GUSH EMUNIM

Gush Emunim: translation

(Bloc of the Faithful)

A movement that promotes the establishment of JewishsettlementsinJudea,Samaria, andGazaas a means of promoting retention of these areas, especially theWest Bank. It is an aggressive settlement movement that combinesreligiousfundamentalism and secularZionismto create a new political force. Its leaders assert a biblically based Jewish claim toJudea and Samaria. Gush Emunim became active after theSix-Day War(1967) in establishing Jewish settlements in theOccupied Territories, but it was not until after theYom Kippur War(1973) that it organized politically in order to oppose territorial concessions and to promote the extension of Israeli sovereignty over the Occupied Territories.

The founding meeting of Gush Emunim took place in 1974 at theEtzion Bloc(Gush Etzion). Among those playing leading roles in the movement's founding wereRabbi Moshe Levinger, the leader of theKiryat Arbasettlers; Hanan Porat, one of the revivers of Jewish settlement in Gush Etzion; RabbiHaim Druckman, an educator who was one of the leaders of theBnei Akivareligious youth movement and subsequently became a member of theKnesset; Rabbi Eliezer Waldman; and Rabbi Yohanan Fried.

Gush Emunim began as a faction within theNational Religious Party(NRP), but because of distrust of the NRP's position concerning the future of Judea and Samaria, the movement left the party and declared its independence.The Gush Emunim members, mostly yeshiva graduates, rabbis, and teachers, launched an information campaign to explain their position. Gush Emunim has since refused to identify with anypolitical partyand has gained a unique political status. During the tenure of the government ofYitzhak Rabinfrom 1974 to 1977, Gush Emunim protested the disengagement agreements withEgyptandSyria, staged demonstrations in Judea and Samaria to emphasize the Jewish attachment to those parts of the land of Israel, and engaged in settlement operations in the Occupied Territories. Gush Emunim's primary commitment is to settlement beyond the 1949armistice agreementdemarcation lines, which had served as the de facto borders between Israel and theJordanian-annexed West

Bank and between Israel and the Egyptian-administered Gaza Strip and Sinai from 1949 to 1967. Gush Emunim has continued to push for settlements in all parts ofEretz Israel.

Gush Emunim's spiritual authorities and political leaders were educated in Yeshivat Merkaz Harav, whose founder wasAvraham Yitzhak Hacohen Kook, the firstAshkenazichief rabbi of Eretz Israel. Kook believed that the era of redemption for the Jewish people had already begun with the rise of modern Zionism and the growing Zionist enterprise inPalestine. Israel's victory in the Six-Day War transformed the status of Kook's theology. It seemed clear to his students that they were living in the messianic age and believed that redemption might be at hand. Kook's views were expounded by his son,Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook, who succeeded him as the head of Yeshivat Merkaz Harav.

Gush Emunim has become a highly complex social and institutional system comprised of a settlement organization, regional and municipal councils, and independenteconomiccorporations. Its spiritual leadership is composed of distinguished rabbis and scholars. Though a powerful force in Israeli politics, Gush Emunim never organized itself into a political party that would vie for seats in the Knesset. Increasingly, its interests in this regard were represented by the NRP, which by the 1980s had entered into a close political association with the settler community in the West Bank generally and with the Gush Emunim in particular. Prominent rabbis and members of Gush Emunim were among the most vociferous opponents ofPrime Minister ArielSharon'sunilateral disengagementfrom the Gaza Strip and parts of the northern West Bank completed in August 2005.