Anne-Marie O’Connor – Tourism is the bold new front in Israeli pioneers‘ battle for legitimacy | Jewish World Review

Anne-Marie O’Connor – Tourism is the bold new front in Israeli pioneers‘ battle for legitimacy | Jewish World Review

HAVAT GILAD — The bulletproof tour bus, filled with retirees, groaned up the narrow dirt road to meet some of Israel’s most notorious Jewish settlers, renegade young firebrands known as the „hilltop youth.“
„The stereotype is of monsters, high school dropouts, Arab killers, thieves of Arab land and uprooters of Arab olive trees,“ the host, Rabbi Meir Goldmintz, told his visitors. „The truth is they are the greatest kids, they love this land and want to make their lives here.“