Gush Etzion
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Gush Etzion מועצה אזורית גוש עציון |
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| Territory : |
West Bank ( Judea and Samaria ) |
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| Community type : | Regional administration | ||
| Regional administration : | Gush Etzion | ||
| Founded : | 1980 | ||
| Coordinates : | 31 ° 39 ' N , 35 ° 7' E | ||
| Residents : | 20,000 (2012) | ||
| Mayor : | Shlomo Ne'eman | ||
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Gush Etzion ( Hebrew גּוּשׁ עֶצְיוֹן) (Etzion Block) is a group of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and a regional government in Judea and Samaria . The areas of the settlement block and regional administration are not completely identical. Gush Etzion is halfway between Jerusalem and Hebron .
history
First attempts to build settlements in the area of today's Gush Etzion failed in 1917-1919 and 1935-1936. The settlements were attacked during Arab riots and had to be evacuated. From 1943 four religious and secular kibbutzim (Kfar Etzion, Maasuot Jitzchak, Ein Tzurim and Rewadim) emerged, which together numbered around 450 men, women and children.
The four settlements, which were also known under the common name of the Etzion Block , found themselves exposed to violent Arab attacks soon after the UN partition plan for Palestine was passed , as they were an enclave in the part of Palestine that was reserved for a future Arab state . On December 10, 1947, a convoy from Bethlehem was attacked on the way to the Etzion block. 10 people were killed. On January 5, 1948, children and women were evacuated with British support, and in mid-January there was the first major military conflict:
“Serious defeat for the rebels in the Ezion Bloc. Of the defenders three killed and 14 wounded. In the Ezion bloc, the Arab "combat troops" suffered their worst defeat since the unrest began. It was a mass attack in which about 1000 Arabs took part, who were specially called up for the "holy war". Its aim was the conquest and destruction of the four Jewish settlements in the mountains of Hebron. The waves of attack by the Arabs repeated themselves for 24 hours. The security organs of the mandate government appeared only after the end of the fight. After the attempts of the preceding days to cut off communications with Jerusalem, the attack did not come as a surprise to the defenders. In the earlier riots, Kfar Ezion was known to have been evacuated, and the Arabs hoped to do the same this time too. With more than 100 dead and twice as many wounded, they paid for the failure of their plan, and left a lot of weapons on the battlefield. "
This victory, however, had no long-term significance and was already tarnished the next day by further victims: “An aid group from Jerusalem, consisting almost entirely of students, [...] wanted to reach Ezion in a roundabout way, but was betrayed, attacked and down to the last Man massacred. "
The last military conflict over the Etzion bloc took place in May 1948, and at Kfar Etzion there was one of two massacres carried out by the Palestinian-Arab side during the Palestine War: on May 13, 1948, after six months of siege and further bitter fighting, the last surrendered Defender of Kfar Etzion. More than 100 fighters were murdered after their capture by soldiers of the Arab Legion and members of local militias, three were rescued by Arab officers, and another was able to flee to Maasuot Jitzchak. The other settlements surrendered the next day. The residents were captured and the houses looted and burned.
In 1949 David Ben-Gurion paid tribute to the Jewish fighters in the Battle of the Etzion Block, which primarily served to protect Jerusalem, with the words:
“Four positions in the heart of enemy territory prevented them from approaching the city gates. Many, too many for us fell there. If there is a Jewish Jerusalem, then the greatest thanks in Israeli history and the whole people go to the defenders of Gush Etzion. "
This event divides the story into two periods.
After the Six Day War of 1967, the area was repopulated by Israelis. The first settlement, the newly built Kfar Etzion, was built in September 1967. Many of the returnees to the Kfar Etzion settlement were children of residents of the original settlements.
In the convergence plan presented by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in 2006 , the Gush Etzion settlement block is one of the three large settlement areas across the Green Line in the West Bank that Israel claims for itself.
Settlement block
The Gush Etzion settlement block includes the following settlements:
| Surname | Hebrew | founding | Population (2008) | Population (2014) | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Allon Schewut | אלון שבות | 1970 | 3,400 | 3.141 | Community settlement |
| Asked Ajin | בת עין | 1989 | 900 | 1,196 | Community settlement |
| Beitar Illit | ביתר עילית | 1985 | 38,800 | 46,874 | City administration |
| Efrata | אפרתה | 1983 | 8,300 | 8,131 | Local government |
| Elazar | אלעזר | 1975 | 1,706 | 2,535 | Community settlement |
| Gva'ot | גְּבָעוֹת | 1984 | 75 | ? | Community settlement |
| Har Gilo | הר גילה | 1968 | 570 | 1,438 | Community settlement |
| Karmei Tzur | כרמי צור | 1984 | 700 | 1.011 | Community settlement |
| Kfar Etzion | כפר עציון | 1967 | 820 | 1,060 | Kibbutz |
| Migdal Oz | מגדל עוז | 1977 | 440 | 447 | Kibbutz |
| Neve Daniel | נווה דניאל | 1982 | 1,883 | 2.174 | Community settlement |
| Rosh Tzurim | ראש צורים | 1969 | 560 | 910 | Kibbutz |
Regional administration
The Gush Etzion regional administration ( Hebrew מועצה אזורית גוש עציון, Mo'atza Azorit Gush Etzion) is responsible for all settlements of the settlement block, with the exception of the independent municipal administrations Beitar Illit and Efrata. In addition, other settlements in the Judean mountains belong to it: Ibei Hanachal, Kedar, Kfar Eldad, Maale Amos , Maale Rehav'am, Metzad, Nokdim , Pnei Kedem and Tekoa .
