Tucked amid the terraced rocky hills of the West Bank and overlooking the Arab city of Ramallah, the Jewish settlement of Beit El has long been a religious touchstone for Jews and a source of anger for Palestinians. Now it is turning into a symbol of the tug-of-war for the sentiments of the Trump administration.
A gated town of 6,500 built around a Jewish seminary, or yeshiva, Beit El is far beyond the frontier settlement blocs that are likely to stay inside Israel as part of a future two-state solution. American supporters pour $2 million a year into its educational institutions. One contributor has a rare distinction: he went on to become president of the U.S. -- Donald Trump.
The administration’s links to Beit El don’t end there. David Friedman, the nominee for ambassador to Israel, served for years as chief of the yeshiva’s U.S. fundraising arm. The family of Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, has also given faithfully.
Beit El “should write a tax-deductible receipt to President Trump for the tens of millions of dollars of free publicity that he’s given us,” said Chaim Silberstein, a member of Beit El’s governing council.
A Golden Age?
Like other settler leaders, Silberstein had been counting on the new White House ties to herald a kind of golden age, a turnaround from the Obama administration, which dismissed settlements as illegitimate and mapped out an evacuation in a peace settlement. But things may not turn out precisely that way. As the visit here last week by U.S. envoy Jason Greenblatt shows, the administration is pushing something that is anathema to the settlement’s residents: restrict Jewish construction in the West Bank.
Palestinians, whose seat of government lies a few miles away, regard Beit El as an illegal usurpation of their land and vow to uproot it when they establish an independent state. A next-door Israeli military base, also called Beit El, is where West Bank Palestinians accused of political violence are put on military trial. Greenblatt, who once studied at a different West Bank settlement, met last week with Palestinians and their leaders to hear their concerns.
Besides the seminary, Beit El hosts separate high schools for boys and girls and an army preparatory academy for disadvantaged youth, with a total enrollment of about 1,100 students. A media arm offers news from a settler perspective. The organization recently started a campaign to equip American students “with the tools to successfully delegitimize the notion of a two-state solution.’’
The truth is that even over the past eight years, as U.S. policy frowned on settlement construction, money kept flowing to Beit El from billionaires abroad. Among the top contributors are American Eagle Outfitters Inc. Chief Executive Jay Schottenstein, Duty-Free Americas Inc. President Leon Falic, Jordache Jeans founder Joe Nakash and Renco Metals Inc.’s Ira Rennert.
Jacob’s Dream