When Israel’s pioneers came to Palestine in the late 1800s and early 1900s, no one had ever heard of a partition plan or a green line. The term “West Bank” wouldn’t be invented until the late 1940s; people called the region on the western side of the Jordan River “Judea and Samaria,” the region’s religious and historical name.
To those early pioneers, to the ruling Ottoman Empire and the British, and to the Arabs living on the land, there was no difference between Jericho in the East and Ashdod in the West. It was all part of one land, Eretz Yisrael to the Jews and the region of Palestine to the non-Jews.
The United Nations Partition Plan called for the land of Israel to be divided, with Judea and Samaria being designated for an Arab state. The Arabs rejected their own state, never declared their independence, and allowed Jordan to illegally occupy their land while they willingly took Jordanian citizenship. After Israel won the Six Day War, they completed their return to the land of Israel of their ancestors and began to resettle Judea and Samaria.
The historically Jewish cities of Jerusalem, Beit El, Hebron, and Shilo were once again populated by their indigenous citizens, the Jewish people. New towns, built in areas never before inhabited by human beings, were built by pioneering Jews. My own town of Mitzpe Yeriho, standing on a mountain overlooking the biblical city of Jericho, was constructed on a barren hill, never before settled by any humans, and flourishes today. Hundreds of thousands of Jews have returned to the heartland of the Jewish homeland and the land has flourished since their return.
The Arab world colored these Jews as evil. They, along with some misguided anti-pioneering Jews, branded the pioneering Jews “settlers.” This name was meant to connote the illegal and nefarious nature of the Jewish return to Judea and Samaria. These Jews, the Palestinian Arabs and their advocates claimed were settlers and must be removed. Palestinians became easily confused. Having been taught their entire lives that the Jewish state had no right to exist and that Jews in Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Netanya were also settlers, they began referring to all Israeli Jews as settlers.
The world tried to take a more nuanced approach. They ignored the Palestinian’s intransigence and consistent rejection of offers for an independent state on the land originally proposed for them by the United Nations, turned toward terrorism instead of negotiations, and labeled the Jewish towns as settlements and an impediment to peace.
They began to create artificial classifications of settlements: some were illegal, some legal, some hilltop, others part of “major blocks,” etc. The international community called them illegal. The Carter administration considered them illegal, while the Trump and Biden administrations maintained there was nothing illegal about them per se.
Other American administrations wouldn’t legally classify them but called their continuous expansion problematic and unhelpful and considered them a major cause of the continuation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
MAJOR JEWISH organizations tried ignoring settlements and settlers. They took “no stance” on the issue or tried threading the needle between Jews having every right to live in all of their ancestral homeland while condemning the expansion of towns that were impeding peace. They tried painting settlers as extreme and on the fringe of Israeli society – not a segment of the population to pay any attention to when trying to understand Israel.
These organizations never invited settler leaders or their residents to speak. When they planned trips and missions to Israel, they’d cross over the Green Line and stand on mountaintops overlooking Jewish towns in Judea and Samaria, but never enter the towns or talk to actual settlers. They’d claim their trips gave a comprehensive view of the land and its people and pointed to their visits with Palestinian activists and leaders in Ramallah as their widespread perspectives. Yet they never actually met with the settlers or their leaders.
The disproportionate number of settlers in the IDF fighting in Gaza
These organizations, their members, and the pro-Israel community remained ignorant of one of the fastest-growing segments of the Israeli population. These Jews are shell-shocked as the pictures of Israeli soldiers felled by Palestinian terrorists in Gaza consistently show a disproportionate number of soldiers who come from settlements as opposed to the rest of Israel’s population.
By being kept in the dark about the Jews of Judea and Samaria, they never learned that these Jews’ passionate dedication to Israel led them to disproportionately populate Israel’s elite fighting forces. In their coloring of settlers as “extreme” and on the fringe, they never understood the truth – settlers are some of Israel’s best and brightest citizens.
The battlefield isn’t the only arena on which settlers have begun flexing their muscles and making their presence known. Settlers and their parties are playing a significant role in the Israeli government as well. Their parties, and parties that align with their views, have been winning more and more seats in the Knesset. Meanwhile, the traditional “anti-settler” parties have fallen below the threshold or won few seats and are having little influence on Israeli policy. American organizations visiting Israel, who want to understand the forces influencing Israeli strategy, would be better off meeting with settler leaders than with the old Meretz and Labor Party leaders who wield little to no influence in today’s Israel.
In recent budget allocations, settlers have won billions of shekels for their security and projects. Building in Judea and Samaria is growing at exciting levels, and for the first time, ten settlements, formerly considered illegal by Israel, were designated as legal towns by the Israeli government. The settler community is anything but on the fringe of Israeli policy, government, or society. The Jews of Judea and Samaria have become one of the strongest forces in Israeli policy today.
The Jews of Judea and Samaria are the embodiment of the pioneering spirit the Jews of the Yishuv demonstrated 100 years ago when they too were branded as “settlers.”
The spirit they bring to Israel is a healthy force in today’s Israel. The Zionist and pro-Israel communities should be proud of the dedication the settler community contributes to Israel today. The Jews of Judea and Samaria are here and we’re not going anywhere.
The writer is a certified interfaith hospice chaplain in Jerusalem and the mayor of Mitzpe Yeriho, Israel. She lives with her husband and six children.