The West Bank<br >Then and Now<br >Ira Rapaport， once of Brooklyn， pulled his small Peugeot to the<br >shoulder of a narrow， steep road twenty miles north of Jerusa-<br >lem. "We re in the heart of Samaria，" he said， adjusting the<br >knitted yarmulke on his head. "The world calls this the West<br >Bank. The Arabs call it part of Palestine. The stone terraces<br >covering every hill for miles around were built by my grandfa-<br >thers in the days of our kings and our prophets. This is where<br >David ran from Saul. On that hill Judah Maccabee sprang a<br >trap on an occupying Syrian army many times the size of his<br >and won Jewish independence. North of here， in Shechem，<br >which the Arabs call Nablus， Abraham made his first stop in<br >Canaan， and Joshua his farewell address. On the other side of<br >those hills is Shiloh， where we ve just built a Jewish settlement，<br >where I live with my wife and children， and where， three thou-<br >sand years ago， we made our first capital and became a people.<br >This is a place from which we were repeatedly expelled and to<br >which we repeatedly returned. And now we ve returned once<br >again. We re back to stay. This is Israel. This is my home."<br > Rapaport， thirty-nine years old， is one of some 30，000 Jews<br >who have settled in the West Bank so far--in the part north of<br >Jerusalem， which they call by its biblical name， Samaria， and in<br >the part south of the city， which they call Judea. They have<br >established more than 120 settlements， the great majority of<br >4kQ<br ><br >