The Irrepressible Expansion of Gush Etzion

The connection between Israel’s newest settlement and one of the most tragic episodes of 1948

Last week, the Israeli government approved the first new settlement since 2017, Nahal Heletz, south of Jerusalem. It will take years for it to be built, as zoning plans and construction permits still must be obtained, but the decision is still of significance. Of particular interest is the decision to include it within the boundaries of the Gush Etzion (‘Etzion Bloc’) Council.  

The original Gush Etzion bloc took shape in the 1940s, in an area southwest of Jerusalem designated part of the Arab state in the UN Partition Plan. The area had initially been settled by Yemenite Jews in 1927, who had formed a community called Migdal Eder, but this was destroyed by Arabs during the 1929 riots. On the eve of the War of Independence, Gush Etzion comprised four isolated communities - Kfar Etzion (1943), Massu’ot Yitzhak (1945), Ein Tzurim (1946), and Revadim (1947) – which suddenly found themselves under siege and were cut off from Jerusalem.

Strategically, the area was untenable, but it wasn’t evacuated, based on the principle that every Jewish settlement should defend itself until the last man (last week I learned that members of my wife’s kibbutz, Beit Zera, took this principle so seriously that they refused to provide shelter for members of a nearby kibbutz that was closer to the frontline). In Gush Etzion’s case, Benny Morris writes that military figures also thought that it siphoned off Arab fighters from the battle for Jerusalem, and the area could be used to target Arab traffic between Hebron and the capital. They were only able to hold out for a few days, though. Just before the declaration of independence, on May 13, 1948, Kfar Etzion surrendered. Subsequently, 127 Jewish inhabitants were massacred by local irregulars, with some involvement by the Arab legion (there is debate as to exactly who was responsible for the massacre; in any case those who survived only did so because they were rescued by Legion officers). One survivor described what happened:

[Arab soldiers] ordered [us] to sit and then stand and raise our hands. One of the Arabs pointed a tommy gun at us and another wanted to throw a grenade. But others restrained them. Then a photographer with a kaffiya arrived and took photographs of us…An armored car arrived…When the photographer stopped taking pictures fire was opened up on us from all directions. Those not hit in the initial fusillade…ran in various directions. Some fled to the [central] bunker. Others took hold of weapons. A mass of Arabs poured into the settlements from all sides and attacked the men in the center of the settlement and in the outposts shouting wildly ‘Deir Yassin.’

Almost all the men and women were murdered. The other villagers surrendered the next day; while there were no further massacres, the residents were taken prisoner, and their houses plundered and burned.

What happened at Gush Etzion is critical for understanding why Israelis reject the characterization of the events of 1948 as one in which the Palestinians were victims and the Jews perpetrators. Rather, the Israeli characterization is that the war was one in which both sides sought to conquer as much territory as possible, in the process expelling the other side, as was common in the 1940s. The reason this happened more to the Palestinians isn’t because they were more innocent but because they lost the war; in the few areas where the Arabs won, the Jews were also driven off their land. And yet today everyone has heard of the Deir Yassin massacre, while few outside Israel have heard of its counterpart in Gush Etzion.

The psychological impact of the massacre and the desire to return resulted in a rebuilt Kfar Etzion becoming the first Jewish settlement to be built in the West Bank a few months after victory in the Six-Day War, with Revadim and Rosh Tzurim (on the former site of Ein Tzurim) following in 1970. Today, Gush Etzion has more than 20 settlements, including its capital Efrat, which was founded in 1983. To build these settlements, thousands of acres of territory were declared “state land,” denying Palestinians access to their farmland and choking the western Bethlehem hinterland.

Hillel Bardin and Dror Etkes have written that “using the name “Gush Etzion” allowed the public to overcome its general resistance to settling Israelis in the occupied West Bank” and it’s true that Israelis tend to think differently about Gush Etzion than they do places like Kiryat Arba (a settlement adjacent to Hebron with a reputation for Kahanism). This is reflected in the area’s growth over recent decades, creating the false impression that every settlement in the regional council is somehow connected by a thread to the original pre-independence nucleus of settlements. Even the settlements of Tekoa, Nokdim, and Kfar Eldad (which I wrote about here) are administered by the regional council, where together they are often known as ‘Eastern Gush Etzion,’ a formulation which hides the fact that they are separated from the rest of the settlements by Bethlehem.

Now Nahal Heletz stands to join ‘Northern Gush Etzion,’ with only the settlement of Har Gilo separating it from Jerusalem. Its establishment is being depicted as the government’s response to PA measures against Israel and the unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state by several European countries (which also included the retroactive legalization of four illegal outposts), and, bizarrely, as a quid pro quo to Smotrich and the far-right for taking financial measures to prevent the PA’s collapse. The settlement is located on the Nevi Ori Farm, which was founded following the 2019 rape and murder of 19-year-old Ori Ansbacher in the area (outposts are often built in response to terror attacks).

More specifically, the planned settlement is located in the middle of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Palestine – Land of Olives and Vines – Cultural Landscape of Southern Jerusalem, Battir, 11 square kilometers between Husan, Battir, and Walaje, and the towns of Beit Jala and el-Khader, which was inscribed for its unique cultural and agricultural landscape, evidence of thousands of years of human activity (and, presumably, as a political gesture of support for the Palestinians). Nor is Nahal Heletz the first settler “disruption” in the area, as there is already the Ain Bardamo/Battir outpost, attempts to take over land in Wadi al-Makhrour, and the settlement of Sde Boaz to the south.

Peace Now have argued that Nahal Heletz is deliberately designed to interrupt Palestinian territorial contiguity as part of Israel’s “de facto annexation” of the West Bank: “The settlement that will be established will be an enclave in a Palestinian zone, and will bring about friction and security challenges.” Smotrich seems to concur, saying: “Connecting Gush Etzion and Jerusalem by establishing a new settlement is an historic moment. No anti-Israelism or anti-Zionism will stop the continued development of the settlements. We will continue to fight the dangerous idea of a Palestinian state, and establish facts on the ground. This is my life’s mission.”  

According to the Oslo Accords, this is a “conservation area” that Israel was supposed to transfer to Palestinian control, while the Palestinians would be forbidden from building on it. This transfer never took place, with the government deciding to demolish Palestinian construction in this area, arguing that it damages the local nature (it has not, of course, taken similar measures towards Israeli construction). In a Whatsapp message I saw from a settlement group, the reaction was jubilant. After years of the government only increasing settlement inside the blocs, now, according to Peace Now, a settlement would form a “wedge” between two Palestinian population centers, thus threatening the viability of a Palestinian state. “A million [Jewish] residents in Judea and Samaria would be nice, but only capturing open areas outside of the settlement blocs will determine the result of the battle!” the message concluded.

In the grand scheme of things, though, the decision to create Nahal Heletz is not so dramatic. The reason there is no Palestinian state on the horizon is because most Israelis are opposed to it, even more so after October 7. The right accuses the left – partly correctly – of naivety for thinking that Palestinian statehood is the only way to guarantee Israel’s security but is equally guilty of naivety for claiming they can permanently subjugate the Palestinians and expand settlements without paying a cost. This is historically and empirically false.