By Ryan Jones
Oct 03, 2005
Judea and Samaria is the cradle of Jewish civilization. It is the area hit most hard by ?Palestinian? terrorism over the past five years. And it is also the area more Israeli Jews are moving to than any other part of the country.
Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics last week released its pre-Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) numbers for the previous year, which showed accelerated settlement of Israel's hilly heartland in line with the biblical mandate given to the Jewish people concerning the land.
Judea and Samaria registered a 5.2 percent population increase during that time, more than twice the rate for Jerusalem (2.4 percent), which had the second highest increase.
While some Israelis move to the ?settlements? in search of a higher quality of life, the majority do so first and foremost out of a deep conviction that the Almighty deeded this land to their forefathers as an everlasting possession, a transaction recorded in the Bible.
Corresponding with the population numbers was a huge rise in new house sales in Jewish areas of Judea and Samaria, up 38 percent from the previous year.
By comparison, house sales in the Greater Tel Aviv area, a secular liberal stronghold, fell by 19 percent.
According to the CBS survey, the supply of currently unsold homes in the Judean and Samarian Jewish communities will only last less than a year. New homes and apartments are being built all the time, much to the ire of the international community, which aims to birth an Arab Muslim state on the Jews' ancient land.
Observers view the increase as a Zionist response both to ongoing Islamic terrorism and to the uprooting of some 10,000 Jews from their homes in Gaza and northern Samaria in August.
Despite the implementation of this ?disengagement? plan, the past year has seen a net increase of more than 2,000 Jews living in the ?disputed territories.?