Jewish Settlement Research Articles

Community-Based Health Interventions Are Critical for Peace Building in the Worsening Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.

Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian Territories (oPT) continue to expand and there is little communication between the 2 sides. Countries not directly engaged in the conflict are uninterested in a dignified solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This article argues that international organizations, donors, and third states should encourage the following peace-building approaches when considering health care initiatives in this conflict. The first is community oriented lay-led initiatives which should improve health outcomes, enhance the ability of Palestinians to develop resilience and promote peace-building between Israelis and Palestinians. Secondly, this strengthening can, in the absence of the impact of international advocacy for a dignified solution to this long-standing conflict, lead to locally driven peace-building while measurably improving health.

Palestinians Under Israeli Settler Colonialism and "Anglo-Centric" Colonization of Knowledge Production.

Calls for decolonizing knowledge production are increasing considerably. Yet the domination of knowledge production by English-speaking, neoliberal, Western countries continues, with understandings and assumptions often irrelevant and unimportant to southern countries, and can contain racialized portrayals of the people of the developing world. Palestinians under Israeli military rule have also become governed by neoliberal funding northern institutions that have commoditized research and education and control what should be researched and how. The dual colonization of Palestinians by Israel and the hegemony of neoliberal political-economy among a captive Palestinian population-reinforced by the Zionist lobby's ferociousness in punishing whoever dares to raise questions about Israel's wrongdoings-is silencing Palestinians and those supporting justice to Palestinians in ways perhaps not experienced by others who want their voices heard. Yet Palestinians continue to teach and conduct research and to struggle for freedom and justice on one hand and for liberation from donor dictates on what to research and how to research and write on the other. We continue to hope that international funders and publishers would take concrete steps to turn calls for the decolonization of knowledge production from lip service to actions so that all knowledges can contribute to debates and societal advancement worldwide.

Deepening apartheid: The political geography of colonizing Israel/Palestine

The paper analyzes the regime in Israel/Palestine using a political geographical perspective. It demonstrates how a combination of colonial, national, capitalist and liberal forces have put in train a process of “deepening apartheid” in the entire territory controlled by Israel—between River and Sea. This undeclared regime has been established to guard the 'achievements' of settler colonial Judaization of the land and the domination of the Jewish minority. As described by the Rome Statute, it has become an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one group over others, with the intention of maintaining that regime. Hence the political geographical analysis shows clearly that the wide description in academic and international circles of Israel as “Jewish and democratic,” is based on a denial of the clear racialized hierarchy of civil statuses. This setting enhances Jewish supremacy (using different methods) it in all regions, while Palestinians are fragmented into lower rungs on the ethnic hierarchy—de facto and de jure—thereby contradicting the tenets of democratic civil equality. Theoretically, the paper draws on the links between settler colonial expansion, the rise of ethnocracy, partial liberalization under global capitalism, and the making of apartheid. It shows that historically Jewish colonization of Palestine—the underlying logic of the regime—has advanced in six main historical-geographical stages, encountering persistent, and at times violent, Palestinian resistance. The paper then analyzes in more detail the emergence of one regime between River and Sea, in which the state uses military, spatial, economic, and legal powers, as well as geopolitical maneuvering (particularly US support) to oppress Palestinians, while promoting democratic rights and economic development among Jews. This has enabled Israel to integrate and “whiten” Mizrahi and other Jewish groups into mainstream Zionism. Rivaling Palestinian political projects have been fragmented, ghettoized, attacked violently, and severely weakened. The paper shows how Jewish colonization, on both sides of the Green Line (which has also included some tactical withdrawals), has led to the establishment of four hierarchical types of citizenship, governed as “separate and unequal”. The relations between the groups resemble the racialized categories used in Apartheid South Africa and include (a) “White”—Jewish Israelis—with full citizenship rights; (b) “Colored”—Palestinian Arabs with Israeli citizenship with partial rights; (c) “Black”—Palestinians under occupation lacking citizenship or political rights; (d) “Gray”—an emerging group, consisting of non-citizen migrants and asylum seekers.

