MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
Israel has charged five right wing settlers with helping to organize a raid on an Israeli military base. The raid happened last month in the occupied West Bank. Israel is making good on a promise to clamp down on extremist Jewish groups operating in the Palestinian territories. Among those groups is the Hilltop Youth movement. Their aim is to settle what they say is all of the land if Israel, including areas Palestinians want for their future state.
NPR's Lourdes Garcia-Navarro reports from the unauthorized settlement outpost of Ramat Migron.
LOURDES GARCIA-NAVARRO, BYLINE: So, I'm standing on a hill with a view through the olive trees in front of me to the mountains here in the West Bank. It's cold and it's Spartan. But it's this lonely outcrop and many others like it that gives the Hilltop Youth its name. The camp in front of me is only a few makeshift dwellings. It doesn't really seem like much but this is the seed from which the settlements grow.
(SOUNDBITE OF FOOTSTEPS)
GARCIA-NAVARRO: The ideologically-driven hope is that this tiny camp will eventually expand into a recognized settlement. Many settlements started this way with a few makeshift shelters, then trailers, as more people who moved in and eventually, whole built-up areas with homes and schools and infrastructure.
It's quiet here at Ramat Migron today but it's been the scene of scuffles between the Israeli security forces and members of the Hilltop Youth in the past.
(SOUNDBITE OF A RIOT)
GARCIA-NAVARRO: In this video posted on YouTube, shot in September last year, riot police are seen pushing two young settlers away as the camp is demolished. Now, a few months later, it's been rebuilt by the very same people.
For years, extremist settlers have been carrying out what are called price tag attacks; for every outpost demolished by the army, they target Palestinians in revenge. Recently however that changed. In mid-December, dozens of extremist settlers broke into an Israeli army base instead, vandalizing army property. It shocked the nation and the government could no longer ignore what was happening.
EHUD BARAK: (Foreign language spoken)
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Defense minister Ehud Barak used a word that is usually only reserved for Palestinian action: I see this as homemade terror, Jewish-made terror, which is unacceptable, he says.
The face of what Barak calls Jewish terror is unexpected. In another settlement in the West Bank, a fresh-faced 19-year-old, who is a member of the Hilltop Youth, agrees to meet with us.
Liat Weisel has a ready smile and a confident manner.
LIAT WEISEL MEMBER, HILLTOP YOUTH: (Foreign language spoken)
GARCIA-NAVARRO: We believe that all of the land of Israel belongs to the land of Israel and that's the reason I'm here, she says.
YOUTH: (Foreign language spoken)
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Like many in the Hilltop Youth movement, she joined after then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon evacuated the settlements in the Gaza Strip in 2005. Many settlers felt betrayed that their country forcibly remove them from their homes, after initially sanctioning their presence in Gaza. So the Hilltop Youth have been fighting back.
YOUTH: (Foreign language spoken)
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Weisel says once a week we meet with a rabbi in Hebron. We look at the situation and we evaluate where our presence will be most effective. The decisions are not made haphazardly. The five settlers that were just arrested are being charged with using classified satellite maps and gaining intelligence on planned demolitions from informants inside the military.
What do you think should happen to the Palestinians? I mean, what is there role in this?
YOUTH: (Foreign language spoken)
GARCIA-NAVARRO: She says matter-of-factly, we see them as occupiers. They're not supposed to be there. This is our land. The ideal situation is that they should leave, she says.
And when asked about the so called price tag attacks against Palestinians, which has seen mosques burned and property destroyed, she answers...
YOUTH: (Foreign language spoken)
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Sometimes, because of the need to settle the land of Israel, things need to be done, she says. She declines to elaborate. She expresses no regret, either, over the attack on the Israeli military base. It's all in aid of what she sees as a Jewish holy war.
Lourdes Garcia-Navarro, NPR News.