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Here’s What You Should Know About Israeli Settlements
Whether in the mainstream media, academia, or a casual conversation among friends, any discussion of Israeli politics inevitably brings up the issue of “Israeli settlements.”
But while the term “Israeli settlements” has entered the popular lexicon, how much does the average person really know about them?
Let’s take a look at the history of the Israeli settlements from their genesis in 1967 until today.
The First Settlements (1967-1968)
In June 1967, Israel fought a defensive war against the armies of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. After six days of fighting, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) emerged victorious and not only pushed back the enemy militaries, but also gained control over large swathes of territory: the Sinai Desert and Gaza Strip from Egypt, the Golan Heights from Syria, and eastern Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan.
Soon after the war ended, Israelis began to undertake grassroots initiatives to establish communities in these new territories. These Israelis viewed this community-building as a continuation of the pioneering spirit that had infused the Jewish community before the creation of the State of Israel.
Most of these early settlements, which were few in number, were established in areas that were designated as being of strategic value by the Alon Plan, in order to keep Israel safe.
The Alon Plan, which was conceived by the Israeli Minister of Labor Yigal Alon between June and July 1967, was a program whereby Israel would maintain control over certain parts of the West Bank (primarily the Jordan Valley, Gush Etzion, and eastern Jerusalem) in order to protect itself from future Jordanian attacks. The rest of the territory would either go to Jordan or a Palestinian administration.
According to the vision of the Alon Plan, the newly founded settlements would serve as advanced positions that would help secure these new defensible borders.
In addition to security considerations, some of the early settlements were established on the sites of Jewish communities that had been depopulated during periods of violence, particularly during the Arab insurgency (1947-1948) and the Israeli War of Independence.
For example, Kibbutz Kfar Etzion, one of the first settlements to be established, was set up in September 1967 by children of the original residents of the kibbutz, who had largely been killed in a Jordanian-led massacre in May 1948.
The Second Wave of the Settlements (1968-1980)
In 1968, a group of religious families attempted to set up a community in the ancient city of Hebron, which had been emptied of its Jewish population following the 1929 Hebron Massacre. This group ultimately became the nucleus of the nearby settlement of Kiryat Arba and, later, the re-established Jewish community of Hebron.
This attempt heralded the “second wave” of settlement building, which was more ideologically driven and viewed the establishment of Jewish communities as a national and religious imperative, due to the status of Judea and Samaria (the traditional Jewish name for the West Bank) as the birthplace of the Jewish people.
In 1974, the Gush Emunim (“Bloc of the Faithful”) movement was officially established as a grassroots organization that would work towards setting up new Jewish communities across Judea and Samaria.
Following the election of Menachem Begin’s right-wing government in 1977, the Israeli government became more amenable to the establishment of Jewish communities across the West Bank.
However, this does not mean that Israelis were given carte blanche to set up settlements anywhere they saw fit.
In a now-famous 1979 incident, the Israeli government was compelled by the Supreme Court to move the nascent community of Elon Moreh six miles (10 kilometers) down the road following an appeal brought by Arab residents of a nearby village.
Settlement Growth, Settlement Freezes, and Settlement Destruction
Since the 1970s, there have been periods of settlement growth within Judea and Samaria as well as periods of construction freezes, particularly during periods of peace negotiations with the Palestinians and other neighboring Arab countries.
Due to the freeze on founding new settlements since the Oslo peace process, outposts were built by those who wished to create new communities in Judea and Samaria but did not have the permission of the Israeli government. Since the mid-1990s, several of these outposts have been recognized by the Israeli government as official settlements.
On occasion, the Israeli government has also uprooted Jewish communities in the West Bank, including four that were dismantled as part of the disengagement from Gaza in 2005 and the Amona settlement that was evacuated between 2006 and 2017.
For further information on settlements, outposts, and settlement blocs, see Blocs, Towns & Outposts: What Are the Settlements?
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
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Flip through the digital edition of the Fall 2024 print magazine from The Canadian Jewish News
We’ve produced a collection of feature articles four times a year since 2022. The next edition of this magazine will appear in mid-December, and look out for a reimagined publication with a name of its own in 2025. Get future copies delivered to your door as a thank-you for donating to The CJN.
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No Harvard Students Punished for Anti-Israel Encampments, US Congress Says in New Report
Anti-Zionist Harvard students taking part in a sit-in organized by a student group which favors the Islamist terror group Hamas. Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, Nov. 16, 2023. Photo: Brian Snyder via Reuters Connect
Harvard University disciplined virtually no one who was accused of perpetrating antisemitic harassment or participating in a “Gaza Solidarity” encampment last academic year, the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce alleged on Thursday.