Проблема «поселенческого колониализма» в истории Палестины: современные трактовки

Abstract. A review is given of the new monograph by Palestinian-Israeli sociologist Areej Sabbah-Khoury “The Colonization of Palestine: The Zionist Left and the Making of the Palestinian Nakba” (Stanford University Press, 2023). This publication is a comprehensive historical and sociological study that examines the problem of Palestinians displacement from their lands by Israeli settlers in the first half of the 20th century. The author of monograph shares a critical approach to the official point of view in Israeli historiography on the Palestinian problem. Reviewers point to the innovative characteristics of the A. Sabbah-Khoury’s research, emphasizing her active use of interdisciplinary historical and sociological methodology. The researcher’s attention is focused on the historical relationship between the ideology of the left Zionists and the practice of seizing Palestinian lands. A. Sabbah-Khoury managed to collect rich empirical material: materials from eight Israeli archives, including the archive collections of three kibbutzim. Areej Sabbah-Khouri’s research, as shown in the review, demonstrated the importance of analyzing those aspects of settler colonialism that were practically not taken into account in official Israeli historiography (the duration of the Zionist colonial project, the features of social interaction between settlers and the local population, the role of coercion in the struggle for control over land).

Moshe Wilbushewich, “Vitamin Bread,” and Rationalizing the Jewish Diet in Mandate Palestine

Dreams of good food, writes Aaron Bobrow-Strain, are powerful social forces, which "arise out of particular constellations of power and interests that can be analyzed and understood." This article focuses on a specific food item—Vitamin Bread (leḥem ḥai), developed by Moshe Wilbushewich in 1920s Palestine—as embodying notions of "good food" premised on the tenets of rational nutrition. I show how the development of the bread was informed not only by a nutritional discourse, which counted energy units and analyzed nutrients, but also by a colonial discourse about Jewish and Arab physical and mental difference, about the role of science in colonization, and by the interests of Jewish settlement. For its inventor, Vitamin Bread embodied the attempt to compensate for the physical inferiority of civilized Jewish settlers compared to indigenous Arabs by means of their intellectual advantage, namely, by recruiting science in the service of improving Jewish nutrition.

People’s Houses in Eretz Yisrael and Israel and the Memory of the Holocaust

Abstract: The People’s House is a building and institution born of the Industrial Revolution in Europe, offering a sociocultural alternative to both the church and the alehouse. In the first decades of the twentieth century, the People’s House became a model of progress for a better society. The activists of socialist Zionism, who aspired to forge a new Jewish person along sociocultural lines, saw the People’s House as a crucible for Jewish communities who came to Eretz Yisrael from different countries. Indeed, beginning in the early twentieth century, People’s Houses were built in all manner of Jewish settlements in Eretz Yisrael, as centers for both creating and promulgating a new Hebrew culture. This article uncovers the historical link between the memory of the Holocaust and the conception and building of People’s Houses in Eretz Yisrael and Israel, through a discussion of the houses’ building initiatives, funding, ideological dependencies, naming, programs, and architectural and functional aspects. The essay’s conclusions are that: (1) The living memory of the Holocaust, both personal and communal, was a driving force in the conception and building of People’s Houses; (2) The built, functioning result proclaimed the lessons of Holocaust memory, reflecting an inversion of the scars left by the trauma; (3) The People’s House, designed as a workshop and a crucible for new Hebrew culture, was seen as a Holocaust-proof space, immune from the Holocaust’s painful memories.

