EVEN if an Israeli government were determined to remove Jewish settlements in the West Bank in order to make way for a Palestinian state, it would now be exceptionally hard to remove Jews living in the settlement of Kiryat Arba and in the nearby ancient city of Hebron, which has sites that are holy both to Jews and Muslims.

For optimists who still think a two-state solution is feasible, with Israel and Palestine co-existing happily side by side, it is generally presumed that the old border that divided the two peoples before the war of 1967 can be adjusted so that most of the Jewish settlers now in the West Bank be included in a marginally reshaped Israel. About 200,000 of the 300,000 or so settlers now living on the West Bank (excluding East Jerusalem, where another 200,000 Jews now reside in what was the mainly Arab-inhabited part of the city) would fall on the Israeli side of an adjusted border, with the Palestinians losing only 2-3% of their land and territorial swaps elsewhere making up the difference.

It is debatable whether Ariel, a settlement of nearly 20,000 Jews which pokes some 17km (11 miles) into the West Bank, would have to be closed down or be taken over by Palestine. But it is has long been assumed that Kiryat Arba, which was formally established in 1971, would have to be dismantled or handed over to a Palestinian state, with most of its 7,000-plus Jewish residents removed. About 400 Jewish settlers in the old city of Hebron would—it is generally expected—have to go too.As our special report this week on Judaism points out, most ultra-Orthodox Jews, known as haredim, who now reside in settlements on the West Bank, are close to the old line, and would therefore be embraced within a reshaped Israel. But under almost any two-state solution, some 100,000-odd settlers would have to be moved back into Israel, though a small number might conceivably agree to remain on the West Bank under Palestinian sovereignty.

But moving them is becoming increasingly hard to imagine. Hebron is home, among other things, to what is generally considered the second-holiest Jewish site, housing the Tombs of the Patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob) in the Cave of Machpela in a building shared with the Ibrahimi mosque. Muslims also revere Abraham as one of their greatest prophets; he is said to have built the kaaba, the stone cube at the heart of Mecca. After the war of 1967 Hebron came back under Jewish control for the first time in 2,000 years. Even some secular Israelis would be loth to see it revert once more to Muslim control. Hebron further stirs emotions on both sides because of two terrible massacres. In 1929, 67 Jews are reckoned to have been killed by rioting Arabs. And in 1994 a Jewish settler, Baruch Goldstein, gunned down 29 Palestinians worshipping in the Ibrahimi mosque.

As our map shows, the Israelis have been steadily tightening a physical link between the oldest downtown part of Hebron, where the holiest places are situated, with the modern settlement of Kiryat Arba. The tighter the link, mainly in terms of roads and the contiguity and acquisition of Jewish houses in ancient Hebron, the harder it will be, in the event of a two-state settlement, to remove a Jewish presence. “They are strategically planning for the creation of a Jews-only area, which would tie Kiryat Arba, the Cave of Machpela and the other downtown settlements together,” says an expert from a multinational organisation that monitors Hebron. “Over time they want to push out any Palestinians from this area with the help of house purchases and military orders that prevent Palestinians from moving around”.

Palestinians’ access to parts of the old city is already restricted. Shuhada Street, which runs through the heart of it just south of a string of four Jewish buildings, all with fortress-like protection, is entirely out of bounds, while Palestinians complain that the settlers make Haram Street, just to the north, unpleasant by throwing rubbish into it from their windows above. The whole of the area on the eastern side of the city known as H2 is heavily patrolled by Israeli security forces, putting Palestinians often on edge. Some say that at least 12,000 of them have left since 1967.

The Israeli settler lobby argues that most of the land where settlers reside in Hebron was anyway not privately owned by Palestinians; some of it has been confiscated for military purposes; some was state land (under the Ottoman and other later authorities); and some was owned by Jews who lived there until the 1930s. Some Palestinians, to the chagrin of their nationalist brothers, have been persuaded to sell up—to Jewish settlers.

Some say that after the Goldstein horror of 1994, Israel’s then prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, who was himself assassinated a year later, balked at a chance to oust the Hebron settlers—and those in Kiryat Arba. Now, with the best will in a two-state world, that job would be far harder.