As far as Naftali is concerned, therefore, the popular Israeli understanding of the settlements as "illegal" is imprecise; rather, the status of many is undisputed, but the complication underlying those in dispute is not legal but bureaucratic, and consequently those particular settlements are, until they work through the system, simply "unauthorised".

Our final stop is Eli, an "unauthorised" settlement comprising some nine neighbourhoods on various hills spread over a large area. We pass a group from the Israeli town of Mitzpe Ramon, here on a hiking trip. Like many other settlements, Eli is not fenced; electric sensors are used, since residents see no reason to fence themselves in.

Tamar, hair covered and visibly religious, shows us her rather suburban house and leaves her young boys playing in the lounge to take us to the backyard. We have travelled from West to East, and are now barely 15 kilometres from Jordan. We have travelled, I'm told, most of the journey along one of five strategically critical Jewish land corridors from the Mediterranean to Jordan. 

This is the last of multiple prospects I have viewed in the West Bank, and each      occasion seems to yield new insights. Despite our proximity to Jordan, we can see as far as the sea — Tamar adds that on some days they can even see ships — as well as the Hadera electrical facility, reinforcing the fundamental strategic value of these places.

Below us, we see the Derech Avot, and, most stirringly, Shilo, the capital of ancient Israel for 390 years, before the building of Jerusalem. Eli is named after the last priest who served at Shilo. Tamar describes the feeling of celebrating Passover overlooking the site of the Pascal sacrifices of old. 

She recounts how, when her neighbour built the house next door, she discovered broken clay dishes which she promptly took to an incredulous archaeologist, who dated them to the era of the Judges, when Shilo was the capital. He explained that, unlike in Jerusalem, sacrifices brought to Shilo did not need to be consumed on the mountain itself, but simply within sight of the mountain. Moreover, Jewish law stipulates that any item used for a holy purpose, such as clay, which contracts holiness, cannot then be used for something profane. Hence the dishes were broken and left behind. The tale, the ground, is humbling.