Basic Law of Nationality: Interpretation of the Jewish Settlement Section in the Light of the Principle of Equality

Basic Law of Nationality: Interpretation of the Jewish Settlement Section in the Light of the Principle of Equality

Post-Religious-Zionism: Alternative Ideas of Jewish Statism in the Writings of Moshe Koppel

Abstract: This article discusses the rise of the Israeli conservative movement, and examines the dominance of religious-Zionists within the movement. The article focuses on the ideology of Moshe Koppel, the chair of the Kohelet Policy Forum and a dominant figure in the conservative movement. Through an analysis of Koppel's political writings, this article presents Koppel's unique worldview, and demonstrates how it is a critique of the secular-Zionist hegemony, and also of the "classical" religious-Zionist worldview. The article argues that Koppel's ideology appeals to religious-Zionists, who have undergone a political crisis as a result of their failure to convince the general Israeli public to oppose the evacuation of Gaza settlements in 2005. Koppel's worldview addresses the need for religious-Zionists to justify their commitment to Jewish settlement in the Occupied Palestinian territories in a way that will appeal tonon-Orthodox Jews as well. This is a key factor in the Israeli right's conscious attempt to achieve political hegemony in Israel.

Role of Jewish joint distribution committee in Ukraine reconstruction in 1920s

The contribution of American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and its subsidiary corporation Agro-Joint to the socio-economic development and modernization of Ukraine in the 20s of the 20th century is highlighted. Based on the analysis of historical sources and publications of the Soviet press, it was found that during this period the mentioned organizations played an important role in the socio-economic processes that took place in South of Ukraine and in Crimea. This was connected with overcoming the consequences of the famine, restoration social structure and agriculture, as well as the organization of new Jewish agricultural colonies on allocated lands. The purpose of the study is to clarify the nature of the activities of Joint and Agro-Joint in the 20s of the 20th century in the social sphere and the agricultural sector and to evaluate the results of this activity from the perspective of today. As a result of the research, it was found that the main activity of Joint and Agro-Joint consisted in the organization of large-scale humanitarian, social, technical and agricultural assistance to the inhabitants of Jewish settlements and non-Jewish population of a number of districts in Odesa, Katerynoslav, Donetsk, Volyn provinces and Crimea. At the same time, special attention was paid to the development of associations, the arrangement of life and the supply of equipment, its rational use during agricultural work. It has been found that a public figure, agronomist, and then deputy director of Agro-Joint Samuil Yukhymovich Lyubarskyi (Shmuel-Aba Khaimovich) (1878–1938) played a major role in the organization of charitable and socially oriented aid. Based on the analysis of his article in «Ukrainian Agricultural Gazette» and other works, it was possible to establish hitherto little-known facts from the history of Joint Distribution Committee and Agro-Joint Corporation, which vividly characterize their humanitarian and restorative activities in the specified period.

Between familiarity and strangeness: Russian Jews in Josep Sabah’s letters from the coast of Entre Ríos

This article analyzes the correspondence exchanged between Josep Sabah, a teacher originally from the Ottoman Empire, and the leaders of the Alliance Israélite Universelle and the Jewish Colonization Association, institutions that had sent him to Argentina to found a network of Jewish schools in several towns in the province of Entre Ríos, from 1894 to 1922.
 In the first place, we focus on the contradictory ways through which this cultured Jew, educated in French and Sephardic schools, represents the new settlers sent from Russia to Argentina by the Jewish Colonization Association. Second, we focus on the self-rendering of this teacher in his letters, and on the tensions between the expectations of his employers, the demands of the settlers and the gradual disenchantment with the conditions of life in his adopted country.

“Again you will plant vineyards”

Studies of prophecy in the context of Judaism have predominantly attended to how messianic sects react when prophecies fail to be fulfilled; they have drawn on the concept of cognitive dissonance to explain how such setbacks tend to bolster rather than weaken belief. Less attention has been paid to how subjects react to and live with the perceived fulfillment of prophecy. This article describes religious Jewish winemakers in West Bank settlements whose phenomenal experience of meta-historical time in the temporal frame of ge’ula, redemption, displaces the precarity and uncertainty of the contemporary settlement projects, renders the moral and political stakes of the occupation less disturbing, and fosters hope for a prosperous future. The temporal consequences of lived prophecy for the settlers can be understood as “temporal dissonance,” characterizing the disjuncture between the harsh reality of the political present and the prophesied idyllic future.

