On the tours I lead of Nazareth and Upper Nazareth, I explain the strange – in fact, unique – problem Israel faces in these two cities. Upper Nazareth was built to “Judaise” Nazareth: swallow it up and leave it a poor Arab ghetto suburb of a modern vibrant Jewish city.<\/p>\n
In fact, the task failed and many wealthier residents of Nazareth – starved of land to build on – bought homes in Upper Nazareth instead, to the point where a quarter of the city’s residents may now be Palestinian.<\/p>\n
We all knew Shimon Gapso, the mayor of Upper Nazareth, hadn’t taken this lying down. He’s building a new neighbourhood for 30,000 ultra-Orthodox (ie religious extremists), has brought in settlers who were moved out of Gaza, and has set up a hesder yeshiva, a seminary combining religious study and army service – ie for religious extremists with guns.<\/p>\n
But now we find out from the state comptroller (a sort of ombudsman) that he’s been doing all this through an illegal arrangement, backed by the government, that employed a “settlements adviser”\u00a0at great expense – and paid for in part by his own Palestinian residents. The adviser, a rabbi called Hillel Horowitz, is one of the leaders of the Hebron settlers in the West Bank and is running for Habayit Hayehudi, a fascist party so extreme even Netanyahu avoided bringing it into his coalition.<\/p>\n
Anyone who really wants to understand where the logic of Zionism leads needs to study the dark underbelly of Upper Nazareth politics.<\/p>\n