How Israel's Settler Movement is Creating a New Generation of Terrorist Youth

Ma'ale Adumim - an illegal settlements in the occupiedWest
Bank where settlers receive a variety of government subsidies 

Much has been said, and rightly so, of HAMAS' brutal terrorism during its October 6, 2023 attack on Israel. But HAMAS terrorists are not the only practitioners of ethnically and religiously based violence. Over the past 3 decades, the West Bank Settler Movement has become ever more strident in pursuing its goal of expelling all Palestinians from the West Bank of the River Jordan. 

Increasingly, the vehicle for this goal for expelling Palestinians from the West Bank is the youth who live in the settlements or are drawn from poor backgrounds. Inspired by the far-right and ultra nationalist ideology of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane's Kach Movement, and the rightward drift of Israeli governments since 2000, especially under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, violence against Palestinians, seizure of their lands and curtailing their rights has increased dramatically. 

Will the West Bank Settler Movement be successful in its efforts to create a "Palestinian rein" West Bank and East Jerusalem? Will the settler movement be able to thwart a peaceful resolution of the Israel-Palestine dispute? These are critical questions being raised by many countries around the world as they seek to promote the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, with a shared capital in Jerusalem (the western sector for Israel, the eastern for the Palestinian state).

Complicity - a Two State "Dis-solution" Israel's West Bank settlements began to be constructed soon after the June 1967. Under the Allon Plan (named after then Israeli Minister of Labor), settlements were established in East Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley for strategic reasons.  The Jordan Valley was to be annexed and the Etzion Bloc of settlements outside East Jerusalem was meant to shield the city from an Arab attack from the East.

However, the construction of civilian settlements was illegal. Moving citizens into conquered territory is a war crime under the Fourth Geneva Convention. Nevertheless, no Israeli government nor the United States, its closest ally and major funder of foreign and military aid, has committed to ending the establishment of illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian land. 

Thus, 2 states - Israel and the United States - have been complicit in preventing the solving of the Israel-Palestine dispute though a two state solution (as dictated by the United Nations Resolution 181 of November 1947 creating one Arab and one Jewish state in historic Palestine). With the exception of the Trump administration, successive US administrations have supported this outcome verbally, but have done little, beyond expressing dissatisfaction, to prevent the building of further settlements and expansion of existing ones.  

It is true that Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush did withhold military aid in the form of American fighter jets briefly to express dissatisfaction at Israeli policy towards the Palestinian people.  However, these actions were temporary and not part of a long term policy to prevent the expansion of West Bank settlements and establish an independent Palestinian state. 

Jimmy Carter's rightfully lauded Camp David Accords established diplomatic ties between Egypt and Israel.  But the Accords completely excluded any effort to establish a Palestinian state or, at least, shield Palestinians from settlers appropriating their land. Bill Clinton's support of secret negotiations which led to the 1993 Oslo Accords and effort to create a Palestinian state as he was about to leave office in 2000 represent the only instance where an American president sought to create meaningful peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

Israel's shift to the right A major change occurred in 1977 in Israeli politics when the right wing Likud Party ousted the Labor Party which had ruled Israel since 1948.  Whereas the Labor Party had supported settlements in the West Bank for strategic more than ideological reasons - particularly in the Jordan Valley and on the eastern edges of Jerusalem - Likud promoted settlement building explicitly to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.

The so-called Drobles Plan (named after settler and Knesset member, Matityahu Drobles, but also referred to as the Sharon Plan) changed the focus of settlement placement.  Under the guise of increasing Israel's security, the plan was actually intended to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state. 

The Likud government began building settlements from north to south in the West Bank in the hilly regions to divide the region and prevent the Palestinians from creating a geographically contiguous nation-state. Bypass roads running from settlements in the East to Israel were closed to Palestinians and further divided the West Bank because Palestinian north-south traffic was forced to travel around them.

Under the Likud, ultra nationalist religious zealots were encouraged to seize Palestinian land because Judea and Samaria, the names drawn from the ancient Israelite kingdoms which were now used to referred to the West Bank, were given to the Jewish people by God.

