Jewish Settlers

Artykuł rozpocznie krótkie wprowadzenie dotyczące osadnictwa żydowskiego na Zachodnim Brzegu Jordanu (dalej: ZBJ) oraz samej społeczności osadników. Bliżej scharakteryzowany zostanie segment religijnosyjonistyczny tej społeczności oraz stanowisko jego przedstawicieli w kwestii żydowskiego osadnictwa i konfliktu bliskowschodniego. W dalszej części artykułu znajdzie się próba oceny, czy radykalne ugrupowania motywowanych religijnie osadników posiadają potencjał, aby w sposób skuteczny kształtować politykę Izraela bądź innych aktorów w regionie. Tym samym analiza będzie kolejnym głosem w dyskusji na temat roli aktorów pozapaństwowych w konflikcie bliskowschodnim.

Israel’s settlement policy in the West Bank represents a crucial issue in the Israeli– Palestinian conflict. Through the examination of a single case study—the planning history of the Jewish settlement of Ma’ale Adummim, located in the eastern periphery of the city—the paper addresses the complex nexus between planning and state-building practices; building on Henri Lefebvre’s theory of space, he offers an account of the role of Israel’s settlement policy in the transformation of the material, symbolic, and political landscape of the metropolitan area of Jerusalem. My main argument is that the observation of the development of large suburban communities in the metropolitan area—a blind spot both in media and in academic discourse—is crucial for our understanding of the settlement policy as a whole, and its impact on Israeli–Palestinian relations.

This practice-based research was born out of the short documentary, My  Kosher Shifts, which was made for a Master’s in Documentary Practice at Brunel University, London. The film was shot in an ultraorthodox Jewish hotel in
London, in which the filmmaker worked as a receptionist and used an experimental documentary method to capture her interactions with random guests. The success of this documentary method, which was reflected in the ease with which subjects opened-up to the filmmaker and to the camera, encouraged this practice-based research and the further exploration of the method via the production of two more films, in two different communities. For this purpose, a number of key elements were identified in the filmmaking method of My Kosher Shifts, including: the filmmaker’s occupation of a customer service position; the abandoned camera technique (the use of fixed unmanned recording devices); the interaction with subjects through conversation rather than interview. Two films were produced for the following research, which aims to apply the method with these key elements: Women in Sink, was shot in a Christian-Arab hair salon in Israel, where the filmmaker took the position of hair washer for the purpose of making the film; Café Tekoa was shot in a West-Bank Jewish settlement in which the filmmaker was unable to gain a position in a local business and instead conversed with subjects in a pop-up café/studio in the commercial centre of the settlement.

The research demonstrates that where there is a harmony between the filmmaker and the community, the method outlined above works to effectively create immediate and intimate interaction with subjects, as shown in Women in Sink and My Kosher Shifts. However, when there is a conflict or dissonance between the community and the filmmaker – as occurred during the production of Café Tekoa – the immersion of the filmmaker into the community and her immediate interaction with random subjects may become difficult to establish or sustain. The following research suggests additional adjustments that could be made by the filmmaker in order to address and overcome these issues. Moreover, the research sheds light on artistic and ethical processes within the documentary practice, from the perspective of the filmmaker.

“Merkaz HaRav” yeshiva, became in the last 30 years the most influential institute within religious-Zionism. It inspired generations of Rabbis, educators and politicians in Israel .”Merkaz-HaRav was founded by The key historic figure in the religious-Zionist worldview, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Hakohen Kook (1865-1935). Rabbi Kook developed a complex political theology that combines universalism and Jewish particularism .According to Rav Kook, Jewish politics should be part of the spiritual and holly nature of the Jewish people. His friend and pupil, rabbi Jacob Moshe Harlap(1883-1951),transformed his Rabbi’s philosophy towards extreme particularistic political theology that stressed the uniqueness of the Jewish nation. His total rejection of western liberal individualistic and universalistic worldview had great influence on future generations . The leading thinker of this school of thought today, Rabbi Zvi Tau (1936-) developed a profound messianic political theology that stresses Jewish nationalistic elements. He sees the peace process as a consequence of the corrupted western liberal strong influence on Israeli culture. And yet he opposes any acts of violence against Israeli government’s decision to withdraw from historic land of Israel.

One, important, reason driving recent instability in the Middle East is the influence of Western powers on local actors. In the first half of the 20 th century the UK and France held significant sway; during the Cold War the US and USSR were dominant. After the Cold War, the US emerged as the sole, dominating foreign actor in the region. What commonality was shared among all penetrating powers? The strategy of divide and rule was widely deployed. Such a policy was introduced by various means: supporting segments of local populations (especially Arab Christians), polarising local communities against each other and through direct settler activities. This policy was efficient in the short-term but proved destabilising in the long-term. This work takes a critical, birds-eye view at the evolution of engagement in the region and offers insights into the problems produced by such approaches as well as the net benefactors and losers.