(مورفولوجيّة) السكن في محافظة القدس في ضوء التحديات (الديموغرافيّة) والسياسيّة

This study aims at focusing on the change that occurred in the morphological and demographic characteristics of the population of the Jerusalem governorate during the period from 1997-2022, and its impact on the housing situation, and to identify the indicators of the housing problem and its impact on the residents of the Jerusalem governorate, especially the Holy City.
 Among the most important results: that since the occupation's control over Jerusalem in 1967, it has been practicing a series of continuous policies and procedures aimed at creating a Jewish majority in the city, and fragmenting Palestinian lands, starting with settlement projects, the apartheid wall, and complete control over the city. Classified Area C and other actions.
 The Palestinian urban expansion collides with the accelerating colonial colonialism, which is practiced by the occupation in order to fragment the Palestinian lands. This affected the morphology of the urban environment and exacerbated the housing crisis. It seems that political détente is a prerequisite for improving the economic situation and housing development.
 Despite the ongoing Judaization policy in Jerusalem, the Palestinians in Old Jerusalem constitute an absolute majority of 91.4%, compared to 8.6% for the Israeli occupiers, and the percentage of the Palestinian population in East Jerusalem exceeded 60.42%, compared to 39.58% for the Israeli settlers.
 Among the most important recommendations: that the difficult reality in the governorate of Jerusalem and the city of Jerusalem and its suburbs requires smart and rational initiatives and strategies by Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims to face challenges through political pressure on the occupation to stop its occupational procedures, and reinforce the steadfastness of the Palestinians by maintaining their demographic superiority, and solving various problems facing the Palestinians; By developing the institutional and professional capacity of the various sectors of sustainable development.

Israel’s One-State Reality and The Challenge Of Democratization

Decades of massive Israeli settlement of the West Bank reflect a fundamental transformation of Israel from a state with a social democratic ethos to one dominated by a militantly nationalist political culture. Consequently, the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem has become unattainable. De facto Israeli rule of the entire country between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea is not a one-state solution but a one-state reality. The remaining path to a better future for both Jews and Palestinians is the democratization of that state. Factors that can contribute to this process are considered. The struggles and political emancipation of blacks in the United States, Irish Catholics in the United Kingdom, and women in most industrial democracies, suggest this process is likely to take decades or generations rather than months or years, but early signs of change are apparent.

Brief Synopses of New Arabic-Language Publications

Brief Synopses of New Arabic-Language Publications

Popular Resistance against Israeli Territorial Expropriation: Beita as a Model

AbstractThe Israeli‐Palestinian conflict dates back to the early 1930s. The most crucial factor that prolongs it and prevents any glimmer of hope is Israel's insistence on displacing the Palestinians from their lands and implanting Israeli citizens in their place. Motivated by inference theory, this study aims at investigating the latest wave of popular civil resistance against territorial expropriation in the town of Beita. The study shows that territorial confiscation is carried out systematically by Israeli settlers, aided by the army. It also shows that Beita's nonviolent approach to resistance enhances its legitimacy domestically and internationally and encourages a wider base of grassroots participation. Beita has always employed popular types of civil resistance, such as weekly protests and night‐confusion tactics at Jabal Sabih, to defend itself and expel settlers. Despite the high price Beita has paid and the settlers’ evacuation of the outpost, the Israeli military has turned the site into a base. The conclusion is that popular civil resistance has the potential to challenge occupiers in a powerful way.

Community social work in Palestine: from resilience to national resistance

In the absence of a national Palestinian state and in response to the oppressive daily practices of the British Mandate government, the Israeli settlers’ colonial occupation and the Arab governments that ruled the West Bank and Gaza between 1950 and 1967, the Palestinian community has had to create and develop a set of indigenous resilience strategies. Muslih (1993) and Faraj (2017) refer to all these strategies as ‘A’mal Ejtima’y’, or ‘popular social work’, characterised by collectivism, public participation and non-hierarchical design, which has played a role in mobilising masses and facilitating youth engagement in the decolonisation process. Despite more than a century of existence of this form of social work in Palestine, it has received marginal or no attention from formal social work education and research. Recent years have witnessed some indications of the ‘resurrection’ of community social work in its very popular version.

