Gush Emunim

{{Infobox political party

| name = Gush Emunim

| native_name = {{Nobold|{{Script/Hebrew|גּוּשׁ אֱמוּנִים}}}}

| name_alt =

| logo = File:Gush Emunim.png

| logo_alt =

| colorcode = black

| leader = Zvi Yehuda Kook (1974-1982)

| successor = Yesha Council

| wing1_title = Armed body

| wing1 = Jewish Underground

| wing2_title = Settlement body

| wing2 = Amana

| wing3_title = Political party

| wing3 = National Religious Party

| president =

| chairperson =

| secretary =

| general_secretary =

| first_secretary =

| secretary_general =

| presidium =

| governing_body = Hanan Porat
Moshe Levinger
Shlomo Aviner
Menachem Froman
Yoel Bin-Nun
Yaakov Ariel

| standing_committee =

| spokesperson =

| founder = Zvi Yehuda Kook
Haim Drukman

| dissolved = Ceased operations by 2010

| founded = {{start date and age|1974|02|}}

| headquarters =

| ideology = Neo-Zionism
Religious Zionism
Jewish messianism
Jewish fundamentalism
Halachic state
Settler interests

| religion = Orthodox Judaism

| international =

| website =

| country = Israel, West Bank, Gaza Strip

}}

Gush Emunim ({{langx|he|גּוּשׁ אֱמוּנִים}}{{ltr}}, lit. "Bloc of the Faithful") was an Israeli ultranationalist{{cite magazine |title= World: Two Standards of Justice |magazine=Time |date= 21 August 1978 |quote= High on a hilltop above the valleys of the West Bank, 35 families belonging to Israel's ultranationalist Gush Emunim are building a new settlement named Beth-El. They claim that 120 Jewish families are waiting to move into the settlement, nine miles north of Jerusalem, in territory that Israel has occupied since the 1967 war. There are plans for schools, a religious study center, an industrial area and even a holiday resort. |url=https://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,919803,00.html |access-date= 5 June 2022}} religious Zionist{{cite book |surname= Aran |given= Gideon |chapter= Jewish Zionist Fundamentalism: The Bloc of the Faithful in Israel (Gush Emunim) |chapter-url={{Google books|id=qd5yzP5hdiEC|plainurl=y|page=265|keywords=|text=}} |editor-surname=Marty |editor-given=Martin E. |editor-link=Martin E. Marty |editor-surname2=Appleby |editor-given2=R. Scott |editor-link2=R. Scott Appleby |year=1991 |title=Fundamentalisms Observed |series=The Fundamentalism Project, 1 |place=Chicago, Il; London |publisher=University of Chicago Press |pages=265–344 |url={{Google books|id=qd5yzP5hdiEC|plainurl=y|page=}} |isbn=0-226-50878-1}} Orthodox Jewish{{cite book |author=Sprinzak, Ehud |chapter= From Messianic Pioneering to Vigilante Terrorism: The Case of the Gush Emunim Underground |year= 2013 |title= Inside Terrorist Organizations |editor= David C. Rapoport |publisher= Routledge |pages= 194-215 [see 194] |isbn= 978-1135311780 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9d79AQAAQBAJ&pg=PA194 |access-date= 25 April 2025}} right-wing fundamentalist activist{{cite journal |last1= Kedem |first1= Peri |last2= Bilu |first2= Amos |last3= Cohen (Lizer) |first3= Zila |title= Dogmatism, Ideology, and Right-Wing Radical Activity |date= March 1987 |volume= 8 |number= 1 |journal=Political Psychology |publisher=International Society of Political Psychology |pages= 35–47 |doi=10.2307/3790985 |jstor= 3790985 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3790985 |access-date= 25 April 2025|url-access= subscription }} movement committed to establishing Jewish settlements in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights.{{cite web |last= Sprinzak |first= Ehud |title= Fundamentalism, Terrorism, and Democracy: The Case of the Gush Emunim Underground |date= 16 September 1986 |url=http://www.geocities.com/alabasters_archive/gush_underground.html |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20040628121411/http://www.geocities.com/alabasters_archive/gush_underground.html |archive-date= 28 June 2004}} Originally presented for discussion at a colloquium at The Wilson Center on 16 September 1986. Gush Emunim, as of 2010, had never been formally disbanded,{{Cite book |last= Taub |first= Gadi |title= The settlers: and the struggle over the meaning of Zionism |year= 2010 |publisher= Yale University Press |location= New Haven |isbn=978-0-300-16863-1 |doi= 10.12987/9780300168631 |s2cid= 246119479 |oclc= 806012532 |url= https://www.degruyter.com/doi/book/10.12987/9780300168631}} but it has nevertheless officially ceased to exist.{{cite web |last= Allen |first= Katherine |title= The Ideological Resonance of Zionist Fundamentalism in Israeli Society |date= 15 June 2005 |url=http://www.sais-jhu.edu/sebin/q/t/ReligiousZionismAllen.pdf |access-date=28 February 2013 |url-status=bot: unknown |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120316194140/http://www.sais-jhu.edu/sebin/q/t/ReligiousZionismAllen.pdf |archive-date= 16 March 2012}} Final paper in Behavioral Sociology of Identity Conflict, Spring 2005, at the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University.{{page needed |date= April 2025}}

