Jewish settlers make a pilgrimage to Joseph’s tomb in the Palestinian city of Nablus:
The Palestinians seek Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and full control over cities like this one. But these religious Jews, spurred on by mystical fervor and the local Jewish settler leadership, are strengthening their bond.
To them this is not Nablus, one of the largest Palestinian cities, with a population of more than 120,000, but the site of the ancient biblical city of Shechem. The tomb, they believe, sits on the parcel of ground that Jacob bought for a hundred pieces of silver, according to Joshua 24:32, an inheritance of the children of Joseph, meaning that its ownership is not in doubt.
Here, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is boiled down to its very essence of competing territorial, national and religious claims. The renewed focus on what the Jewish devotees call the pull or power of Joseph appears to reflect a wider trend: a move by the settler movement at large away from tired security arguments and a return to its fundamental raison d’être — the religious conviction that this land is the Jews’ historical birthright and is not up for grabs.
Read the entire story in the New York Times.