history
In 1980 the regional administration was established.
structure
The regional administration is responsible for:
- 3 kibbutzim : → List of kibbutzim
- 13 community settlements : → Table of community settlements
- 8 outposts: → table of the Israeli settlements
Residents
The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics reports the following population figures for the regional administration in the censuses of June 4, 1983, November 4, 1995 and December 28, 2008:
| Surname | founding | 1983 | 1995 | 2008 | comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Allon Schewut | 1970 | 1,200 | 1,870 | 3,298 | |
| Asked Ajin | 1989 | - | 365 | 950 | |
| Elazar | 1975 | 133 | 417 | 1,706 | |
| Efrata | 1980 | 207 | - | - | |
| Gva'ot | 1984 | - | - | - | To Allon Schewut |
| Har Gilo | 1968 | 201 | 380 | 479 | |
| I bei HaNachal | 1999 | - | - | - | Outpost, to Maale Amos |
| Karmei Tzur | 1984 | - | 294 | 757 | |
| Kedar | 1984 | - | 220 | 852 | |
| Kfar Eldad | 1994 | - | - | - | To Nokdim |
| Kfar Etzion | 1967 | 415 | 556 | 476 | |
| Maale Amos | 1981 | 209 | 352 | 348 | |
| Maale Rechavam | 2007 | - | - | - | Outpost at Kfar Eldad |
| Metzad | 1983 | - | 292 | 253 | |
| Migdal Oz | 1977 | 208 | 269 | 347 | |
| Neve Daniel | 1982 | 69 | 655 | 1,883 | |
| Nokdim | 1982 | 34 | 348 | 886 | |
| Pnei Kedem | 2000 | - | - | - | Metzad outpost |
| Rosh Tzurim | 1969 | 235 | 269 | 550 | |
| Sde Boaz | 2002 | - | - | - | Outpost to Neve Daniel |
| Tekoa | 1977 | 188 | 813 | 1,635 | |
| Tzur shalem | 2001 | - | - | - | Karmei Tzur Outpost |
| total | 3,099 | 7,100 | 14,420 |
mayor
- Sheila Gal
- Shaul Goldstein (until December 2011)
- Davidi Perl (2012-2017)
- Shlomo Ne'eman (since 2017)
Museums
The history of Gush Etzion, including the heavy fighting in the war of 1948, which resulted in the destruction of the villages, is shown very clearly in the Central Museum in Kfar Etzion next to the original, last position of the defending kibbutz inhabitants - including an audio-visual presentation.
Publications
- Dror Greenblum: The Making of a Myth: The Story of Kfar Etzion in Religious Zionism 1948–1967 , in: Israel Studies, Vol. 21 (2016), Issue 1, pp. 132–156.
- Jonas Breng: Pretty best enemies , in: Stern No. 10, March 2, 2017, pp. 60–65.
See also
Web links
- Gush Etzion Foundation (English)
- Dror Etkes, Lara Friedman: Settlements in Focus: Gush Etzion . ( Memento from July 21, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Shalom Achschaw , November 2005 (English)
- Peter Beaumont: Massacre that marred birth of Israel in The Guardian May 2, 2014
- Benny Morris : Before the Kidnappings, There Was a Massacre in Tablet, June 25, 2014
Individual evidence
- ↑ Gush Etzion, Land of Nine Lives
- ↑ Contemporary newspaper reports, quoted from: Leopold Marx : My son Erich Jehoshua. His life path from letters and diaries , Bleicher, Gerlingen, 1996, ISBN 978-3-88350-730-9 , p. 313. One of the three Jewish dead was Erich Jehoshua Marx , the son of Leopold Marx.
- ↑ Leopold Marx: Mein Sohn Erich Jehoshua , p. 313, and in more detail: Etzion Bloc (Gush Etzion) ( Memento of the original from December 12, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Benny Morris: 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War. Yale University Press 2008, 405
- ^ Benny Morris: 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War. Yale University Press 2008, 170
- ↑ Quoted from the homepage of The Gush Etzion Visitor Center ( memento of the original from September 25, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . "Four positions at the heart of enemy territory prevented them from approaching the city gates. Many, too many for us fell there. If there exists a Jewish Jerusalem, than the foremost thanks of Israeli history and the entire People go to the defenders of Gush Etzion. "
- ^ Israel Central Bureau of Statistics
- ↑ Here you can find more detailed information about the museum ( Memento of the original from September 25, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. and here too.