The development of the Gush Emunim (Bloc of the Faithful) in 1974 created a network of settlements which lobbied for greater support from the state to dramatically increase the number of settlements. The movement took Israel's victory in the June 1967 War as a sign that God desired establishing a Jewish theocracy in the land of Israel (Eretz Yisrael)

Building on the invented religious interpretation of Rabbi Abraham Yitzhak Kook and his son Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook, who argued that the founding of a secular Jewish state of Israel had ushered in a transition to a Messianic state, the Gush Emunim aggressively worked to create new settlements with the goal of eliminating Palestinians from East Jerusalem and the West Bank. (For an analysis of Gush Emunim, see my: Religion Against the State: The Political Economy of Religious Radicalism in Egypt and Israel). 

In the beginning of 2023, there were 144 settlements in the West Bank and a 100 unauthorized "outposts."  The settler movement has grown steadily since Israel's victory in the June 1967 Arab-Israeli War when it seized East Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Golan Heights and the Sinai Peninsula. Settlements have continued to expand through the seizure of Palestinian land.Extremist settlers in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem: Council sanctions four individuals and two entities over serious human rights abuses against Palestinians 

According to B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, an Israel-based observatory of settler violence, settlers have forced at least 18 Palestinian communities — over 1,000 people — to flee their homes since October, 2023. Over 500 Palestinians have been killed. Shocking spike in use of unlawful lethal force by Israeli forces against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank

In addition to building new settlements on land expropriated from Palestinians, settlers have destroyed farm land and homes, and uprooted crops. In this process, youth who live in illegal settlements have become ever more violent.

The idea of establishing local or community-based reserve units — which are known as Hagmar in Hebrew — reflects a long-standing Israeli security strategy. Since its establishment, Israel has operated under the notion of lacking "strategic depth," as it has a small population size and limited resources while being surrounded by hostile forces Civilians or Soldiers? Settler violence in the West Bank

Who are the extremist youth? The Hill Top Youth (Noar Ha-Gava'ot) have been in the forefront of establishing illegal settlements on the tops of hills in the West Bank in densely populated Palestinians areas.  A loose coalition of groups, it is led by Tova Kahane, (Meir Kahane's daughter) and Rabbi Mordechi Ettinger, a settler extremist whose actions have led him being barred from the West Bank.

The goal of extremist groups like the Hill Top Youth (referred to by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and other Israeli officials as terrorists) is to create a Greater Israel which is devoid of all but its Jewish population. Their extreme religious nationalist ideology is driven by extremist rabbis who assert that all Palestinians must be removed from Israel or killed. 

Although difficult to estimate the exact number of "Hill Top Youth," a 2009 report indicated 800 core members with 5,000 supporters.  Some youth are recruited from hardscrabble neighborhoods in Jerusalem and taken to "rehabilitation centers" in the West Bank.  There they are encouraged to engage in anti-Palestinian violence. With Israel in turmoil, its ‘lost boys’ are helping stoke extreme right-wing nationalism

The Hill Top Youth have created numerous encampments. On many occasions, these encampments have been dismantled by the Israeli army.  However, in many other cases, the encampments or outposts were eventually approved by the Israeli government and thus became legitimate settlements in the eyes of the state (although still illegal under international law).

Another extremist organization is Lehava ("Flame," but also an acronym for LiMniat Hitbolelut B'eretz HaKodesh: Prevention of Assimilation in the Holy Land). An offshoot of Meir Kahane's Kach Party, it is active in Israel in fighting assimilation, inter-faith marriages and preventing all relations between Jews and Arabs, whether personal or professional.  While more active in Israel proper, it has been active in trying to oust Arabs from East Jerusalem. ‘Break Their Faces’: As anti-Arab Attacks Spike, Jewish Supremacist Group Plans Jerusalem Show of Force 

What are the"price-tag" attack on Palestinians in the occupied territories The Hill Top Youth claim by terrorist youth that Palestinians living on Jewish land, i.e., in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, must pay a price for residing there. This idea developed after Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005 and dismantled 18 settlements there.

