Jewish Settlement Research Articles

Gettodan Schtetle: Orta ve Doğu Avrupa’daki Yahudi Yerleşimleri Üzerine Bir Karşılaştırma

Orta Çağ boyunca Yahudiler çeşitli Avrupa şehirlerinde Hristiyan çoğunluktan ayrı oturmayı tercih etmiş olsalar da çoğu zaman bu durum onların tercihine bırakılmamış ve onlar için ayrı yerleşim bölgeleri oluşturulmuştur. Duvarla çevrili, şehrin diğer kısmından hem yasal hem de fiziki olarak ayrı olan ve geceleri kapıları kilitlenen bu mahalleler ilk kez on altıncı asırda Venedik'te bir dökümhanenin (geto) yakınında bulunmasından dolayı getto olarak isimlendirilmiştir. Daha sonra terim, aynı türden tüm Yahudi mahallelerini kapsayacak şekilde genişlemiştir.
 Schtetl ise genellikle Doğu Avrupa'da, özellikle Polonya, Litvanya, Bela-rus, Ukrayna ve Rusya'da bulunan küçük Yahudi kasabalarıdır. Nüfusun çoğunluğunu Yahudilerin oluşturduğu bu kasabalar Geç Orta Çağ’dan itibaren Orta Avrupa’da sıklıkla görülen şiddet olaylarından kaçan Yahudiler için bir sığınak haline gelmiştir. Zamanla schtetl Yahudilerin etnik ve dini kimliklerini yansıtan gelenekler, inançlar ve sosyal yapılarla şekillenerek Yahudi topluluğuna has bir yaşam kültürü meydana getirmiştir. Ancak gönüllü olarak yerleşilen ve doğal bir şekilde genişleyen bu Yahudi kasabaları Hristiyan topluluklarla bağlantısını sürdürmeye devam ederek gettodan farklı bir Yahudi yerleşim modelini oluşturmuştur.
 Çalışma, ortaya çıkış süreçleriyle birlikte Orta ve Doğu Avrupa dinamiklerinin şekillendirdiği Yahudi yerleşim biçimlerini ve bunların tarihi süreç içerisindeki değişimlerini ortaya koymaktadır. Yöntem olarak niteliksel yöntem ve literatür taraması tekniği kullanılmıştır. Elde edilen veriler doğrultusunda schtetl ve gettonun doğası ve tarihsel bağlamları bakımından önemli ölçüde farklılık arz eden yönleri karşılaştırmalı olarak ele alınmış ve farklılıkların altında yatan dini, sosyo-ekonomik etmenler irdelenmeye çalışılmıştır.

Circumventing Israeli Control: Palestinian Furniture Exports via Israeli Settlements

Abstract West Bank exports to Israel have faced significant challenges due to the Israeli system of spatial control, aimed at controlling Palestinians and facilitating settler expansion throughout the West Bank. The routing of Palestinian commercial freight through the separation barrier has escalated logistics costs, while settlement expansion in Area C has further impeded mobility between Palestinian self-rule areas. This article highlights the tactics employed by Palestinian economic actors to offset these challenges within the confines of intensified Israeli spatial control. Using data from observations, interviews, and documentary sources spanning 2019–2023, the study focuses on Palestinian furniture exports to Israel. It reveals that Palestinians have leveraged colonial spatial variations to their advantage by forming partnerships with Israelis to export products through Jewish settlements. The article concludes by advocating a disaggregated level of analysis that uncovers the dynamic interplay between Israeli spatial constraints and Palestinian agency in response. In the case of furniture exporters, this has led to deepening Palestinian–Israeli economic ties and increased engagement with the infrastructure of Israeli occupation to mitigate its economic impact.

The Inconsistency of EU Policy Towards Situations of Occupation/Annexation: The Case of Trade Relations Involving Products from Israeli Settlements and Occupied Western Sahara

This article aims to examine the practice and policy of the European Union regarding trade relations concerning products from occupied territories (Western Sahara and Israeli settlements) in the light of the principles of international law and the norms of Community law.