While not formally established as an organization until 1974 in the wake of the Yom Kippur War, Gush Emunim sprang out of the conquests of the Six-Day War in 1967, encouraging Jewish settlement of the land of Israel based on two points, one religious and one practical. The religious point was a belief that, according to the Torah, God wants the Jewish people to live in the land of Israel and had returned lands such as the biblical Judea and Samaria as an opportunity for the Jewish people to return to their ancestral homeland.Analyses of Gush Emunim have been carried out by David Newman. See:

D. Newman, "Gush Emunim", Encyclopaedia Judaica Decennial Yearbook, 1994, pp. 171-172, Keter Publishers.
D. Newman, "Gush Emunim: Between Fundamentalism and Pragmatism", Jerusalem Quarterly, 39, 1986, pp. 33-43.
{{Cite journal |last= Newman |first= David |author-link= David Newman (political geographer) |title= From Hitnachalut to Hitnatkut: The Impact of Gush Emunim and the Settlement Movement on Israeli Society |year= 2005 |journal=Israel Studies |volume= 10 |issue= 3 |pages= 192–224, 204 |doi= 10.1353/is.2005.0132 |s2cid= 35442481 |issn= 1527-201X |url= https://muse.jhu.edu/article/189534|url-access= subscription }}.
See also T. Hermann & D. Newman, "Extra Parliamentarism in Israel: A Comparative Study of Peace Now and Gush Emunim", Middle Eastern Studies, 28 (3), 1992, pp. 509-530.{{cite book |last= Klein Halevi |first= Yossi |author-link= Yossi Klein Halevi |chapter= Like Dreamers |orig-year= 2013 |editor= Yehuda Kurtzer |editor2= Claire E. Sufrin |title= The New Jewish Canon |year= 2020 |series= Emunot: Jewish Philosophy and Kabbalah |pages= 221–226 |publisher= Academic Studies Press |jstor= j.ctv1zjg9h6 |doi=10.2307/j.ctv1zjg9h6.40 |isbn= 978-1-64469-360-5 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1zjg9h6.40 |access-date= 25 February 2022}} The second point stemmed from a concern that the pre-1967 borders, a mere {{convert|10|km|mi|1|abbr=on}} wide at its narrowest point, were indefensible, especially in the long term, and it was therefore necessary to ensure that the land captured in the Six-Day War remained under Israeli control by creating a Jewish presence in the region and placing "facts on the ground".{{Cite web |title= Israel – Geography |website=U.S. Library of Congress |url=http://countrystudies.us/israel/34.htm}} While Gush Emunim no longer exists officially, vestiges of its influence remain in Israeli politics and society.Encyclopaedia Judaica: Volume 8, p. 145

Political affiliations

Gush Emunim was closely associated with, and highly influential in, the National Religious Party (NRP). In the late 1980s, they referred to themselves – and were referred to by the Israeli media – as Ne'emanei Eretz Yisrael {{Script/Hebrew|נאמני ארץ ישראל}} (English: "Those who are loyal/faithful to the Land of Israel"). It also had a close relationship with the Jewish Agency.{{cite book |last= Lustick |first= Ian S. |author-link= Ian S. Lustick |chapter= 3: The Evolution of Gush Emunim |title= For the land and the Lord: Jewish fundamentalism in Israel |year= 1988 |publisher= the Council on Foreign Relations |location=New York |via= upenn.edu |isbn= 0876090374 |chapter-url= http://www.sas.upenn.edu/penncip/lustick/lustick13.html |access-date= 25 April 2025}} Pages 42-71 ([https://books.google.com/books?id=dD-1Nm6NTHQC&pg=PA42 p. 42 here] at Google Books).

