The title of Gershom Gorenberg’s book is somewhat misleading in its suggestion that the establishment of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza was ‘accidental’. While Gorenberg, an American-born Israeli journalist, notes that no Israeli government ever made a formal decision about the future of the West Bank, his account of the first decade of Israel’s occupation leaves no doubt that the settlements were deliberately founded, and were intended to create a permanent Israeli presence in as much of the Occupied Territories as possible (indeed, the hope was for them to cover all of the Occupied Territories, if the international community would allow it). No Israeli government has ever supported the establishment of a Palestinian state east of the 1949 armistice line that constituted the pre-1967 border. At the very least, the settlements were designed to make a return to that border impossible.
the african community has extended families who live in jericho and other areas of the west bank and gaza. the community traces its background through its oldest members to moslem pilgrims who came to palestine from chad and western sudan generations ago.
traditional values and and customs are meeting more modern behaviors within one generation as members of the african palestinian community make new ties to africa and to other africans in israel and palestine.
the african quarter abuts the great wall of the haram al sharif. seventy or eighty families live in apartments on both sides of a major access street that leads to the dome of the rock and the al aqsa mosque. These apartments are made in and around a four