He lives not in the West Bank but in Ra'anana, north of Tel Aviv. Why then is he on the Yesha Council? "Because Yesha is a strategic necessity for the safety of my family and for all of Israel."

This was brought home to me at Barkan, where I met Natalie. Natalie showed us one of this Samarian community's most beautiful and instructive prospects. From here, we can see Ra'anana very easily, as well as the nearby towns Kfar Saba and Hadera and the coastal cities of Netanya, Herzliya and Tel Aviv. Naftali insists that from a military point of view, even with Israel's sophisticated anti-rocket technology, the Green Line is indefensible, not least because the most populous Israeli areas, as well as the main international airport, could be targeted by mortars. Abba Eban, the legendary English-born, Cambridge-educated Israeli statesman, described these as Auschwitz borders. Naftali echoes this sentiment: "To withdraw to the Green Line is national suicide." 

Natalie asks how Israel can have peace with the Arabs when they cannot even have peace amongst themselves. Israelis are very cautious in their assessment of the Arab Spring. The newspapers today are reporting that recent polling indicates that a majority of Egyptians want to cancel the peace treaty with Israel. Natalie says her mother prophesied that Israel would have to go into the Sinai for a third time. And if peace with an established country like Egypt, where a new regime might reverse policy entirely, is so precarious, how can Israel make peace with a quasi-state like the Palestinian Authority (PA)?

But Naftali insists that the West Bank is not only about security: it is ours, he declares. He believes that the Arabs know that places like Jerusalem and Shilo are the Jewish soul, and to take them means victory.

Although she has six children, Natalie wears trousers and her hair is uncovered. She is secular, she explains: she drives and barbecues on the Sabbath. Indeed, a third of the Israeli population of Yesha is secular, and this demographic tends to live near the Green Line and in the Jordan valley; the religious Zionist communities are found deeper in the territory. Natalie was originally from Tel Aviv, but moved to Barkan, founded by Russian immigrants in 1981, in the mid-1990s. 

Barkan has some 340 families, and a new neighbourhood is being built to accommodate their grown-up children who want to live here, which will raise the population to some 400 families. The community is close-knit, and Natalie describes all the children's activities available, the volunteering projects, the educational provision, and the centre for the elderly.

She laments how misunderstood the Israeli residents of Yesha are. The Israeli media and elites never visit here, and consequently remain utterly ignorant. She illustrates this with a personal story.