History

Gush Emunim was founded by students of Zvi Yehuda Kook in February 1974 in the living room of Haim Drukman,Lustick (1988), p. [https://books.google.com/books?id=dD-1Nm6NTHQC&pg=PA63 63].{{cite book |last= Gorenberg |first= Gershom |author-link= Gershom Gorenberg |title= The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967-1977 |year= 2006 |publisher= Times Books, Henry Holt & Co. |page= 356 |isbn= 0805082417 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZpYvMW4PYuMC}} who is also credited with coining the term. For the founders of the organization, the Yom Kippur War confirmed what Kook already argued before the outbreak of the Six-Day War: that Jewish settlement in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights was required to hasten the process of redemption.{{Cite book |last1= Hirsch-Hoefler |first1= Sivan |title= The Israeli Settler Movement: Assessing and Explaining Social Movement Success |last2= Mudde |first2= Cas |year= 2020 |publisher= Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge, United Kingdom |oclc= 1228051086 |isbn=978-1-316-48155-4 |page= 64 |doi= 10.1017/9781316481554 |s2cid= 229385277 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=Ln-QzQEACAAJ&pg=PA64 |access-date= 25 April 2025}} In addition to Drukman, its ideological and political core consisted of other students of Zvi Yehuda Kook such as Hanan Porat, Moshe Levinger, Shlomo Aviner, Menachem Froman, Eliezer Waldman, Yoel Bin-Nun, and Yaakov Ariel.Lustick (1988), p. [https://books.google.com/books?id=dD-1Nm6NTHQC&pg=PA73 73]. Kook remained its leader until his death in 1982.

In 1974, an affiliated group named Garin Elon Moreh, led by Menachem Felix and Benjamin (Beni) Katzover,{{Citation needed |date= October 2024}} attempted to establish a settlement on the ruins of the Sebastia train station dating from the Ottoman period. After eight attempts and seven removals from the site by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), an agreement was reached according to which the Israeli government allowed 25 families to settle in the Kadum army camp southwest of Nablus/Shechem. The Sebastia agreement was a turning point that opened up the northern West Bank to Jewish settlement.Lustick (1988), pp. [https://books.google.com/books?id=dD-1Nm6NTHQC&pg=PA45 45]-46. The small mobile home site housing 25 families eventually became the municipality of Kedumim, one of the major settlements in the West Bank. The Sebastia model was subsequently copied in Beit El, Shavei Shomron, and other settlements.{{Citation needed |date= October 2024}}

In 1976, Gush Emunim founded the settlement-building arm Amana, which soon became independent and is still active. That same year, Gush Emunin held a two-day march through the West Bank with around 20,000 people joined the march. In 1979-80, a group of members from Gush Emunim radicalised and formed the Jewish Underground. This organization conducted several terror attacks and plotted to blow up the Dome of the Rock.{{Cite journal |last= Sprinzak |first= Ehud |title=From messianic pioneering to vigilante terrorism: The case of the gush emunim underground |date=1 December 1987 |journal=Journal of Strategic Studies |volume= 10 |issue= 4 |pages= 194–216 |issn= 0140-2390 |doi= 10.1080/01402398708437321 |url=https://doi.org/10.1080/01402398708437321|url-access= subscription }} The uncovering of the terrorist organization led to a severe blow to the settler movement's reputation. Following the crisis, Gush Emunim's role as the formal umbrella organization of the settler movement was gradually taken over by the Yesha Council, although Gush Emunim, as of 2010, never formally ceased to exist. Despite being rooted in Gush Emunim, the Yesha Council is considered more practical and pragmatic than its predecessor.Hirsch-Hoefler & Mudde (2020), p. [https://books.google.com/books?id=Ln-QzQEACAAJ&pg=PA75 75]. The Yesha Council, in its role as the political umbrella organization, and Amana, as the executive, settler-building branch, nowadays form the two main institutions of the settler movement.{{Citation needed |date= October 2024}}

Yoel Bin-Nun, one of the founding members of Gush Emunim, broke off from the organization in the aftermath of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin.