As evidence supporting its claims, the committee cited documents obtained during its ongoing investigation of Harvard University, which was prompted by a succession of antisemitic incidents in the weeks after Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel as well as allegations of antisemitism going back years. According to the committee, “not one of the 68 Harvard students referred for discipline conduct related to the encampment is suspended, and the vast majority is in good standing.”
Neither, it continued, were any of the students who chanted antisemitic slogans on campus property punished. Essentially slapped on the wrist, they were “admonished,” a verbal measure which, Harvard acknowledges, is not recorded in their records as a disciplinary sanction.
“Harvard failed, end of story. These administrators failed their Jewish students and faculty, they failed to make it clear that antisemitism will not be tolerated, and in this case, Harvard may have failed to fulfill its legal responsibilities to protect students from a hostile environment,” US Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), who chairs the committee, said in a statement on Thursday. “The only thing administrators accomplished is appeasing radical students who have almost certainly returned to campus emboldened and ready to repeat the spring semester’s chaos. Harvard must change course immediately.”
The Algemeiner has previously reported that Harvard University was amnestying students charged with violating school rules which proscribe unauthorized demonstrations and disruptions of university business. During summer, it “downgraded” disciplinary sanctions it levied against several pro-Hamas protesters it punished for illegally occupying Harvard Yard and roiling the campus for nearly five weeks.
For a time Harvard University talked tough about its intention to restore order and dismantle a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” — a collection of tents on campus in which demonstrators lived and from which they refused to leave unless Harvard agreed to boycott and divest from Israel — creating an impression that no one would go unpunished.
In a public statement, interim president Alan Garber denounced their actions for forcing the rescheduling of exams and disrupting the academics of students who continued doing their homework and studying for final exams, responsibilities the protesters seemingly abdicated by participating in the demonstration.
Harvard then began suspending the protesters following their rejection of a deal to leave the encampment, according to The Harvard Crimson. Before then, Garber vowed that any student who continued to occupy the section of campus would be placed on “involuntary leave,” a measure that effectively disenrolls the students from school and bars them from campus until the university decides whether they are allowed back. The disciplinary measures were levied one day after members of Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine (HOOP) created a sign featuring an antisemitic caricature of Garber as Satan, and accused him of duplicity.
During Harvard’s commencement ceremonies in May, reports emerged that some students had been banned from graduation and receiving their diplomas.
However, Harvard and HOOP always maintained that some protesters would be allowed to appeal their punishments, per an agreement the two parties reached, but it was not clear that the end result would amount to a victory for the protesters and an embarrassment to the university. Indeed, after the suspensions were lifted, HOOP proceeded to mock what they described as their administrators’ lack of resolve. Unrepentant, they celebrated the revocation of the suspensions on social media and, in addition to suggesting that they will disrupt the campus again, called their movement an “intifada,” alluding to two prolonged periods of Palestinian terrorism during which hundreds of Israeli Jews were murdered.
“Harvard walks back on probations and reverses suspensions of pro-Palestine students after massive pressure,” the group said. “After sustained student and faculty organizing, Harvard has caved in, showing that the student intifada will always prevail … This reversal is a bare minimum. We call on our community to demand no less than Palestinian liberation from the river to the sea. Grounded in the rights of return and resistance. We will not rest until divestment from the Israeli regime is met.”
The past year has been described by experts as a low point in the history of Harvard University, America’s oldest and, arguably, most important institution of higher education. Since the Oct. 7 massacre by Hamas across southern Israel, the school has been accused of fostering a culture of racial grievance and antisemitism, while important donors have suspended funding for programs. In just the past nine months, its first Black president, Claudine Gay, resigned in disgrace after being outed as a serial plagiarist; Harvard faculty shared an antisemitic cartoon on social media; and its protesters were filmed surrounding a Jewish student and shouting “Shame!” into his ears.
According to the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce, Harvard has repeatedly misrepresented its handling of the explosion of hate and rule breaking, launching a campaign of deceit and spin to cover up what ultimately became the biggest scandal in higher education.
A report generated by the committee as part of a wider investigation of the school claimed that the university formed an Antisemitism Advisory Group (AAG) largely for show and did not consult its members when Jewish students were subject to verbal abuse and harassment, a time, its members felt, when its counsel was most needed. The advisory group went on to recommend nearly a dozen measures for addressing the problem and offered other guidance, the report said, but it was excluded from high-level discussions which preceded, for example, the December congressional testimony of former president Claudine Gay — a hearing convened to discuss antisemitism at Harvard.