Returning to the Wild West: Jewish Violence, Social Reaction, Self-Help and Social Control

AbstractIn recent years, the issue of Jewish settler violence in Israel and its territories has garnered increasing attention. The claimed motivations for such violence are that it is a response to Palestinian-Arab violence and perceived government inaction, as well as perceived selectivity in the formal response toward violence perpetrated by these two populations. These claims point to Jewish settler violence as being a crime as a form of social reaction, self-help and social control. We test this hypothesis by combining and analysing data from the Israel Security Agency, the Palestinian Authority, the United Nations and open sources for the period of 2009–2022 (n = 168 months) using a series of generalized negative-binomial models and Newey–West ordinary least squares models. We find that Jewish settler violence increases as serious Arab violence increases and decreases when formal responses toward Arab violence are higher. We also find iatrogenic effects for harsh measures targeting Jewish violence, namely administrative detention orders. The results imply that to reduce collective violence, it is necessary to take a more consistent and balanced approach in formal responses against opposing groups.

Unveiling Disparities: Investigating the Gap between Palestinian Authority Counter Segregation Policies and Local Implementation Amid Deteriorating Conditions in the West Bank

Spatial segregation in the West Bank remains a pressing issue with profound social, economic, and political implications. This study examines the gap between the Palestinian Authority's (PA) political statements and the local implementation of strategic planning measures to counter segregation in Palestinian communities. By analyzing the Strategic Development and Investment Plans (SDIPs) from 2018-2021, this research investigates the extent to which these plans address the challenges posed by Israeli settlements and promote inclusive urban development. The findings reveal significant shortcomings, including limited coverage of settlement-related challenges, inadequate strategies to confront settlement activity, and a lack of context-specific approaches; Out of the 122 plans analyzed, only 15 (12.3%) explicitly addressed the geopolitical situation, while 67 (54.9%) acknowledged settlements as a challenge. Disturbingly, 28 plans (22.9%) neglected the significance of Area C, highlighting a substantial oversight.

Urban Election System in Russia at End of 19th Century: Criticism in Provincial Periodicals

The article provides a first-time examination of the evaluations of the urban election system in the Russian Empire during the period of 1890-1892, when the preparation and implementation of the new City Regulations were taking place. The study is based on materials from private provincial periodicals. The author highlights the essence and content of the criticism of the provincial press towards the institution of urban elections. The article presents the attitudes towards the issue of social composition of urban self-government bodies as revealed in the periodical press. Positions on the issue of suffrage and proposals for its expansion through tax and educational qualifications are identified. The analysis includes assessments of the national composition of city councils and urban administrations on the outskirts and within Jewish settlements. It demonstrates how the formation of parties based on national identity in urban self-government bodies was covered in the periodicals. Discussions on the merger of powers between the heads of administrative and executive bodies of urban self-government are examined. Satirical poems, which characterize the recorded attitude towards council members and provincial assemblies in pre-revolutionary Russia, who dishonestly perform their duties and disrupt city council meetings, are introduced into scholarly circulation. Satire targeting corrupt intentions of council members is also discussed.

Between conflict and reconciliation: Martin Buber on the Jewish settlement of Palestine. With the unpublished manuscript “Fragen und Antworten. Die jüdische Besiedlung Palästinas” (1947)

ABSTRACT This paper presents Martin Buber’s unpublished manuscript ‘Fragen und Antworten. Die jüdische Besiedlung Palästinas’ in the original German with English translation and contextualizes it within the main stations of Buber’s Zionist thinking: cultural Zionism, religious Zionism, and Zionism of realization. It problematizes Buber’s reflection on Jewish settlements in Palestine with reference to the significance of Zionism for humanity as well as the possibility of reconciliation between Jews and Arabs in the Middle East. It also addresses the problem of Jewish terror, framing it in correlation with the restrictions on Jewish migration to Palestine and the catastrophe of the Shoah.

