Summary
Yesha, based in the settlement of Ofra, the closest thing Gush Emunim has had to an overall representative body: an association of West Bank and Gaza settlement regional councils that lobbies for settler interests, coordinates zoning and development, and publishes the monthly journal Nekuda (For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Chapter 3, lines 2800-3000).
Details
- Yesha began as an association of representatives from regional councils established by groups of West Bank and Gaza settlements with Ministry of Interior assistance, and developed into a coordinative organization lobbying government ministries, the military government and Jewish Agency offices, providing administrative resources and political guidance to settlements, and playing a key role in designing zoning and development plans for expansion of Jewish settler access to land and regulation of Arab municipal growth (For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Chapter 3, lines 2800-2950).
- In December 1979 it launched Nekuda (Point), a monthly journal edited by Yisrael Harel, also Yesha’s general secretary, which quickly became the primary forum for settler opinion and the in-house deliberation of all salient issues confronting Gush Emunim; its first issue dealt extensively with the Supreme Court decision that had dismantled Elon Moreh (For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Chapter 3, lines 2850-3000).
- In August 1984 Yesha adopted detailed bylaws identifying the Yesha Council as “representing the settlers and settlements of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, in the public political arena on a non-partisan basis” (For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Chapter 3, lines 3150-3300).
- In August 1981 Yesha passed resolutions urging West Bank and Gaza settlers to join the Movement to Halt the Retreat in Sinai, and it cooperated closely with the Likud government before the 1981 elections to establish settlements and seize land (For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Chapter 3, lines 2900-3100).
- After the April 1984 arrests of the Jewish Underground, Yesha first issued statements on the unacceptable nature of the alleged behaviour, then, under attack from within Gush Emunim for its “hasty” condemnation, threw its support behind moral, financial and political support for the defendants, and in July 1985 joined their families in demanding a blanket pardon (For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Chapter 3, lines 3450-3560).
Related pages
For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Gush Emunim, Amana, Elon Moreh, Jewish Underground