25 year in the University of Ariel in Samaria

This is my 25th year teaching in the university. At first I was teaching on a temporary basis, without even a contract, then the University started to get organized and offering one-year contracts. By then I have reached retirement age, too late to ask tenure. It is so that this temporary job is lasting more than all the other employments I had in my life. I had received "kviut" (tenure) in TAHAL, in the WWTP and also in the Water Authority, but I got bored and abandoned those safe and well paying positions for new ventures. As they say: In Israel, the temporary is forever, like in "the temporary emergency tax"  that turned out to be permanent, as most knew from the start.

Like the "occupation" of the West Bank. Driving through and working for 25 years in Samaria I witnessed how the land became urbanized, with many 4-5 stories buildings in the Arab villages. This part of Samaria was industrialized, there are very large industrial areas and thousands of Arab peasants working there as salaried employees with all the benefits of the Israeli welfare State. I see the informal taxi and minibus stations that take them back at 5 PM to their villages. The roads are full of heavy trailers transporting construction materials, industrial raw materials and foodstuffs. My impression is that the Shomron is now the heart of Israel's light industry. The optimists like Sharon were right. The left, that believed that it could not be done and the Jordanian West Bank had to be "returned" were wrong.