“Revenge” reads a poster on the street sign that marks the entrance to Eli, an Israeli settlement in the West Bank 30 kilometers north of Ramallah. Three armed women look out over one of the hills, from which a breathtaking landscape of Palestinian villages opens up. “If you don’t have a red roof, you’re all Arabs.” In front of us is Qaryut and it is controlled by Hamas,” explains Svietka, one of the mothers who, together with the brigade of Israeli reservists deployed after October 7, are working to ensure the security of the area Yishuv cares. The young men have all been deployed to Gaza and only the women remain to protect the thousand Jewish families who live together in seven neighborhoods on nearly 6,300 dunams of land. A paradoxical circumstance, considering that the flagship of the settlement, founded in 1984 and which has more rabbis per square meter than any other in the West Bank, is Bnei David, the pre-military and theocratic academy that has been training the West Bank’s religious elite since 1988 to force Israeli armies .
The revolution
Every year 100 young people, all of Zionist origin, graduate here, half of whom become part of the officer corps. The school is at the forefront of the religious revolution the Israeli army is currently experiencing and is seen as a springboard for young Jewish settlers seeking to scale the heights of the military establishment. Supported by the government with allocations of 3.5 million euros per year, its former students include Brigadier General Avi Bluth, commander of the Judea-Samaria Division, the heads of the Givati and Efraim brigades, and advisors to Bezalel Smotrich. Minister of Finance and “adjunct” Minister of Defense with special powers in the administration of the occupied Palestinian territories. However, we are not really talking about employment here, on the contrary. According to Svietka, “the term West Bank has no meaning.” There is a map and a river, the Jordan, to delineate what Israel is. You may not like it, but it is geography.” Mayor Ariel El-Maliach agrees: “We are not a settlement, because that would be tantamount to saying that we are in a place that gives us “We are in Judea and Samaria and before the first temple was built in Jerusalem, the tabernacle stood a few steps away, in Shiloh. It is the Torah or God telling us that we are exactly where we are supposed to be.”
The mission
According to the messianic vision of Eli’s modern ultra-Orthodox, the Jewish people are “chosen not because they are better, but because they have a different mission from others, which can be summarized in the principle of Tiqqun Olam or the restoration of the world.” The belief is that Israel was chosen by God to “bring light where there is darkness.” Not only. Even what is described here as the “mini-Holocaust” of October 7th would have a religious explanation. According to Edna the librarian, “It is no coincidence that when we were divided within ourselves and lost in petty matters like politics and justice, we forgot our mission.” Evil came because our morals were corrupted. That’s why now, even though my children are fighting, I’m almost relieved that the war has come. I hadn’t felt this whole unity of the Jewish nation for some time.” Beyond that.
War
According to Ariel, this war will be an opportunity for Israel, “which is the West to the nth degree,” to give the whole world answers to the question of how to fight terror, “just as the United States does with Iran will do”. A Palestinian security service provider is stationed at the height at the exit. When asked how it is possible that there are Arabs committed to the security of the place, Edna replies: “They want to continue working for us and until two weeks ago 300 of them helped us build the next housing units.” They cost less. But now we’ve thrown them all out. Watching Eli walk away, it’s hard to have any doubts about the future of tensions in this country. “That’s just the beginning. “We have big plans for our expansion,” welcomed Svietka.
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