Gush Emunim
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Template:Israelis Gush Emunim גוש אמונים (Hebrew: "Block [of the] faithful") was an Israeli political movement. The movement sprang out of the conquests of the Six-Day War in 1967, though it was not formally established as an organization until 1974, in the wake of the Yom Kippur War. It encouraged Jewish settlement of land they believe God has alloted for Jews.
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Political affiliations
Gush Emunim was closely associated with, and highly influential in, the Mafdal - National Religious Party (NRP), the party which is identified with religious Zionism. These days they refer to themselves and are referred to by the Israeli media as Ne'emanei Eretz Yisrael נאמני ארץ ישראל (Hebrew: "Those who are loyal/faithful to the land of Israel").
History
In 1968, a group of future Gush Emunim members led by Rabbi Moshe Levinger began a squat in the middle of the West Bank town of Hebron. This squat, illegal under both international and Israeli law, was initially opposed by the Israeli government. However, it was eventually transformed into the settlement Kiryat Arba on the outskirts of Hebron. In 1974, following the shock of the Yom Kippur War, the organization was founded more formally, by students of the younger Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook, who remained its leader until his death in 1981.
Gush Emunim activists commenced a series of publicity campaigns, including mass protests and dramatic, high-profile attempts at avoiding the Israeli security forces' roadblocks to establish settlements. These campaigns eventually succeeded in establishing a settlement in Sebastia.
Though initially opposed by Yitzhak Rabin's Labor Party government, the settlement was accepted de facto. It was later legalized by Prime Minister Menachem Begin's Likud government, in 1977. However, Gush Emunim came into conflict with the Likud over other matters, mainly the handing over of the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt as part of the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty, and the demolition of all Jewish settlements in that area.
Gush Emunim was supported by many religious Zionists, as well as some secular Zionists - such as the famous poet Naomi Shemer.
Ideology
Gush Emunim beliefs are based heavily on the teachings of Rabbi Abraham Kook and his son, Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook. The two rabbis taught that secular Zionists, through their conquests of Eretz Israel, had unwittingly brought about the beginning of the "messianic age", which would end in the coming of the Jewish messiah. Gush Emunim supporters believe that the coming of the messiah can be hastened through Jewish settlement on land they believe God has alloted to the Jewish people as outlined in the Hebrew Bible.
Related articles
Further reading
- Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel by Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky.
External links
- For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel (http://www.sas.upenn.edu/penncip/lustick/index.html) by Ian Lustick, 1988.
- Gush Emunim (Orthodoxy Map) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gush_Emunim) by Eliezer Segalde:Gush Emunim