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And people have been coming in all day begging us to let them do

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And people have been coming in all day begging us to let them do something for us. I never thought that people would be so happy for us to give them our laundry." Local children, she says, bring sweets, little gifts, clothes. And the local alternative therapy centre is offering free massages to settlers. This treatment may seem more appropriate for refugees from a war than for the amply-compensated residents of a Jewish colony in Palestinian territory, long deemed illegal under international law, but the children are making the most of their stay - the length of which has not yet been reliably defined for the Slaters "From the morning they make plans It's like being on holiday for them.

One of their younger daughters was up early, excited at the prospect of a visit with a group of pro-settler girl volunteers from the city to Ein Yael, the famous "living museum" in the Jerusalem hills where you can do everything from milk goats to Turkish make-up and pottery. Now she's decided she doesn't want to leave her parents and has to be gracefully coaxed into it by her mother and two of the volunteers. Is that enough?" The next day, the Slaters and about 25 other families from Neve Dekalim came to the Caesar. "You could tell by looking at people's faces when they had been thrown out of their houses. The first day they looked so unhappy and then each day after that they looked a little better," Mrs Slater says. The Israeli press today is full of post-disengagement analysis.

Was this a defeat of theocracy by democracy? Had the state of Israel finally asserted itself over the concept of the "land of Israel" from the Jordan to the Mediterranean? Would the dismantling of 25 settlements - out of about 140 throughout the occupied Palestinian territories - presage the abandonment of more? Or had the Army sacrificed too much of its independent authority to the far right by showing such sensitivity and restraint towards the settlers? Here in the lobby, noisy with shouting children, the Slaters' main preoccupations seemed more mundane. There had been a sarcastic edge in Mrs Slater's voice when, on the day before their eviction, she said: "What do I feel? Sadness, frustration, anger. The family left under Army escort after 22 years in their home Certainly they seemed more cheerful than they did then. "That was like a funeral, we were all crying," says Mrs Slater, 45. The four-star, $90 (£50) a night Caesar Hotel, which offers guests "a warm and courteous welcome in the heart of Jerusalem" is a far cry from the house in Neve Dekalim, that Moti and Rachel Slater left with their four children a few days ago.

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