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Symbolism and landscape: the Etzion bloc in the Judean mountains

Authors :
Yossi Katz
John C. Lehr
Source :
Middle Eastern Studies. 31:730-743
Publication Year :
1995
Publisher :
Informa UK Limited, 1995.

Abstract

In the early 1940s, the Jewish National Fund (JNF) acquired lands south of Bethlehem in a region that later became known as the Etzion bloc. In the years that followed, the JNF and the Settlement Department of the Jewish Agency established a bloc of settlements on these lands that included four kibbutzim: Kfar Etzion (1943), Massuot Yitzhak (1945), Ein Zurim (1946), and Revadim (1947). These were the only Jewish settlements in the area between Jerusalem and Hebron. During the War for Independence, in 1948, these settlements were abandoned and destroyed, and a total of about 220 people lost their lives almost all the male residents of Kfar Etzion as well as other Jewish defenders who had joined them. Nineteen years later, following the conquest of this territory by Israel in the Six Day War, the children of those who had been killed at Kfar Etzion appealed to the government to return to their homes, and to re-establish first and foremost Kfar Etzion. This effort, finally given governmental approval, became the vanguard of the movement to resettle the Etzion block, which, by Summer 1995, had a population of 9,000 and comprised three kibbutzim, four community settlements, and a town. The motivation in 1967 for resettling the Etzion bloc the first area in Judea and Samaria to be settled after the Six Day War was not primarily ideological, political or security-related, as was the establishment of other settlements in Judea and Samaria. The renewal of settlement in the Etzion bloc its goals, location, and the form it took should be understood in the context of its symbolic significance for the children of those who were killed there, the survivors of the bloc, and the Israeli public in general, and is related to the massive loss of life during the War for Independence and the accompanying trauma. The symbolism of Etzion bloc can also explain the long-held and prevalent view among many Israelis that consensus exists in Israel about the need to keep the Etzion bloc in Israeli hands in any kind

Details

ISSN :
17437881 and 00263206
Volume :
31
Database :
OpenAIRE
Journal :
Middle Eastern Studies
Accession number :
edsair.doi...........b7aa0c47ed9eab186a1c638218493be1
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1080/00263209508701077