From Hitnachalut to Hitnatkut: The Impact of Gush Emunim and the Settlement Movement on Israeli Politics and Society

The impact of Gush Emunim on Israeli society, thirty years after its establishment in 1974, can not be underestimated. The literature appertaining to the movement, its history, ideology, settlement activities, and political effectiveness, has been wide–ranging.1 While the movement as such ceased to exist in the 1980s, it gave birth to a large number of settlement, political, and ideological organizations which continue to implement the basic ideology laid out by the movements founders, focusing, above all else, on the Greater Land of Israel ideology and spearheaded through its West Bank and Gaza settlement policy. The impact of the settlement policy has been clearly evident in all attempts to draw the boundaries of a two state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict in the period since the Oslo Agreements in 1993 and 1995, while the political influence of its supporters as part of the governmental and institutional framework has been a major factor underlying Israeli governmental coalitions during the past twenty years.