In the shadow of settlement – the Israeli Progressive Scholars’ critical analyses of the decision-making policies of the Israeli Supreme Court sitting as the High Court of Justice

This article, drawing heavily on Kretzmer’s and Ronen’s newly edited and expanded book, analyses the approaches of the Israeli Supreme Court (SC) to petitions relating to the occupied Palestinian territories. Its purpose is to examine how the SC’s judicial policies can be considered to cohere with the demands of international humanitarian law (IHL) of occupation and those of international human rights law (IHRL). After dwelling on some interpretive issues relating to Article 43 of the Hague Regulations, this article classifies three salient patterns of the SC’s judicial policies: (1) the SC’s approach of applying very controversial interpretations in some areas; (2) its judicial policy based on the mixture of restrictive interpretations and some liberal tendencies in other areas; and (3) its willingness to develop in yet other areas some pioneeringly progressive jurisprudence, which can provide lessons even for the monitoring bodies of IHRL. This article shows that as with Kretzmer and Ronen, the SC’s controversially deferential stance tends to be discernible whenever issues touch on the right-wing Israeli government’s policies of settlement in the occupied Palestinian territories and on the rights of Israeli settlers in those territories. These issues provide the invisible barriers to any progressive potentials of the SC’s judicial policies.

“Then and Now”: The Making of a Visual Frontier

Abstract This article explores the role of the visual field in establishing and expanding the frontier of Jewish settlement in pre-state Palestine. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Zionist funds, including the Jewish National Fund and the Foundation Fund, among others, produced and distributed visual material in an ideologically controlled way that was meant to resonate with American audiences deeply invested in their own frontier mythologies. Through an examination of the work of formative Zionist photographers Abraham Soskin and Zoltan Kluger, as well as visual forms found at the Jewish Palestine Pavilion in the 1939–40 World's Fair in New York, the author identifies three central tenets of frontier building that wove their way through the Zionist visual field: transformation, citizenship, and security.

A village a field? Agronomic evaluation of fruit trees in inhabited space – Lessons for land use policy from a case study in Israel's Sharon Region

The global need to intensify sustainable food systems in the face of growing demands and environmental pressures calls for innovative solutions. With the growth of worldwide urbanization and the expansion of inhabited spaces, it is time to evaluate the opportunities for food production within settled environments. The literature shows a growing public interest in urban agroforestry in general and fruit trees in particular. This study aimed to assess whether fruits grown in inhabited areas can contribute a considerable food supply to local residents. The 1779 fruit trees in a rural settlement in Israel were surveyed as a case study. Trees included 503 subtropical, 713 citrus, 245 deciduous, 109 nut, and 209 olive trees. Of the 40 ha study site area, 53% was plantable land, of which a land equivalent to 14.25 % was utilized for fruit trees. The potential contribution of the community fruit trees in relation to the national fruit consumption per capita per annum (PCPA) was estimated at olive 72 %, nuts 83 %, subtropics 154 %, citrus 115 %, and deciduous 11 %. When considering the magnitude of fruit production within the studied community, it can be concluded that, to a considerable extent, a village may also be an orchard - a field.

Occupation, colonisation, and apartheid tourism in Israeli settlements in occupied palestine

ABSTRACT The Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem has classified Israel as an ‘apartheid regime’ for the first time in its history of documenting human rights violations in occupied Palestine, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. The primary goal of this conceptual paper is to investigate Israel's exploitation of Palestinian tourism and international complicity by focusing on critical examples of international companies and businesses that contribute to the business of Israeli colonisation by confusing tourists and exploiting a lack of knowledge. The study finds that Israel abides by the concept of apartheid in international law, which involves inhumane acts carried out by one racial group to create and retain dominance over any other racial group of people and systematically oppress them.