Rashid Rida, the Zionist Movement, and the Jewish Settlement in Palestine

One of the most prominent religious scholars of Sunni Islam in the first third of the twentieth century, Muhammad Rashid Rida was a reformer who sought to rehabilitate the Muslim world by means of a return to its origins. In this sense, Rida was a predecessor to the Muslim Brethren and other fundamentalist movements. A lesser-known facet of Rida’s thought is his attitude towards the Jewish settlement in Palestine and the Zionist movement – an attitude that began with appreciation if not admiration, continued in attempts at cooperation (in the face of common enemies and in general), and ended with antisemitic remarks and unequivocal rulings against the Zionist enterprise. The article traces the evolution of Rida’s approach to the Zionist movement and the Jewish settlement in Palestine, including texts of religious rulings (fatwas) issued by Rida in the 1930s on the sale of land to Jews in Palestine.

آليات إنفاذ قرارات الأمم المتحدة المتعلقة بالمستوطنات الإسرائيلية في الأراضي الفلسطينية المحتلة طبقاً لقواعد القانون الدولي

This study sheds light on the attempt to find appropriate mechanisms to implement the United Nations’ resolutions related to Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, following the rules of international law. This is prompted by Israel’s failure to comply with international resolutions, the most recent being Security Council Resolution No. 2334 issued on December 23, 2016. The study aims to highlight the concept of Israeli settlement in the West Bank and its motives, as well as to examine ways and means of prosecuting Israel, holding it responsible for the settlements before the International Criminal Court. The researchers adopted a descriptive-analytical approach for this study, which is divided into two sections. The first section focuses on the nature of the settlement crime and the legal status of the occupied Palestinian territories. The second section discusses the most important United Nations’ resolutions regarding Israeli settlement in Palestine and the mechanisms for enforcing these decisions in accordance with the rules of international law. The study concludes with a set of results, the most important of which emphasizes the necessity of using diplomatic and popular means to implement UN resolutions related to settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.

The Rise and Fall of Hapoel Games in Israel, 1928-1995

In 1928, the first Hapoel games were held in British Mandate in Palestine to showcase the strength of the labor movement within the Jewish settlement and promote socialist values. The games continued after the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, although their objectives gradually changed due to political reasons. The last games were held in 1995, when the Israeli economy transitioned to neo-liberal principles and the games became irrelevant to modern life in Israel.This article examines the history of fifteen Hapoel games in British Mandate Palestine and the state of Israel between 1928 and 1995. It analyzes how the games were used to advance the political goals of the labor movement. The analysis is based on eight promotional posters that were published in concurrence with all the games. It provides a sociocultural explanation of the erosion and disappearance of socialist values from the Israeli labor movement.

Occupation and Oppression: The Effects of Israeli Settlement Policies and the Apartheid Wall on Palestinians in the West Bank

One of the significant factors in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the settlement policy of Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories. This paper examines how the settlement policy has impacted Palestinians and violated their fundamental rights, such as the right to a livelihood, the right to education, and the right to movement. Israel has divided the West Bank into three zones—A, B, and C—where it controls outposts with heavy military security. Settler violence has also had a significant impact on Palestinians. Their agriculture and other industries have suffered as a result. Additionally, Israel constructed a separation wall, often referred to as the apartheid wall, which has further divided Palestinians and restricted their movement. The apartheid policies of Israel have deeply affected the Palestinian population.

“A History Buried Alive”: Resisting Amnesia and Reclaiming Native Palestinian Ecology in the Works of Susan Abulhawa

“A land without people for a people without land” was the Zionist slogan used to justify the Jewish settlement in historical Palestine. To prove that historical Palestine was unoccupied, Zionists have attempted to erase its native population from their land and from historical records, through the propagation of the myth that the Jews made “the desert bloom,” obliterating the agricultural practices of Palestinian Arabs. This article studies the deliberate attempts to use ecology as a means of cultural amnesia and its resistance by Palestinian writers. By examining the novels of Susan Abulhawa for remembrances that combat the strategy of forced amnesia of Palestinian ecology, this article finds that literature becomes lieux de mémoire that helps to resist erasure.

