Israeli religious settlers grapple with charges of inciting extremism
At the hilltop outpost of Esh Kodesh the only sound for miles around is of a dog barking or a rooster crowing.
Just 40 young religious Jewish families live on this windswept spot some 30 miles north of Jerusalem. But Israeli authorities say the seeming tranquillity of Esh Kodesh, and roughly 100 other unauthorized settler outposts built without Israeli government approval, is deceptive. They say they are a breeding ground for Jewish extremism.
A small percentage of the 10,000 “hilltop youths” residing in illegal outposts are suspected of attacking Palestinians or vandalizing churches and mosques on Palestinian-owned property, but their actions have elicited international condemnation and placed a spotlight on Israeli Religious Zionism, with which most of these teens and young adults were raised and educated. The term Religious Zionists is preferred by many of the hundreds of thousands of people who support the state of Israel as well as the right of Jews to live in the captured West Bank.
