Lords of the Land tells the tragic story of Jewish settlement in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In the aftermath of the 1967 war and Israel's devastating victory over its Arab neighbors, catastrophe struck both the soul and psyche of the state of Israel. Based on years of research, and written by one of Israel's leading historians and journalists, this involving narrative focuses on the settlers themselves -- often fueled by messianic zeal but also inspired by the original Zionist settlers -- and shows the role the state of Israel has played in nurturing them through massive economic aid and legal sanctions. The occupation, the authors argue, has transformed the very foundations of Israel's society, economy, army, history, language, moral profile, and international standing. "The vast majority of the 6.5 million Israelis who live in their country do not know any other reality," the authors write. "The vast majority of the 3.5 million Palestinians who live in the regions of their occupied land do not know any other reality. The prolonged military occupation and the Jewish settlements that are perpetuating it have toppled Israeli governments and have brought Israel's democracy and its political culture to the brink of an abyss."

The Israeli settler movement plays a key role in Israeli politics and the Arab-Israeli conflict, yet very few empirical studies of the movement exist. This is the first in-depth examination of the contemporary Israeli settler movement from a structural (rather than purely historical or political) perspective, and one of the few studies to focus on a longstanding, radical right-wing social movement in a non-western political context. A trailblazing systematic assessment of the role of the settler movement in Israeli politics writ large, as well as in relation to Israel's policy towards the West Bank, this book analyzes the movement both as a whole and as a combination of its parts (i.e. branches) - institutions, networks, and individuals. Whether you are a student, researcher, or policymaker, this book offers a comprehensive and original theoretical framework alongside a rich empirical analysis which illuminates social movements in general, and the Israeli settler movement in particular.

Our Promised Land takes readers inside radical Israeli settlements to explore how they were formed, what the people in them believe, and their role in the Middle East today. Charles Selengut analyzes the emergence of the radical Israeli Messianic Zionist movement, which advocates Jewish settlement and sovereignty over the whole of biblical Israel as a religious obligation and as the means of world transformation. The movement has established scores of controversial settlements throughout the contested West Bank, bringing more than 300,000 Jews to the area. Messianic Zionism is a fundamentalist movement but wields considerable political power. Our Promised Land, which draws on years of research and interviews in these settlements, offers an intimate and nuanced look at Messianic Zionism, life in the settlements, connections with the worldwide Christian community, and the impact on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Selengut offers an in-depth exploration of a topic that is often mentioned in the headlines but little understood.

Most research and analyses of Israel’s settlement enterprise has focused on the usage of particular paragraphs in the Geneva Convention. For over 50 years Israel has refuted the usage of the Geneva Convention with regards to its settlements. Doing so, the more relevant question arises on what laws, governance, and regulations, is of importance in understanding Israelis behavior? If one accepts the premise that Israel is occupying some areas, and as an occupying force is forbidden to change laws from previous sovereign, it becomes relevant as to what the laws are and how are they being followed. The aim with this book is to go deeper to understand the rationale behind Israeli land policies. This book is not necessarily a full rejection of the arguments that have been advocated by different scholars that seek to brand Israel’s settlement enterprise as illegal, nor is it to be understood as a full acceptance of those arguments at hand. Rather, I want this book to show nuances in an infective question. The idea is to give the reader an insight into the arguments made by Israel and its judiciary which has not been properly addressed nor researched about through earlier scholars. By including stories about personalities such as Rabbi Menachem Froman & Shabtay Bendet, this book aims to fulfill its purpose of not politicizing the Israeli settlement enterprise through one particular understanding.

Since 1967, more than 60,000 Jewish-Americans have settled in the territories captured by the State of Israel during the Six Day War. Comprising 15 percent of the settler population today, these immigrants have established major communities, transformed domestic politics and international relations, and committed shocking acts of terrorism. They demand attention in both Israel and the United States, but little is known about who they are and why they chose to leave America to live at the center of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In this deeply researched, engaging work, Sara Yael Hirschhorn unsettles stereotypes, showing that the 1960s generation who moved to the occupied territories were not messianic zealots or right-wing extremists but idealists engaged in liberal causes. They did not abandon their progressive heritage when they crossed the Green Line. Rather, they saw a historic opportunity to create new communities to serve as a beacon—a “city on a hilltop”—to Jews across the globe. This pioneering vision was realized in their ventures at Yamit in the Sinai and Efrat and Tekoa in the West Bank. Later, the movement mobilized the rhetoric of civil rights to rebrand itself, especially in the wake of the 1994 Hebron massacre perpetrated by Baruch Goldstein, one of their own. On the fiftieth anniversary of the 1967 war, Hirschhorn illuminates the changing face of the settlements and the clash between liberal values and political realities at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Joyce Dalsheim's ethnographic study takes a ground-breaking approach to one of the most contentious issues in the Middle East: the Israeli settlement project. Based on fieldwork in the settlements of the Gaza Strip and surrounding communities during the year prior to the Israeli withdrawal, Unsettling Gaza poses controversial questions about the settlement of Israeli occupied territories in ways that move beyond the usual categories of politics, religion, and culture. The book critically examines how religiously-motivated settlers think about living with Palestinians, how they express theological uncertainty, and how they imagine the future beyond the confines of territorial nationalism. This is the first study to place radical, right-wing settlers and their left-wing and secular opposition in the same analytic frame. Dalsheim shows that the intense antagonism between these groups disguises fundamental similarities. Her analysis reveals the social and cultural work achieved through a politics of mutual denunciation. With theoretical implications stretching far beyond the boundaries of Israel/Palestine, Unsettling Gaza's counter-intuitive findings shed fresh light on politics and identity among Israelis and the troubling conflicts in Israel/Palestine, as well as providing challenges and insight into the broader questions that exist at the interface between religiosity and formations of the secular.

The peace agreement between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization gives us hope for the future of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, but no one expects the transition to be easy. Who are the Jewish zealots who care so deeply about retaining that land for their own? Robert I. Friedman, a prize-winning journalist, takes a hard, close look at the legacy of the controversial policy of building settlements in the Occupied Territories.