Volatile investments and unruly youth in a West Bank settlement

Abstract

Building on fieldwork conducted in the West Bank settlement Beit-El, this article analyses the generational divide between first- and second-generation settlers in terms of their values and practices, against the backdrop of the new realities created by economic restructuring in Israel. It argues that the investments that settler parents made in their children's education and upbringing in the West Bank have yielded unintended consequences, due to normalizing tendencies working through them. Youth are thereby pushed towards alternative paths to well-being manifested in self-interested pragmatism or in radicalization. From the standpoint of neoliberal forms of social reproduction, these seemingly contradictory trends are dialectical counterparts. The article thereby offers a template for making sense of youth values and practices, including fundamentalist ones, in the framework of neoliberal capitalism.

Keywords:

• West Bank settlements
• settler youth
• education
• fundamentalism
• neoliberalism

Notes

1. This and all other quotations from Hebrew sources, oral and written, are translated by me unless otherwise noted.

2. Beit-El Community Profile, Benyamin Regional Council [in Hebrew], Tamuz 1987, and Beit-El 15 shanim (1992, pp. 10–17), both in Yitzhak Bartman private collection, Beit-El [online]. Available from: Beit-El Council website: http://www.bet-el.muni.il.

3. For detailed accounts of the material benefits gained by settlement in the West Bank, see Lein and Weizman (2002, pp. 74–76), Peled and Shafir (2002, pp. 173–177), and Swirski (2005, pp. 51–59). Benvenisti (1986a, pp. 68–75), Gorenberg (2006, p. 286), and Rubinstein (1982) discuss the social standing of religious-nationalists through the activities of the settlement movement.

4. Shabtai, S., 1999. Aval ashemim anachnu [But we are guilty], Daf Meyda, 4 Av, in Beit-El municipal archive.

5. Stoler, N., 2007. Ha'shchenim naim b'eynai [The neighbours are acceptable to me], Ha'zofe, 30 April.

6. An official report conducted by settlement agencies in 1987 confirms Beit-El's high socio-economic status relative to the Israeli average at the time. With a majority of its residents academically educated, Beit-El A was established by mostly Jerusalemites who gravitated around the same social circles. Between 1984 and 1987, it had accepted only 10 new families annually after interviews, exams, and a 6-month ‘trial’ period, with no marketing effort. Over 70 per cent lived in private homes, larger than standard public housing in Israel (107–117 m² in Beit-El, compared to 85.6 m² in Israel proper). Others rented apartments while saving money to purchase homes in the future. In Beit-El A, half of the male employees worked in Jerusalem, while most employed women worked in the settlement. In Beit-El B (the section of Beit-El that began as a yeshiva), half of the male employees worked in the settlement as well, education being the leading occupation; in Beit-El profil kehila, Benyamin Regional Council, Tamuz 1987, Yitzhak Bartman private collection, Beit-El.

7. Balankovsky, A., 2006. Shat ha'rabanim [Time of the Rabbis]. Yediot Achronot, 18 April.

8. Stoler, N., 2007. Mechalkim et Ariel [Dividing Ariel]. Ha'zofe, 10 June.

9. When considering the dangers she exposed her children to in Netzarim, living under daily mortar fire from Gaza, she was far more permissive: ‘Maybe as a mother I should have been more concerned that my children be better protected, say, in finding a house with a concrete roof [rather than a plaster one]. We did plan on moving into a different house. And I remember my children playing in the playground when a mortar shell fell nearby. But these things are in God's hands, you can't predict what will happen or where. And there was amazing divine protection in Netzarim, we all felt it.’

10. The sense among religious-nationalists is that they are fighting a rear guard battle against pressures of secularization, manifested in secular, liberal rulings and patterns of life such as leisure activities on Saturdays and holidays, a steady decline in marriages celebrated under the auspices of the Chief Rabbinate, and a growing salience of liberal attitudes in fields like civil rights (Cohen 2004, pp. 89–90). Since the 1990s, settlements have been presented in the media as responsible for all ills afflicting the country (Avraham 2003, pp. 175–177).

11. Data from 1988–2002 show Beit-El's fertility rate to be 6.8 compared to a 2.8 national average; the average fertility rate for Jews in the West Bank is 4.4 (Shefer and Soen 2006, p. 108).

12. Gruner, A. n.d. Keitsad etnaheg b'beit mishpat. Author's private collection.

13. Giser, A., 2006. Kriya. Ha'aretz, 3 February 3; see also Wagner, M., 2006. Shouting from the rooftops. Jerusalem Post, 6 March.

14. Balankovski, Y., 2006. Shat ha'rabanim. Yediot Achronot, 18 April.

15. Yedion Beit-El, no. 18, 2006. 26 Shvat. Author's private collection.

16. Mei-Tal, G., 2006. Biluy ha'chag l'yaldei ha'mitnachlim [Holiday entertainment for the settlers' kids]. Yediot Achronot, 17 April.

17. Gross, M., 2006. Mikiso shel chaver meliya. Yedion Beit-El, no. 27, 7 Iyar, p. 3. Author's private collection; the tendency of first-generation settlers to apologize for their children's rowdiness goes at least as far back as 1993, when a parent appealed to soldiers to understand local children's protests against blocking a road under the heading ‘Accept our Apology’. Elon, E., 1993. Kablu et hitnatzluteinu [Accept our apology]. Yediot Achronot, 12 May.

18. Levy, G., 2006. Ha'yeladim shel kadima [The children of Kadima]. Ha'aretz, 5 March.

19. Shragai, S. 2007. Nishbar lahem mehamedina [They are sick of the state]. Ha'aretz, 29 January.