What is it about Beit El that has so captured the attention and donations of key figures in the incoming U.S. administration, all the way up to Trump himself?

By Judy Maltz, HAARETZ

David Friedman, the U.S. ambassador-designate to Israel, heads an American fundraising organization that pumps a few million dollars a year into the settlement of Beit El. The parents of Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, have donated many thousands to its institutions. The president-elect himself has made out a $10,000 check for Beit El’s residents.

What is it about this one religious West Bank settlement that has so captured the hearts and imagination of key figures in the incoming U.S. administration?

Among the 230 Israeli settlements and outposts scattered across the West Bank, there are others — Efrat and Ma’aleh Adumim, for example — with a more distinctive American flavor and where English is far more widely spoken. Beit El, in fact, has a larger population of Bnei Menashe — a community of converts from the rural corners of Northeast India who claim descent from lost Israelite tribes — than it does Americans.

It is also way out there — 14 kilometers east of Israel’s internationally recognized border, to be precise. So unlike other settlements situated closer to the Green Line, Beit El, it is widely assumed, would be evacuated under any future peace deal based on the two-state principle. It would hardly qualify, then, as a sound long-term investment.

Nor does Beit El, a settlement with 6,500 residents, have much of a viable economy. In fact, the only revenue-generating plant in its jurisdiction is a small factory that makes tefillin (phylacteries).
Biblical connection

But Yael Ben Yashar, a longtime resident tour guide, doesn’t see anything mysterious behind the unusual fascination with this one settlement — at least within a certain demographic heavily represented among Trump’s Jewish supporters. “Beit El is mentioned 44 times in the Bible,” she notes, “and this is the place where God promised our forefather Jacob that the Land of Israel would be his. Historically, it is the most important of all the settlements.”

The main visitor attraction at Beit El is an ancient rock on the outskirts of the settlement, where legend has it, Jacob had his famous dream, described in the Book of Genesis, of angels ascending and descending a ladder.

But before she guides her visitors to this pilgrimage site, Ben Yashar usually starts them off with a stop at a nearby observatory tower where on a clear day it is possible to see as far as Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. A mosaic map of the Land of Israel cemented into the floor is there to remind visitors that these parts too were “promised to Jacob,” as Ben Yashar points out.

West Bank settlements have long been considered an impediment to peace, if not downright illegal, by most of the international community. As settlements go, Beit El is among the more hardcore.

Right-wing bastion

In the 2015 election, right-wing parties captured 97 percent of the vote here. Almost 60 percent of the ballots …read more

Source:: Israpundit

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