Last modified: 2023-06-24 by martin karner
Keywords: hilltop youth | israel |
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cropped image #20-7 located by William Garrison
This photo is showing a teenage boy atop a mule on a hilltop overlooking some agricultural community somewhere in the Israeli-controlled West Bank. Various teenagers participate in the "Hilltop Youths" movement whereby they occupy various West Bank hilltops in hope of getting that hilltop annexed as part of Israel. As I do not know what the purple/white reads in Hebrew, hopefully you have a contact who can translate it.
William Garrison, 14 February 2020
#7a
#7b
images located by Brian Hill (Click on the photos to read captions)
I believe I have an identification for this Flag. This page has a photo of the same flag (#7a) and says it "God is the King" and here's another page that says the same for a very similar flag (#7b). I've included screenshots of those pages with images and the translations. Makes sense that the flag would be purple – the color of royalty.
Brian Hill, 19 March 2020
The Hilltop Youths are "a hardline, religious, nationalist settlers' organisation that sets up illegal outposts across the occupied West Bank". It is also described as a group that "espouses" a Kahanist worldview, favouring "deportation, revenge, and annihilation of Gentiles that posed a threat to the people of Israel".
The correct name is נוער הגבעות (the youth of the hills), is also known as the גבעונים (Givonim). Some of its members are often found camping out in makeshift communities and illegal outposts mostly in Judea and Samaria, and have a reputation as wayward teens eager to clash with Israeli authorities and Palestinians alike.
Additionally, the term "hilltop youth" is regarded as a misnomer, since the movement was founded mostly by married people in their mid-twenties and their offspring are the current youths, or second generation members of such communities who also in some cases, encourage to cultivate organic food, and share a common vision of anti-establishment towards both Palestinian and Israeli authorities alike".
They more or less emerged after a speech given on November 16, 1998, by the then-Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon where he urged the settler youth to "grab the hilltops" in what was viewed as a declaration intended to thwart peace talks, and in particular the implementation of his political rival Benjamin Netanyahu's Wye River Agreement with the Palestinian National Authority, adding: "Everyone that's there should move, should run, should grab more hills, expand the territory. Everything that's grabbed will be in our hands. Everything we don't grab will be in their hands." (regarding also the proposed partition or "land for peace" approach on conflict resolution in the region).
Now, in recent years, we have seen both formal and informal efforts to both establish temporary and permanent settlements, such as the one we already featured, called "The Regional Council for Unrecognized Negev-villages" in 2005 to name one example, which must not be confused with violent activities, nor with the Hilltop Youth (That is: occupying land is not exclusively an activity carried out by one movement, nor by one country in this region).
(source #1) , (source #2), (source #3), (source #4), and (source #5).
image #7d located by Esteban Rivera
image #7f located by Esteban Rivera
Logo of the "God is the King" campaign #7
image #7e located by Esteban Rivera
The image #7e taken in 2016 is displaying the "God is the King" updated logo, taken from here. (source #12)
This logo of the "God is the King" campaign, without the numbers below it, is taken from the original located here. (source #11)
Displaying the "God is the King" updated logo #7g
image located by Esteban Rivera
