Jewish settlers say they remain in West Bank on God's orders

HAVAT GILAD: The world outcry over Israeli settlements in the West Bank is absurd since God gave this land to the Jews, says Rabbi Yaakov Savir.

The Arabs, he says, should make their home elsewhere. "This territory is Jewish territory," says Savir, a settler who runs a religious school in the Havat Gilad outpost which consists of little more than a few tin huts and weather-worn trailers, some horses and chickens and several car wrecks.

"This is our home," he says, making a sweeping gesture towards the Jewish settlements that dominate nearby hilltops to show he means the entire West Bank, which Israel captured from Jordan in the 1967 Six-Day-War.