Ideology

The ideological outlook of Gush Emunim has been described as messianic, fundamentalist, theocratic, and right-wing.{{page needed |date= April 2025}}{{cite book |last= Frey |first= Rebecca Joyce |title= Fundamentalism |year= 2009 |publisher= Infobase Publishing |pages= 83ff. [see 85] |isbn= 978-1438108995 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=Qox1eQ94vJwC&pg=PA85 |access-date= 25 April 2025}}{{cite book |last= Inbari |first= Motti |title= Jewish Fundamentalism and the Temple Mount: Who Will Build the Third Temple? |year= 2012 |series= SUNY series in Israeli Studies |publisher=SUNY Press |pages= 10ff. [21] |isbn= 978-1-4384-2641-9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ls2twPMC1AcC&pg=PA10 |access-date= 25 April 2025}}{{cite book |last= Aldrovandi |first= Carlo |title= Apocalyptic Movements in Contemporary Politics: Christian and Jewish Zionism |year= 2014 |publisher= Palgrave Macmillan |pages= 117–121 [117–118] |isbn= 978-1137316844 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=mx-vAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA117 |access-date= 25 April 2025}}{{cite book |last= Masalha |first= Nur |author-link= Nur Masalha |title= The Bible and Zionism: Invented Traditions, Archaeology and Post-Colonialism in Palestine- Israel |year= 2007 |volume= 1 |place= London |publisher=Zed Books |page= 142 |isbn= 978-1842777619 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=LAUeWo8NDK4C&pg=PA142 |access-date= 25 April 2025}} Its beliefs were based heavily on the teachings of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook and his son, Zvi Yehuda Kook,{{cite book |last= Don-Yehiya |first= Eliezer |chapter= The Book and the Sword: the Nationalist Yeshivot and Political Radicalism in Israel |title= Accounting for Fundamentalisms: The Dynamic Character of Movements |year= 2004 |editor=Martin E. Marty |editor2=R. Scott Appleby |publisher= University of Chicago Press |pages= 264–310 [274] |series= The Fundamentalism Project (Vol. 4) |isbn= 0226508862 |chapter-url= https://books.google.com/books?id=XTDteHrDgfAC&pg=PA274 |access-date= 25 April 2025}}Hirsch-Hoefler & Mudde (2020), p. [https://books.google.com/books?id=Ln-QzQEACAAJ&pg=PA2 2]. who taught that secular Zionists, through their gaining of Eretz Israel, had unwittingly brought about the beginning of the Messianic Age, which would culminate in the coming of the messiah, which Gush Emunim supporters believe can be hastened through Jewish settlement on land they believe God has allotted to the Jewish people as set forth in the Hebrew Bible. The organization supported attempts to co-exist with the Arab population, rejecting the population transfers proposed by Meir Kahane and his followers.{{cite web |title= Gush Emunim |work= Lexicon |publisher=Knesset |year= 2008 |url=https://www.knesset.gov.il/lexicon/eng/gush_em_eng.htm}}{{dead link |date= April 2025}}

Impact

=Political impact=

The overall practical aim of preventing territorial compromise and annexation of occupied territories has only partly been accomplished. Prominent failures include the demolishing and evacuation of settlements in the Sinai peninsula following the Camp David Accords, the phased transfer of jurisdiction to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank as part of the Oslo Accords, and the 2005 Gaza Disengagement.{{Citation needed |date= October 2024 }}

Gush Emunim and its successors have successfully attracted billions of US dollars for the building and supporting of settlements. The 2005 Sasson Report revealed that the Ministry of Housing, the Ministry of Defense and the World Zionist Organization spent millions of shekels to support illegal outposts. Between 2013 and 2015, Amana received government funding of approximately 100 million shekels ($29 million).{{Cite news |title= Settlement group will need High Court consent to get funding |newspaper= Haaretz |url=https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-settlement-group-will-need-high-court-consent-to-get-funding-1.8344649 |access-date= 30 April 2021}} On 31 December 2019, the Israeli High Court of Justice decided that any government donations to the executive branch of the settler movement required approval from the court.{{Cite web |title= Breakthrough: Funding For Amana Will Now Be Overseen By The High Court Until A Verdict |date=31 December 2019 |website=Peace Now |url= https://peacenow.org.il/en/breakthrough-funding-amana-will-now-be-overseen-by-the-high-court-until-a-verdict |access-date=30 April 2021}}

