Religious Zionism And Israeli Settlement Policy

Israel's 1967 victory in the Six-Day War ironically led to persistent and pervasive struggle. In addition to international scrutiny, regional uncertainty, and the management of an occupied Palestinian population, Israel has been engaged in an internal struggle revolving around settlement of the occupied territories. Religious Zionism constitutes one faction within this struggle. Religious Zionism is a middle-road ideology between secular Zionism, founded by Theodore Herzl in 1897, and the traditional rabbinic teaching that rejects human efforts to secure a return to the ancient land of Israel. Religious Zionism is founded on the belief that Jews have an obligation to return to Israel; such a return is considered a divine commandment. The occupation created the conditions for the religious Zionist movement to force a clash with the secular Israeli government. Religious Zionists wanted to possess and settle the newly occupied territory regardless of national security concerns. I argue that the small religious Zionist movement has had significant influence over the settlement policies of the Israeli government disproportional to its demographic numbers, an influence whose consequences extend to the fate of the peace process and the future of the Middle East.

An in-depth account of the ideology driving Israel’s religious Zionist settler movements since the 1970s. The Jewish settlements in disputed territories are among the most contentious issues in Israeli and international politics. This book delves into the ideological and rabbinic discourses of the religious Zionists who founded the settlement movement and lead it to this day. Based on Hebrew primary sources seldom available to scholars and the public, Moshe Hellinger, Isaac Hershkowitz, and Bernard Susser provide an authoritative history of the settlement project. They examine the first attempts at settling in the 1970s, the evacuation of Sinai in the 1980s, the Oslo Accords and assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in the 1990s, and the withdrawal from Gaza and the reaction of radical settler groups in the 2000s. The authors question why the evacuation of settlements led to largely theatrical opposition, without mass violence or civil war. They show that for religious Zionists, a “theological-normative balance” undermined their will to resist aggressively because of a deep veneration for the state as the sacred vehicle of redemption. “This is a well-written book of sound scholarship that makes an important contribution to the research on settlers’ rabbis. The authors refute popular arguments that condemn the rabbis as ‘radicals,’ instead showing how complex is their worldview.” — Motti Inbari, author of Jewish Fundamentalism and the Temple Mount: Who Will Build the Third Temple?

Our Promised Land takes readers inside radical Israeli settlements to explore how they were formed, what the people in them believe, and their role in the Middle East today. Charles Selengut analyzes the emergence of the radical Israeli Messianic Zionist movement, which advocates Jewish settlement and sovereignty over the whole of biblical Israel as a religious obligation and as the means of world transformation. The movement has established scores of controversial settlements throughout the contested West Bank, bringing more than 300,000 Jews to the area. Messianic Zionism is a fundamentalist movement but wields considerable political power. Our Promised Land, which draws on years of research and interviews in these settlements, offers an intimate and nuanced look at Messianic Zionism, life in the settlements, connections with the worldwide Christian community, and the impact on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Selengut offers an in-depth exploration of a topic that is often mentioned in the headlines but little understood.

The book discusses the ways in which the rabbinical elite of the Israeli West Bank settlers responded to Israeli territorial compromises.

Essays that analyze the integration and segregation processes that are an integral part of the broader historical trends shaping Israel/Palestine. Controversy surrounds Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, and the radical national and religious agendas at play there have come to define the area in the minds of many. This study, however, provides an alternative framework for understanding the process of “normalization” in the life of Jewish residents. Considering a wider range of historical and structural factors in which the colonization of the West Bank developed, it allows placing its origins and everyday reality into a wider perspective. The works collected consider the transformation of the landscape, the patterns of relationships shared by the region’s residents, Palestinian and Jewish alike, and the lasting effects of Israel’s settlement policy. Stressed in particular are such factors as urban planning, rising inequality and the retreat of the welfare state, and the changing political economy of industry and employment. Contributions by Lee Cahaner, Honaida Ghanim, Ruthie Ginsburg, Daniel Gutwien, Assaf Harel, Miki Kratsman, David Newman, Amir Paz-Fuchs, Wendy Pullan, Yael Ronen, Erez Tzfadia, Hadas Weiss and Haim Yacobi “The settlements are studied in their full diversity and heterogeneity, shattering a common prejudice to look mainly at the religious-nationalist, ideologically driven among them. The authors show in detail how the colonization project involves communities and agents coming from all sectors of Israeli society.” —Ariella Azoulay, author of Potential History

The first systematic analysis and explanation of the political success of the Israeli settler movement. Based on a comprehensive original theoretical framework and rich empirical analysis, this book provides key new insights for the study of both Israeli politics and social movements in general.

Describes and examines the attempts of Gush Emunim, a religious nationalistic social movement, to construct Israeli identity, collective memory, and sense of place.