So frustrated were a “majority” of AAG members with being an accessory to what the committee described as a guilefully crafted public relations facade that they threatened to resign from it.
Currently, the university is fighting a lawsuit which accuses it of ignoring antisemitic discrimination. The case survived an effort by Harvard’s lawyers to dismiss it on the grounds that the students who brought it “lack standing.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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If Eric Adams Steps Down, New York City’s Next Acting Mayor Will Be an Anti-Israel Critic
New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams. Photo: Screenshot
The next acting mayor of New York City might be a left-wing activist and staunch critic of the Jewish state.
US prosecutors charged New York City Mayor Eric Adams on Thursday with soliciting illegal campaign contributions from foreign nationals and bribery. Adams’s potential departure from office could prove consequential for New York City’s estimated 960,000 Jewish residents, representing roughly 10 percent of the Big Apple’s population, and supporters of Israel living in the city.
If Adams resigns as a result of the federal charges against him, New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams is widely expected to step into the mayoral role as his replacement. A review of Wiliams’s social media history reveals a pattern of denigrating Israel, raising questions over whether the public advocate would defend the city’s Jewish community.
Williams has condemned Israel’s defensive military operations in Gaza as a “war crime” and criticized the US Congress for inviting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak in July.
“Aside from basic humanity, under accepted [international] Law Benjamin Netanyahu is quite literally, at this moment, engaged in [international] war crimes/human rights violations,” Williams posted on X/Twitter at the time. “Instead of Congress trying to stop it, they gave a platform.”
Williams issued a statement on Oct. 11 of last year, four days after the Hamas terror group’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, lamenteing the terrorist attacks on the Jewish state before calling on Jerusalem not to retaliate and shifting attention to alleged “oppression” of Palestinians.
“We can, we have to be able to, at once grieve the hundreds of innocent lives taken in Israel, and oppose the escalating violence of retaliation, the endless war, the systemic violence and oppression of Palestinians too often ignored, excused, or condoned,” Williams wrote.
On Oct. 14, one week after Hamas’s brutal slaughter of roughly 1,200 people in southern Israel, Williams condemned “shameful” New York elected officials that “won’t even mention [Palestine] or [Gaza].”
Five days later, less than two weeks after the largest single-day mass-murder of Jews since the Holocaust, Williams called for an immediate “ceasefire” between the Jewish state and the terrorist group. Israel had not yet launched its military offensive in neighboring Hamas-ruled Gaza to dismantle the terror group’s military capabilities and free the 251 hostages kidnapped from southern Israel on Oct. 7. He also drew an equivalency between Israel’s military operations to the Hamas atrocities.
“The moral compass of our leaders shows stunning irregularities,” Williams wrote on Instagram.
“On point in condemning horrendous attacks on Israel and demanding hostages be returned,” he added. “[Yet, failure] to recognize the [United Nation’s] description of a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, let alone support de-escalation and ceasefire.”
On Oct. 24, Williams declared Gaza a “humanitarian crisis” and added that “all of us who rightly condemned Oct 7 on Israel should be rightly demanding a [ceasefire] now and before any ground invasion.”
Israel began striking Hamas targets after repelling the Oct. 7 invasion but did not launch a ground offensive into Gaza until Oct. 27.
In February, Williams appeared at a press conference conducted by the “NYC 4 Ceasefire” coalition to demand an end to Israel’s military operations in Gaza. During the event, participants referred to the Gaza war as a “genocide” and honored Palestinian “martyrs.”
“We have gathered here today to show city-wide support for an immediate and permanent ceasefire and end to the genocide in Palestine,” said Jawanza Williams, organizing director of left-wing activist group VOCALNY.
Williams harbors ties to the vehemently anti-Israel Democratic Socialists of America group (DSA). In a 2018 interview with the left-wing media outlet Jacobin, Williams said, “I have no problem saying I’m a Democratic Socialist.”
Williams has solicited an endorsement from the group while running for office in New York City. DSA has routinely praised Hamas’s so-called “armed struggle” against Israel. The group issued an explicit endorsement of Hamas, stating that the terrorist organization is a cornerstone in the “resistance” against the “Zionist project.” DSA has also accused Israel of committing “genocide” and praised the Hezbollah terrorist group for attempting to pummel the Jewish state with missiles.
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