A Multi-Scale Climate Vulnerability and Risk Assesment (C-VRA) Methodology for Corporate Scale Investments: West Bank-Palestine Case Study

Assessing climate vulnerability and risk has become a critical part of feasibility studies for infrastructure investments due to the increased frequency and severity of atmospheric disasters. However, evaluating climate parameters and disturbances can become challenging in vulnerable regions, such as the dry Mediterranean terrain. This is why climate vulnerability and risk assessment (C-VRA) should cover several parameters and factors besides climate analysis. In our case, the political stress and conflicts between Palestine and Israel settlements in the West Bank add additional risks and vulnerabilities. Our paper presents a C-VRA in the Nabi Saleh Village-West Bank of Palestine, where a dairy factory with a wastewater treatment plant will be built. The factory is estimated to use around 120 m3 of water daily and produce wastewater that will be treated and reused for agricultural irrigation. Unfortunately, the current practice in the region is to use untreated wastewater to irrigate trees and vegetables without restraint since the treatment capacity is low, and a large part of the wastewater is discharged untreated into the streams. The dairy factory is planned on a ridge at the upper watershed (headwater) of the 1795.04 km2 Yarkon Rive r basin. The local communities in the region are vulnerable to climate change impacts and related atmospheric disasters due to poverty, agriculture dependency, and political issues. To evaluate future climate projections, we used the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Assessment Report 6 (IPCC AR6) methodology. We also used the Mann-Kendal test to analyze the historical trend of climate parameters and projections for three scenarios (optimistic, moderate, and pessimistic) of AR6 for a future period until 2080, considering the life span of the investments and water-specific physical climate risks. Results showed that the historical temperature had a statistically significant increasing trend projected to continue in the next 60 years. Additionally, according to all three scenarios, the precipitation in the region will decrease in the coming decades. As a result, we identified one high (water scarcity) and two moderate-level risks (rainfall decrease and drought) for the corporate, all related to water security. Our methodology incorporates basin-scale assessments with regional and local vulnerabilities, making it a potential tool for critical infrastructure investments elsewhere.

From Vision to Realization: The Design of Culture in the Kibbutzim

ABSTRACT The kibbutzim are unique communal settlements in Israel that aimed to establish an exemplary way of living and set a positive example for Israeli society. They sought to differentiate themselves from urban life and instead created a social structure based on socialist principles. This study delves into the cultural aspects of the kibbutzim, with a specific focus on their architectural representation, planning, and design. It demonstrates that architecture plays a pivotal role in shaping the kibbutzim way of life, with architects and members actively participating in the design process. Through their collective efforts, the kibbutzim strive to create physical spaces that embody their values and aspirations, reflecting their commitment to social equality and communal living. This paper thoroughly investigates the significance of developing tangible infrastructure to accommodate kibbutz culture. It examines the relationship between architecture and culture at three levels: the kibbutz’s master plan, the settlement’s cultural complexes, and the individual’s experience within the library space. At each level, this paper uncovers new insights, providing a fresh perspective on the relationship between the kibbutz society and its physical cultural structures.

Effect of agricultural extension on technology adoption by Palestinian farmers under Israeli occupation in the West Bank

