The Changing Faces of Israel’s Settlement Movement

Unbeknownst to many of the politicians and journalists who debate and report on it from across the world, Israel’s settlement movement has changed substantially in recent years. What emerged little more than half-a-century ago as a small, idealistic band of religious farmer-soldiers has grown into a vast and varied network of nearly half-a-million Israelis living in more than 130 cities and towns. Though many of these settlers continue to identify with the ideology of the movement’s founders, they have been joined by a large and growing population of secular nationalists, ultra-Orthodox Ḥaredim, and other, non-ideologically aligned groups. Even among the settlers who still identify with the originating brand of religious Zionism, there is no longer a definitive understanding of that worldview or a generally recognized religious authority who could establish one.

There is, in other words, no longer a settlement movement, but rather a broad and growing coalition of pro-settlement groups, uneasily cooperating to advance the interests of an increasingly heterogenous settler population.

This transformation has been largely obscured from public view by both advocates and critics of the settlements who have similarly strong incentives to paint the settlement movement monolithically, insisting that it is entirely composed of either pioneering romantics or ultranationalist fanatics. The confusion is worsened by a complacency on the part of even unbiased commentators who have simply grown comfortable discussing the settlements in overly broad and antiquated terms. As a result, the public discourse surrounding the settlements often serves to perpetuate an understanding of the settlers that, while not wholly irrelevant, is in desperate need of revision.