The central focus of this book is the Zionist concept of place. The work attempts to uncover its intellectual and religious sources at a theoretical level and then continue to reveal the way in which it is manifested at the cultural-political level in daily life.
The concept of place is a central tool in better understanding Zionist ideology and in particular the settlement project. Using a variety of interdisciplinary methodologies, the author focuses on the discourse analysis as a way to deconstruct the Zionist enterprise.
Zionism is understood here as a cultural-political ideology that is fed by a variety of religious, historical, political, intellectual and ethno-cultural interpretations. The author argues that the liberal and Marxist fields of knowledge fail to explain the Arab-Israeli conflict in general terms, since these frameworks do not make place and time central to their analyses. Instead, these schools of thought focus almost exclusively on the market and economic situation of human life, ignoring the important ways in which place and time impact social life, social change and political realities.
Departing from these dominant fields of knowledge, one of the main assumptions of this book is that Judaism, as a cultural-historical and religious product, deals with the dimension of place in an ambivalent way. On one side, Judaism deals with the human condition as a spiritual one and interprets the “Land of Israel” as a religious transcendental condition—and not as a territorial or geographical site or political field. On the other side, key interpretations of Judaism, especially in modern times, focus on the centrality of the “Land of Israel” solely in terms of territory as it is understood in materialistic modern era.
The first attempt to interpret the phrase "Land of Israel" in terms of geography, territory and sanctity occurred or held by Yehuda Ha-Levi (1080? Toledo, Spain-1145? Palestine), but geography of that times did not was Sacred and developed by some religious Muslims as a tool to understand the sacred characters of the holy lands (Historical Syria and Mecca). Ha-Levi was much influenced by this Sacred Geography and tried to analyze and understand the holy characters of the "Land of Israel". For Ha-Levi, "Land of Israel" was a sacred site and a territorial land at the same time.       
According to the author, Zionism, in the shadow of modernity, destroys this ambivalence, the contradictory or supplemented sacred-profane meanings by reinterpreting the relationship to the land as both territory and spiritual necessity, but in its profane meanings.
Settlement is one of the key ways in which this new interpretation of modern Judaism is manifested. Settlement embraces what were once two conflicting dimensions of Judaism, bringing them into one. This book uses the Misgav Regional Council inside the green line in the Galilee as a case study of settlement that embodies this new Judaism.
The first chapter, "Spectra of Place – Spectrums of Judaizing Palestine", explores the theoretical framework of the dialectical relationship between humanity and place, focusing on the Zionist ideology and its enterprise. This chapter goes on to analyze the main territorial concepts of Zionism and Judaism, emphasizing its relevance to deeper understanding of Zionism in theory and practice.
The second chapter, "Settling the Galilee", surveys the Zionist settlement in the Galilee from its first steps and showing its aims and tools.
Chapter three, "Territorialization and Judaization of the Place", explores the foundations of the "Misgave Regional Council" project, revealing its key aims and the discourse that accompanied it.
Chapter Four, "Types of Spatial Behavior," explores the spatial behavior of the settlers living in the "Misgav Regional Council" at political, social and cultural levels.
ISBN: 965-90573-7-7

Based on Henry Lefebvre's theoretical scheme of spatial analysis, the article examines the growth of Ma'aleh Adumim as a triangle between policy definitions, professional planning and daily space. The present research discourse focuses on the ideological aspects of the founders and residents of the settlements and their geopolitical role. This article examines how the settlements are becoming a promising space for the middle class - a space that offers affordable housing, accessibility, security, modern urban planning and a rich daily life. An examination of the ties between Jerusalem and Ma'aleh Adumim reveals a complex picture: Maale Adummim is considered part of the Jerusalem metropolitan area in every functional aspect and part of the daily lives of its residents, yet it differs from Jerusalem in its sense of security. Paradoxically, the main threat in the eyes of the residents of Ma'aleh Adumim is not the Palestinians; Instead, they find protection and escape from urban phenomena such as crime, dirt and uncertainty, and in the Jerusalem context, none of what is perceived as an ultra-Orthodox takeover of the urban space.

Through depictions of the landscape in the literary works of contemporary Jewish National-Religious poets and writers, ambivalence in their relationship towards their natural and man-made surroundings is laid bare. The implementation of the Israeli Occupation on the West Bank has rendered a profound impact on the landscape; yet for fundamentalist Jewish settlers - who prescribe to the promise of redemption that will mark the unification of Jews, God and the land -  such unity is desired yet unattainable. In the reading of these texts, the landscape takes on the qualities of Jacques Lacan’s 'object a', that is both a surplus of the Real and testimony to its absence. Coveted and resented, pure and profane, inclusive and alienating – the portrayed spaces and places of Occupation allude to prevalent binary poles that also open themselves to Bruno Latour’s investigation on the nature of factishes. As a factish, the landscape portrayed becomes a bridge between what humans are, and what they desire. Through the prism of these two very different approaches the depicted landscape of Occupation that emerges from these texts is one that borrows from Zionist ideology and yet carves for itself its own niche. In its relationship with the land and the landscape, Jewish fundamentalism is not yet another manifestation of a national ideology (though it both feeds from and is fed by it), but is propelled by the desire to lay claim to the Lacanian notion of the longed-for 'Real'. In these as yet relatively unstudied texts, the landscape of Occupation maps the landscape of its writers’ pleasures and pains and that of perpetual desire.

Since 1967, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have been engaged in various military missions in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including occasional high-intensity fighting and counter-insurgency, as well as civilian duties, such as administration and policing. While existing literature emphasizes the organizational and professional burden this combination of duties places on the military, the actual forces that shape soldiers’ policing practices in the field remain largely unexamined. The present article offers a micro-sociological examination of the patterns of military policing implemented by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank. It explores the social and political forces that shape soldiers’ ‘logics of action’ and demonstrates the reciprocal relations between the IDF's disparate modes of policing of Jewish settlers and Palestinians. Three clusters of factors shape these interrelations: the relationships between soldiers and settlers, the blurring between ‘security’ and ‘civilian’ missions, and situational variables. The research for this article was conducted between 2004 and 2018.

The development of the E-1 area - sitting between the JEwish settlement of Ma'ale Adummim and the city of JErusalem - is seen as a ‘doomsday device’ that can make or break the Israel-Palestine two-state solution. Despite its significance, however, it is merely one of many factors indicating that, for all the self-deception, it might already be too late.