Even during the conflict, agricultural extension by the Palestinian Authority has played an important role in agricultural development in the West Bank of the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). The Ministry of Agriculture of the Palestinian Authority provided the necessary agricultural extension services for Palestinian farmers affected by the Israeli settlements and Segregation Wall. Despite such importance of agricultural extension, few quantitative studies have examined its effect on Palestinian farmers. Therefore, the objective of this study was to quantify the effect of agricultural extension on technology adoption by Palestinian farmers for appropriate evaluation of the agricultural policies by the Palestinian Authority. The microdata of 79,446 agricultural holdings from the Agricultural Census 2010, which was the only microdata officially published and available at the time of this study, was used. Then, the Propensity Score Matching (PSM) method was employed to mitigate the endogenous bias caused by self-selection by farmers in receiving the agricultural extension. The results showed that agricultural extension has positively and significantly affected the adoption of five technologies, namely improved crop varieties, chemical fertilizers, organic fertilizers, pesticides, and biological control. The estimated increase in the adoption rate of those technologies as the average treatment effects on the treated (ATT) by the nearest-neighbor matching method were by 7.1, 7.7, 5.4, 6.8, and 3.8 percentage points respectively. This study proved that agricultural extension promoted the adoption of those technologies even in the conflict. Therefore, agricultural extension by the Palestinian Authority plays an important role in farming by Palestinian farmers. In order to maintain and improve farmers’ livelihoods sustainably, it is necessary to continue the agricultural extension by the Palestinian Authority in the future, considering the behavior of farmers.

Israeli and Palestinian Settler Colonialism in New Media: The Case of Roots

Israeli settler colonialism, in time, became highly linked to the idea of a state, culminating in an institution that defends the past, present, and future practises maintaining the relations between the “native” and “settlers”. Settler colonial ideas and practises sustaining binary opposition between the “native” and the “settler” are reproduced not only by Israeli state broadcasters, but also by settler colonial social media. This article proposes media analysis that goes beyond the usual national and conflict narrative and links “settler colonial common sense” with social media impacts and state ideas/sovereign ideas of property that strive to eliminate native people or transfer them outside Israel’s perceived land ownership and sovereignty. This article also shows how Israeli settler colonial politics and narratives are supported by other settler colonial states (especially the United States). New media and settler common sense cannot be disassociated from the Israeli state and global politics, even though some settlers may have their own strategies regarding the relations with native Palestinians. The State of Israel, through massive surveillance technologies and support from other states that view militarisation and population management as crucial to maintaining its power, holds a great deal of influence over how it frames the “conflict” with Palestinians. We witness how both state violence and institutionalised Jewish privilege are recreated on the ground and globally through the new media. This issue is analysed through the “Roots” (a grassroots movement for understanding among Israelis and Palestinians) case study.

Hiding complexes in fortified sites of the Bar Kokhba war

Hiding complexes are among the well-attested archaeological remains of Roman-period Jewish settlement sites. Found chiefly in the Judean Lowlands and Lower Galilee, they consist of rock-cut subterranean facilities that are linked by an intricate network of narrow passageways and burrows, creating a sort of labyrinth beneath the settlement. In this article I propose a phenomenon that has not previously been addressed in the literature: namely, the association of hiding complexes with fortified settlements and forts from the time of the Bar Kokhba Revolt. The most conspicuous feature of these systems is that they permit movement underground from a fortified built-up area to the outskirts of the settlement or the open land beyond it. On the basis of an examination of the features, territorial extent and geographical distribution of the most prominent examples, and a comparison with the tunnels at Herodium, I propose that they were an important and planned defensive element of Bar Kokhba's military strategy.

The construction of Palestinian death as an exceptional repetition in Israel

ABSTRACT This article delves into a military court’s quest to determine the nature of one Palestinian death by an Israeli soldier as exceptional or banal. The court’s rejection of selective enforcement claims in Azaria’s trial for Al-Sharif’s killing allows unpacking Israeli settler society’s indifference to Palestinian deaths. As I show, the logic of open fire regulations strips these deaths of their singularity and political meaning, constructs them as an exceptional repetition, and sets them aside even when soldiers are prosecuted for killing Palestinians. Exploring whether a different epistemology could account for the singular yet repetitive nature of Palestinians’ deaths in Israel, I turn to Deleuze. His understanding of repetition as the maximality of differences and reversal of the order of trauma lead me to conclude that the state of Israel does not repeat (killing Palestinians) because it represses (the death of Palestinians). It represses because it repeats.