The Hill Top Youth conduct attacks which have destroyed olive trees (which take 40 years to bear fruit) and crops, and burned cars and homes. They have also intimidated Palestinians, especially farmers living in remote areas far from Palestinian cities and towns. A Bitter Season in the West Bank

Palestinian cars destroyed by a Hill Top Youth
"price-tag"attack near the city of Ramallah

Although only one fatality, a 3 year old Palestinian girl killed in in 2012, had been documented before HAMAS brutal attack on October 7, 2023, the number of Palestinians on the West Bank who have been killed since the Gaza War began has risen sharply, especially after far right Minister of National Security and agent provocateur, Itamar Ben Gvir, distributed 10,000 rifles to West Bank settlers. Ben Gvir made clear that violence against Palestinians woud not bring a government response.

The seizure of hilltops in densely populated Palestinian areas and the "price-tag" attacks are meant to place more stress on the Israeli military (IDF) and security forces serving in the West Bank. The Hill Top Youth reject the Israeli state and the IDF. They want to tear down the entire secular structure of the Israeli state and society and replace it with a theocratic, authoritarian state (much like radical Islamists who have organized in Muslim majority countries such as Egypt and Syria).IDF freezes operations of ‘hilltop youth’ unit linked to anti-Palestinian violence.

As for the new Israeli state, it would follow the dictates of the radical Rabbis who guide the extremist youth groups, such as Rabbis Yitzhak Shapira and Yitzhak Ginzburg in the most violently anti-Palestinian settlement, Yizhar, near the Palestinian city of Nablus. 

In Yizhar, yeshivas (religious seminaries), such as Od Yosef Chai (Joseph Still Lives), teach extremist ideology to youth in the settlement. In 2013, settlers destroyed Palestinian homes to expand Yizhar while IDF forces protected them. State-sponsored Vigilantism: Jewish Settlers’ Violence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories

From Labor Zionism to terrorist violence When Israel was founded in May 1948, its political system was based on an uneasy balance between a left leaning collectivist and secular Zionism, embodied in two political parties, the Labor Party (MAPAI) and MAPAM, and religious Zionism, led by the National Religious Party (MAFDAL).

This accommodation, in which Labor Party governments controlled security and defense, and religious party leaders controlled education and personal status law, was overturned in the 1977 parliamentary elections when the right wing Likud Party ended Labor Party's political hegemony. Led by Menachem Begin, head of the terrorist Irgun Zvai Leumi (National Military Organization) which was founded in the 1930s, the Likud coalition, reflecting a right wing, ultra nationalist Zionism, now ruled Israel. 

Begin was a follower of Ze'ev Jabotinsky (1860-1940), the founder of Revisionist Zionism and an admirer of Mussolini. The Irgun attacked British and United Nations officials in Palestine prior to Israel's founding. It was responsible for the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in July1946. Begin ordered the attack because the hotel's south wing contained the British civilian administration of Palestine. The bombing killing 91 people. 

The rise of Likud produced a dramatic expansion of settlements in the West Bank. More settlements led to the rise of settler political movements such as Gush Emunim (and Amana, its settler arm).  Over time, settler politics became more extreme, e.g., with the rise of Kach and the Kahane movement. Extremist clerics and settler activists radicalized youth, especially those in settlements.  The Hill Top Youth, and the affiliated gangs it spawned, are the result.

As we see among radical Islamists and Christian nationalist, what they call secularism is the font of all that's wrong with the world today. Democracy must be abolished, along with the institutions which support it.  A false God will be called upon to decide society's future (as defined by the interpretation of self appointed interpreters of divine messages and injunctions).

Numerous Israelis, including politicians from the center-left, journalists, progressive political activists, members of the peace camp and academics, have been arguing since the 1970s that Israel cannot be rule occupied lands and the people who live there and remain a democracy.  We now see that their prognosis is on its way to coming true. 

(For the latest analysis of the West Bank Palestinians and the problems they confront, see Nicholas Kristof, A Message From the West Bank: ‘We Are Coming to Horrible Days’, New York Times, June 29, 2024