Many people believe the Israeli settlements are a major obstacle to peace.
And evacuating the settlers is the only way to make room for a future Palestinian state.
Since Israel conquered the West Bank in the 1967 War
Settlements have grown continuously.
And today, relations between the 300,000 settlers and 2 million Palestinians in the West Bank
Often erupt into frequent tension.
But in the last few years, there's a loose movement among some settlers and Palestinians
To get to know each other.
Eliaz Cohen, who lives in the settlement of Kfar Etsion
Believes he can somehow balance his passion
For living in the heartland of Biblical Israel
With coexistence with his Palestinian neighbors.
I know that
We and the Arabs are the sons of the same father.
Isaac and Ishmael are the sons of the same Patriarch, Abraham.
We were, as children, in the same tent.
We have wounds.
Here in Israel, we are living in an open wound.
Three weeks after our meeting
Extremist settlers vandalized a mosque in the West Bank village of Bet Fajjar
A few kilometers east of Kfar Etsion
Including burning several korans.
Eliaz was part of a small group of religious settlers
Who paid a sympathy call to the village the next morning
Bringing a gift of new korans.
There were maybe 2000 people around the mosque.
I spoke with him that afternoon, at a demonstration on the main highway between Kfar Etsion and Bet Fajjar.
I don't know, when was the last time
That a settler, or even an Israeli
Got into Bet Fajjar.
One old guy came to me.
I didn't understand everything he said.
But I understood, when he said
The land is big, there is enough place for everyone.
For you, and for us.
Israeli military authorities govern this part of the West Bank.
Including having full control over all planning and building.
This is the village of Bet Zacharia
Three kilometers north of Eliaz's settlement.
My mother and father were born here.
We have been here in this village for at least 300 years.
The area was ruled by Jordan in 1967.
When the Israelis won the war then- I was 6 or 7 years old.
Since then, the Israelis haven't allowed any building.
Mohammed is the mukhtar, or hereditary mayor, of this village of several hundred people.
People ask, "Why are our Jewish neighbors building, when we can't?"
Eliaz came and saw how the people were living
And couldn't believe his eyes.
When one sees six or seven people in one room
They wouldn't accept such a situation
There's no god or prophet or person
Who would accept such a situation.
The town minaret.
Really - from 1982 until today it stands like this.
And they don't let us finish it.
To see this monument, half-monument
Is like seeing a synagogue without a Holy Ark
Or without a Torah. It's so shaming.
After much work talking with the Israeli authorities
Eliaz did succeed in helping Mohammed
Get a permit to add rooms to the village school.
Until last summer
They went to Bet Fajjar school.
Because there wasn't permission to build new classes.
And by our efforts...
Nice!
You see - until this line
From here, it's brand new
From last summer.
Twenty minutes away - and like another galaxy.
All Israelis know the almost legendary history of Kfar Etsion.
Eliaz took me to the little museum there.
Many of the 200 Jews living here in 1947 were Holocaust survivors.
She came 2 years after the Holocaust
And her husband was killed here
-In the last battle. -In the last battle.
Near the end of the 1948 War
Kfar Etsion and its neighboring kibbutzes had become beseiged by the Arab Legion.
"Jerusalem, this is Kfar Etsion."
"We are being bombarded heavily. The outposts have been taken."
"Send help immediately."
But help couldn't get through.
According to most sources
The defenders surrendered - but most were killed anyway.
On May 13, 1948
The survivors retreated to the cellar of this very building.
"Then they bombed the whole building with everyone in it."
"That's how the last warriors of Kfar Etsion fell in battle."
It's the original bunker - the wounded were evacuated here
And in the massacre here, they finished them all.