Of the 5,000 inhabitants of the settlement of Shilo, located on a hill between Ramalah and Nablus, in the occupied West Bank, between 15 and 20% of them are Americans. The return of Donald Trump to the White House is, according to them, an opportunity to expand their territory.
Published on 09/11/2024 15:46
Reading time: 2min
In Israel and the occupied territories, Donald Trump's victory delights the vast majority of the approximately 450,000 settlers in the West Bank. Some of their representatives such as the Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich, or that of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, are in power and they have already expressed their expectations for the next four years with the new Trump administration.
Of the 5,000 inhabitants of the settlement of Shilo, located on a hill between Ramalah and Nablus, in the occupied West Bank, between 15 and 20% are Americans. And they all voted for Trump, according to Israel Meydad, a New Yorker, who has lived here for more than 40 years. “What I expect from Trump is to recognize Judea and Samaria, what you call the West Bank, as a separate region of the Jewish homeland“, he pleads.
He continues: “Concretely, from a political point of view, I will wait another year before seeing. We are currently in Shiloh. You go down the hill to the archaeological site and you will find evidence of the presence of Jews 3,000 years ago. I am confident that I am at home. I'm not just anywhere, in a foreign country. I am not in New Caledonia. We continue to write Jewish history in 2024.“
Colonization is illegal, according to international law and several UN resolutions. This did not prevent the first Trump administration from denying this legal reality and therefore raising a lot of hope among the settlers.
Other Americans live less than three kilometers away, down below, in the Arab village of Turmus Aya. They came to live in Palestine. And after more than a year of war, they no longer expect anything from anyone, like Ahed who came to the West Bank ten years ago.
“As a Palestinian, it doesn't matter if it's Trump or Kamala or even the Green Party. I'm American, I own a piece of land here and I can't even harvest my olives because the Israelis won't let us Don't let it happen. I was a Democrat. But I don't see it the same way anymore. Just because Harris and Biden don't care about Muslims. That's all.“, he regrets.
And Ahed, like many Palestinian-Americans here, voted for Green Party candidate Jill Stein, but half-heartedly. The environmentalist candidate received less than 0.5% of the votes in the ballot.
