Israelis: We occupy on God's order

[TriWooOx]

Israeli government's move to ignore the international outcry to stop Israeli settlements' expansion is backed by many hardline settlers.

Rabbi Yaakov Savir says the international demand for Israeli settlement expansion to be halted in the West Bank is absurd since God has given this land to the Jews.

The Israeli rabbi says Arabs should find another place to build their homes.

"This territory is Jewish territory," AFP quoted Savir as saying, making a sweeping gesture towards the nearby hilltops to show that he means the entire West Bank which Israel occupied in 1967.

He stressed that Israel's right-wing government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should not even consider bulldozing Jewish settlements in the occupied lands under international pressure.

"Jewish people live here by Biblical right," the Israeli rabbi said.

"Arabs," he adds "should find another place to live."

Some 280,000 Jews live in 120 West Bank settlements which Israel considers legal and also wildcat outposts, which unlike full-scale settlements, are not authorized by the Israeli government.

In 2003, Israel agreed to freeze all settlement activity and to raze wildcat outposts but has not taken any concrete action to fulfill its vows.

Many of the 100 or so outposts were built on West Bank hills by militant teenagers, known as "hilltop youths," with the aim of planting the seeds of new full-fledged settlements.

The US President Barack Obama in a meeting with Netanyahu in Washington on May 18 urged a complete freeze of Israel's settlement activity.

"We must settle here, God has ordered us to live on this land," says Daniel Landesberg, 20, as he and a group of teenagers spread out cement being poured out of a large concrete mixer truck to form the base of a new house.

Landesberg is a firm believer in the "doubling" tactic adopted by hardline settlers.

"They tore down seven homes, we will build 14," he says, smiling.

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