There is a long feature in Haaretz's weekend magazine that describes the tentative group meetings between Jewish settlers and Palestinians in the West Bank. Not all is peace and love, by any means, but they are talking to one another, eye-to-eye, in a non-aggressive environment. One of the leaders of this new initiative toward co-existence is Rabbi Menachem Froman, from the settlement of Tekoa. Froman is a fascinating, controversial figure: a religious settler who has close ties to both Hamas and Fatah leaders, he has long been involved in inter-faith dialogue and speaks frequently about the importance of Palestinian human rights and dignity. Froman has been known to advocate a one-state (bi-national) solution, or a Palestinian state in which the settlers would continue to live as citizens of Palestine.

Excerpt:

...these meetings, the attempt to encounter Palestinians on the other side of the road or the roadblock, seem to answer a real need of the settlers. It is no accident that a majority of the participants are young people, the second generation that was born, or at the very least grew up, in settlements. It is a generation that sees the state running away from it - with the separation fence, disengagement, Amona [an evacuated settlement on the West Bank] and the construction freeze - and realizes that the Palestinian neighbors are not going anywhere.

"Why am I drawn there?" asks Amrussi. She does not belong to the group, but ever since describing in her book "Tris" ("Shutter" in English) a meeting between two women, a settler and a Palestinian, has fantasized about such get-togethers. "I am looking for roots. I know with utter certainty that I am in my homeland, but the red roofs of the settlements are not enough to transmit the feeling that we are rooted here. The Palestinians are not just passing through. When I go into their homes it invokes in me a desire to connect. If only I could use them to put down roots. Not in the sense of exploitation. In the sense of something that would sprout, bringing new growth."

Members of the group, and the dozens of settlers who have taken part in its meetings, do not subscribe to any one political orientation. They want to defer talk of a political solution to a later stage. But the direction is clear: a binational state, which Eliaz Cohen openly preaches, and which even Amrussi prefers over the other options; or a Palestinian state in which the settlers will remain as citizens bearing equal rights, according to Pachnik, or even as people "under the protection of" - an idea attributed to Rabbi Froman during his contacts with Hamas.

Click here to read the full article.

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