3,000 Likud faithful converge on W. Bank

Some 3,000 Likud members converged on Samaria National Park in the northern West Bank yesterday in a demonstration of Israeli sovereignty in the region.

"We're demonstrating our ownership of the place and we'll rule here once again," Hagai Grinberg, from Netanya, said.

The Likud members also had a message for U.S. President Barack Obama.

"Obama, keep your hands off the land of Israel," said Samaria Regional Council head Gershon Mesika. He spoke at a support rally in the nearby settlement of Revava later in the day, where the visitors were joined by Moshe Feiglin and Information and Diaspora Minister Yuli Edelstein.

MK Danny Danon, who organized the trip "to strengthen Israel's hold" in the West Bank, said in an interview to CNN, "I want to tell Obama we know there's no partner and your pressure is harmful to the Jewish people ... this isn't Hollywood. You can't invent a partner. We have to do what's good for the Jewish people in its country."

The Likud members came in 70 buses from all over the country to the park, located some 12 kilometers north of Nablus, near the Arab village of Sebastia.

Some 10,000 visitors, including the Likudniks, toured the remains of Samaria, the capital of the kingdom of Israel during the 9th-8th centuries B.C.E. The site, which is usually closed, is run down, the road to it is in disrepair and many of the antiquities have been stolen, said Mesika.

"The hold on Jerusalem begins here," said MK Tzipi Hotoveli, who brought her mother and grandfather on the trip. "We will demand of the prime minister to continue the construction in the West Bank."

Danon, also World Likud chairman, spoke to a group of visitors from abroad in Revava.

"It's clear to me that if the (construction) policy is changed, instead of 1,000 people there would be 5,000 in this settlement," he told them.