The highway from Tel Aviv to the settlements runs across the southern tip of Azzun Atma.
In 2001-02, for example, public-sector pay settlements ran at under 4% but overall earnings rose by over 5%.
Gershom Gorenberg, an Israeli who wrote a book critical of Israeli settlements, runs a blog called South Jerusalem (www.southjerusalem.com) on which he has posted documents from the 1960s and 70s showing that the governments planned to expand the Jerusalem corridor with settlements and a bigger road after conquering East Jerusalem in the 1967 war.
Last year securities-fraud settlements ran an average of $21 million per case, and half of all settlements came in at less than $6 million, says Cornerstone Research.
Democratic and Republican Administration have opposed the establishment of Jewish settlements in the territories occupied by Israel in the 1967 War not only because these settlements ran contrary to international law.
An internal church committee focused on social responsibility has targeted the three corporations for the way their products are used in building Jewish settlements, running checkpoints and constructing the Israel-Gaza barrier.
On the day they were kidnapped, Amanda and Nigel were headed toward an I.D.P. (internally displaced persons) settlement run by a heroic Somali doctor named Hawa Abdi, who started a health clinic on her family's land and before long had upward of 80,000 displaced people camped on or near her property.
"No one from the PA comes to help us," complains Azmi Shweikhi, who has the misfortune to live just below a Jewish settlement run by Baruch Marzel, a far-right zealot who, he says, empties his rubbish on his Palestinian neighbour below and is blamed for sawing down the olive trees on his terrace.
The Basque hills drop off spectacularly to the scorching central plains, while the narrow medieval streets of this fortified settlement run over catacombed warrens of ancient wineries, and outside the walls spread newer ones.