The settler movement has successfully appealed to sentiments related to Israeli identity, making it difficult for government officials and political leaders on the right to distance themselves from the settlers.{{Cite journal |last= Mendelsohn |first= Barak |title=State Authority in the Balance: The Israeli State and the Messianic Settler Movement |date=1 December 2014 |url=https://doi.org/10.1111/misr.12159|journal=International Studies Review |volume= 16 |issue= 4 |pages= 499–521 |doi= 10.1111/misr.12159 |issn= 1521-9488|url-access= subscription }} Support for the settlement project has become mainstream in the US Republican Party,{{Citation needed |date= June 2024}} and almost all parties on the right of the political spectrum in Israel have settlers within its leadership.Hirsch-Hoefler & Mudde (2020), p. [https://books.google.com/books?id=Ln-QzQEACAAJ&pg=PA223 223].Newman (2005), pp. 192–224, 204.{{Cite book |last1= Zertal |first1= Idith |author-link1= Idith Zertal |last2= Eldar |first2= Akiva |author-link2= Akiva Eldar |title= Lords of the land: the war over Israel's settlements in the occupied territories, 1967-2007 |year= 2009 |orig-year= 2005 |publisher= Nation Books |location= New York |page= 235 |translator= Vivian Sohn Eden |isbn=978-0-786-74485-5 |edition= 1st |oclc= 694096363 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rds_DgAAQBAJ&pg=PA235

}} Page failed verification, 26 April 2025 (but edition is not the 1st). Settlers have been disproportionately represented in government positions. The 2013 government was dubbed the 'settler government' in a Haaretz editorial, due to the number of officials associated with the settler movement in powerful positions within the ministries of Housing and Defense.{{Cite news |title= The emergence of Israel's settler government |url=https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-editorial-settler-government-emerges-1.5234627 |access-date= 30 April 2021 |newspaper= Haaretz}} In October 2017, under the leadership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Pinchas Wallerstein, one of the founders of Gush Emunim, was appointed to head a new government committee created for the purpose of legalising illegal outposts and other types of unauthorised settlements in the West Bank.{{Citation needed |date= October 2024 }}

=Societal impact=

The establishment of Gush Emunim correlated with the revival of the Greater Israel ideology within the national religious community.{{Cite book |editor=Newman, David |title= The Impact of Gush Emunim: politics and settlement in the West Bank |year= 1985 |publisher= Croom Helm |location= London |isbn= 0709918216 |oclc= 59845481 |url= https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/59845481}}{{page needed |date= April 2025}} The settler movement is also accused of provoking a culture of violence, with the Israeli government condoning its actions.{{Cite journal |last= Gazit |first= Nir |title= State-sponsored Vigilantism: Jewish Settlers' Violence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories |date=1 June 2015 |journal= Sociology |volume= 49 |issue= 3 |pages= 438–45 |s2cid= 145652933 |doi= 10.1177/0038038514526648 |url=https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038514526648|url-access= subscription }} The perpetrator of the 1994 Hebron massacre as well as the assassin of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin were proponents of the Greater Israel ideology, with the latter being educated in the Gush Emunim-oriented Yeshivat Kerem B'Yavneh. The murder of Yitzak Rabin is widely regarded to have been a breaking point in the Oslo peace process.{{Cite journal |last= Rabinovich |first= Itamar |author-link= Itamar Rabinovich |title= The Rabin Assassination as a Turning Point in Israel's History |date= 2018 |journal= Israel Studies |volume= 23 |issue= 3 |pages= 25–29 |doi= 10.2979/israelstudies.23.3.05 |s2cid= 150349442 |issn= 1527-201X |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/699536|url-access= subscription }}

Since the founding of Gush Emunim in 1974, the number of settlers living in the West Bank has grown from close to zero in 1974 to approximately 440,000 in 2019. The number of settlements until 2020 stood at 132, and the number of illegal outposts at 135.{{Cite web |title= Population |website=Peace Now |url= https://peacenow.org.il/en/settlements-watch/settlements-data/population |access-date= 30 April 2021}}

References

External links

[http://www.IsraelNationalNews.com/article.php3?id=4792 Confessions of a Confused Religious Zionist]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20081205052801/http://www.myjewishlearning.com/ideas_belief/LandIsrael/modern_landisrael/ReligiousZionism/GushEmunim.htm Settling All the Land: The Birth and Growth of Gush Emunim] by Ed Snitkoff

Category:1974 establishments in Israel

Category:Political organizations based in Israel

Category:Orthodox Judaism in Israel

Category:Religious Zionist organizations

Category:Zionist organizations

Category:Jewish nationalism

Category:Jewish organizations established in 1974

Category:Words and phrases in Modern Hebrew