Conflicts in the Middle East and Prospects for their Resolution

The article analyzes the origins, causes, a brief history, participants, external players of regional confl icts in the Middle East, development dynamics and prospects for their resolution. The author comes to the conclusion that by now most of the Middle East protracted confl icts have been frozen, but there are sporadic outbreaks of violence and provocations, accompanied by mutual rocket and artillery strikes and shelling. Mostly, such incidents take place on Israel's borders with the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Lebanon and Syria. The Israeli Air Force is carrying out missile and bomb strikes against military facilities and pro-Iranian military groups in Lebanon and Syria. The Turkish authorities, under the pretext of fighting terrorism, carry out military punitive operations in northern Syria and Iraq, as a result, there are casualties among the Kurdish militias and civilians in the border areas. Local skirmishes and exchanges of blows between US military personnel and Iranian proxy forces in Syria and Iraq do not stop. Missile and drone attacks also target oil and gas production facilities, tankers of Saudi Arabia and other countries in the Persian and Oman Gulfs. In general, a fairly high level of terrorist threat remains in the region. The author believes that the weakening of the position of the United States and its Western allies in the Middle East, the course taken by the countries of the region to diversify their external relations through rapprochement with China, India, and Russia creates good prerequisites for the peaceful resolution of protracted confl icts. This is also facilitated by the normalization of relations between Turkey and Israel, Saudi Arabia with Iran, the establishment of relations with an increasing number of Arab countries with Israel, the return of Syria to the League of Arab States, etc. At the same time, sharp disagreements and fundamental contradictions remain between the State of Israel and the State of Palestine, in particular, over the status of Jerusalem, the occupied Palestinian territories and Israeli settlement activity. Lebanon and Syria have territorial claims to Israel. So far, the process of a Middle East settlement under the auspices of the UN and the quartet of international mediators has been frozen. And if Riyadh and Tehran were still able to overcome the confrontation and, with the mediation of China, Iraq and Oman, began to restore previously broken relations, then the confrontation with elements of a hybrid war between Iran and Israel remains and is fraught with escalation into an armed conflict. In recent years, the unresolved Kurdish problem has become more and more acute. Deprived by Western politicians of the right to establish their own state, the multi-million Kurdish people found themselves divided by the borders of four states, whose authorities are pursuing a clearly discriminatory policy towards their Kurdish minorities. On the agenda is the struggle of the Kurds for equal rights and freedoms with the so-called titular nations (Turks, Arabs, Persians), and in the future the creation of Kurdish autonomous regions or subjects of federations. The author comes to the conclusion that the growing trend towards a multipolar world order dictates the need for a peaceful resolution of regional conflicts and long-term enmity of peoples, creates objective prerequisites for establishing their mutually beneficial cooperation, regardless of national, ethnic, confessional affiliation.The time of domination in the countries of the third world of the colonial principle "divide and conquer" is coming to an end.

National priority regions (1971–2022): Redistribution, development and settlement

Abstract National Priority Regions (NPRs) are one of Israel’s most robust tools for redistribution: a resource allocation governmental plan that favors some regions over others, mostly according to their socioeconomic status and peripherality. Drawing on archival research, this article is the first to focus on this topic and provide a detailed description and analysis of this measure. It provides historical and theoretical accounts of NPRs, tracing their history, starting in the 1970s, over three periods and showing how they have been used and abused. This allows for some important observations about the stakes of using a "color-blind" place-based distributive mechanism, and about the complex relationship between redistribution, development, and settlement. At the national level, this article shows how NPRs changed over the years from a discriminatory tool that excluded almost all Palestinian-Arab localities into a more inclusionary mechanism, but one that also works to support and incentivize Jewish settlement in the Occupied West Bank. At the theoretical level, this article lends itself to and supports a ‘region-skeptic’ approach that sees the regional scale, much like other seemingly “race-neutral” criteria, mostly as an elusive exercise of power that often deepens inequality. However, drawing on Israel’s experience with NPRs, this article provides some more specific cautionary tales that can, I suggest, work to improve the regional scale rather than eliminate it altogether.