Notwithstanding his recent fear of terrorists bursting through the front door, the 6-year-old son of Shaul Goldstein leads a pretty normal life, according to his father.
“If you talk to the children, they’re happy and cheerful,” says Goldstein, the 43-year-old mayor of the regional council of Gush Etzion, a West Bank region that is home to thousands of Jewish settlers.
Goldstein made his comments on a recent stop in the Bay Area just days before the Nov. 15 ambush on a group of settlers that killed 12 Israelis a few miles south in an Israeli-controlled section of Hebron.
Gush Etzion, where more than 2,200 families live in 15 settlements between Jerusalem and Hebron, has not been spared from deadly clashes either.
Since the start of the intifada more than two years ago, settlers have suffered stonings, Molotov cocktail attacks and suicide bombings, according to Goldstein, who was on a two-week publicity and fund-raising tour in the United States. He spoke to gatherings at private homes in Berkeley, Richmond, Marin and San Francisco and at a church in Oakland.
He said there have been 20 people killed in the last year alone in Gush Etzion.
Yet the soft-spoken engineer and father of six also painted a pastoral image of his home that contrasts sharply with the commonly held view that settlements are the flash points of Mideast violence.
“If the event doesn’t hit you, it’s very peaceful,” said Goldstein, who moved in 1988 from Jerusalem to a village called Neve Daniel, where about 200 Jewish families now reside.
He asserted that rather than inciting violence by their presence, Jewish settlers act as a first line of defense for the Israeli people.
Without the settlements, “the fight would be in Tel Aviv,” he contended. “The fight would be in Haifa.
“Without settlers, the story would have been over long ago.”
The mayor acknowledged the existence of “some extremists” in the settlements who have attacked both Israel Defense Force soldiers and innocent Arabs alike.
He described those extremists as a small but strong minority. “From my point of view, they’re criminals,” he said.
Saying that many of his fellow Jewish settlers have been demonized, Goldstein asserted: “I don’t think we are cruel people. I don’t think we are bad people. I think we share the same values of most people in the world.”
Those values include a belief that “Jews can live wherever they want, all around the world, especially where the cradle of Judaism is.”
He described his fellow settlers as “very normal people” and noted that at least 30 percent are former Americans.
“We think it’s very important for people to know who we are,” said Goldstein, who was joined on his trip by Shani Simkovitz, director of the fund-raising Gush Etzion Foundation.
“We have microwaves, we have televisions and we’re very good on the Internet,” Goldstein said. A new high-tech industrial park has been built near Efrata.
Simkovitz, a 47-year-old Brooklyn native who moved to Israel as a teenager, described her fellow settlers as “the modern-day soldiers.”
During their Bay Area visit, Goldstein and Simkovitz distributed a glossy publicity package that included color brochures about the region.
A color flier inside proclaims: “There’s no place like home” and includes photos of smiling youngsters and scenic shots of the area.
Yet the material also has a ready acknowledgment of the toll from horrific violence that takes place there.
One information sheet details the deaths since February 2001 of nine settlers, including two teenagers who were stoned to death in a cave in May 2001.
A donation appeal from the foundation reads: “Please help prevent the next tragedy! Your donation can provide us with the necessary equipment to thwart the recent phenomena of deadly terrorist infiltrations.”
There is an extensive wish list of desired emergency equipment, ranging from additional fencing and torches to night vision scopes and bulletproofing material.
A separate document describes planned cultural and recreational activities for residents “due to the fear of traveling the roads at night.”
Stressing the deep biblical roots of the area just south of Bethlehem, Goldstein said: “The best place to live is where our ancestors lived. Besides that, it’s the most beautiful place.”
Goldstein said he wants his children, ages 3 to 14, to “grow up normally.”
When his young son voiced his recent anxiety about a terrorist entering their home, Goldstein said he tried to be reassuring. “I told him he’s defended because I’m taking care of it,” he said.