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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Israel
Index
Gush Emunim (Bloc of the Faithful), a right-wing
ultranationalist, religio-political revitalization movement, was
formed in March 1974 in the aftermath of the October 1973 War. The
younger generation of NRP leaders who constituted the party's new
religious elite created Gush Emunim. Official links between Gush
Emunim and the Youth Faction of the National Religious Party were
severed following the NRP's participation in the June 1974
Labor-led coalition government, but close unofficial links between
the two groups continued. Gush Emunim also maintained links to
Tehiya and factions in the Herut wing of Likud.
The major activity of Gush Emunim has been to initiate Jewish
settlements in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip. From 1977 to
1984, Likud permitted the launching of a number of Jewish
settlements beyond the borders of the
Green Line (see Glossary).
The Likud regime gave Gush Emunim the active support of government
departments, the army, and the WZO, which recognized it as an
official settlement movement and allocated it considerable funds
for settlement activities.
A thirteen-member secretariat has governed Gush Emunim. A
special conference elected nine of the group's secretaries and
co-opted the other four from the leadership ranks of its affiliated
organizations. Four persons have managed the movement's day-to-day
affairs: Rabbi Moshe Levinger, a founder of Gush Emunim and the
leader of the Jewish town of Kiryat Arba, near Hebron, on the West
Bank; Hanan Porat, a founder of the organization and a former
Tehiya Knesset member who later rejoined the NRP; Uri Elitzur,
secretary general of Amana, Gush Emunim's settlement movement; and
Yitzhak Armoni, secretary general of Gush Emunim since September
1988. From 1984 to August 1988, American-born Daniella Weiss served
as Gush Emunim's secretary general.
Amana was Gush Emunim's settlement arm. The Council of
Settlements in Judea and Samaria (Yesha), chaired by Israel Harel,
was the political organization representing the majority of Jewish
settlements in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. There were more
than eighty such settlements, including those affiliated with
nonreligious parties. Yesha dealt primarily with practical matters,
such as the utilization of land and water, relations with Israeli
military authorities and, if necessary, mobilizing political
pressure on the government. Yesha has created affiliations between
Gush Emunim settlements and Labor, the NRP, and Herut's Betar youth
movement. Two factors shape Yesha, a democratically elected
political organization: the right-wing and ultranationalist views
of its members and its political dependency on external bodies such
as government agencies. The group had five councils in Israel
proper and six regional councils in the occupied territories.
Data as of December 1988
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