Settler rabbi: Israel must 'Judaize' Nazareth Illit

Ma'an
Israel should follow Hebron's example and 'Judaize' the town of Nazareth Illit , settler Rabbi Dov Lior said on Monday, according to the Hebrew-language daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth. [Nazareth Illit is located in the Galilee, a region long inhabited by Palestinian Christians.]

... Nazareth Illit was founded by Zionist immigrants in the 1950s in an effort to establish a Jewish majority in northern Israel, particularly in the area of Nazareth, which is Israel's largest Palestinian city.

According to a former Israeli military planning department director, Yuval Ne'eman, Nazareth Illit was built to "demonstrate state sovereignty to the Arab population more than any other settlement operation."

Colonel Mikhael Mikhael, a former northern military governor of Israel, said its establishment was meant to "swallow up" the larger adjacent Palestinian Nazareth through "growth of the Jewish population around a hard-core group," as well as "the transfer of the center of gravity of life from Nazareth to the Jewish neighborhood." Full story