Last update - 00:00 20/11/2007
Slain Kedumim resident laid to rest
By Nadav Shragai, Haaretz Correspondent
Several months before he was murdered by terrorists, Ido Zoldan built a "tower and stockade" style wooden tower on hill 690, overlooking the ruins of Homesh, one of the northern West Bank settlements evacuated during the disengagement. He then barricaded himself in the tower for hours while security forces tried to remove him.
Ido, who was killed by Palestinians in a drive-by shooting Monday night, was the son of Nahman Zoldan, the contractor who has been described as "one of the greatest builders of the settlement enterprise." The younger Zoldan was born in Kedumim, lived there and met his wife, Tehila, there. Five years ago, he joined those who moved to Homesh to bolster it after many of its secular residents departed.
His ties with Homesh only intensified as the date of the evacuation drew nearer.
After the disengagement, Zoldan, his wife and their two children lived with other Homesh evacuees in a neighborhood of the Shavei Shomron settlement. They were active in efforts to rebuild Homesh, believing that this was feasible.
Zoldan, a decorated officer in the Golani Brigade, joined the Kedumim 3000 construction firm a few years ago. The firm, owned by his father, built homes in nearly every part of the West Bank. Zoldan was the impetus behind the company's drive to hire only Jews and was fanatic about the principle of "Jewish labor."
On Monday morning, he visited the kindergarten whose expansion he had built as a gift to the children of Kedumim.
That evening, Hananel Dorani was driving from Karnei Shomron to Kedumim when he saw Zoldan's car on the side of the road. At first, he was sure it was an accident, and that is what he radioed in. But when he got out of his car and saw Zoldan, he immediately recognized the signs of a shooting.
Like all the speakers at Zoldan's funeral in Kedumim yesterday, Dorani drew a link between the "government's policy of goodwill gestures and concessions" and the increase in attacks against Jewish motorists.