SHILOH, West Bank — Israel’s West Bank settlers have been ratcheting up their violence, defying their own government and flouting international public opinion.
But on Monday a settler group tried another tack — wooing foreign journalists with a bus tour featuring a glass of merlot and a visit to a home overlooking the site where the biblical Israelites housed Moses’ stone tablets.
“Here you see the miracles and the prophecies actualized in front of you,” said settler Tamar Yonah Feld, portraying Jewish settlement in the West Bank as a fulfillment of God’s will.
The settlers said they wanted to show the world they are just trying to have peaceful lives. But the bulletproof windows on the bus, the ubiquitous barbed wire and the watch towers at settlements betrayed an existence that is anything but normal.
Despite the wine, a mouthwatering lunch and an earnest video on the land’s Jewish roots, the interaction with the visitors was often heated.
