why this land belongs to him and the jewish people.

whether or not he calls himself an occupier, he knows exactly what his presence in the west bank implies. he spelled it out for us in his own words: “I established this city to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state” and, “I am not an obstacle to peace, I am an obstacle to a Palestinian state.”

he went on to explain that the major west bank palestinian towns should be incorporated as part of Jordan, while ariel and the other major jewish settlements should be annexed to Israel and gaza should be given back to egypt. maybe news is slow to make it to samaria, but im pretty sure that offer isn’t really on the table. then again, I guess to be the mayor of a major settlement, you have to be ready to ignore international opinion.