HA-TENU'AH LE-MA'AN EREẒ ISRAEL HA-SHELEMAH

HA-TENU'AH LE-MA'AN EREẒ ISRAEL HA-SHELE-MAH (The Land of Israel Movement), a nation-wide grouping founded in the immediate aftermath of the Six-Day War, which aimed at ensuring the permanent retention by Israel of the territories occupied in that war. Its membership embraced political elements of the Right and Left, including a particularly strong group of the leftwing *Ha-Kibbutz ha-Me'uḥad as well as most of the Young Guard of the *National Religious Party. Its first manifesto, published in September 1967, was signed by leading writers, including S.Y. *Agnon, Ḥayyim *Hazaz, Nathan *Alterman, and U.Z. *Greenberg, high-ranking army officers of the idf Reserve, and leaders of commerce and industry, as well as university teachers, rabbis, and members of the various kibbutz movements. The manifesto laid down three basic propositions: first, that the Jewish people was bound both by its history and by its responsibility to the future to retain possession of the entire area of the Land of Israel as circumscribed by the ceasefire lines of June 1967, which were to become the permanent borders of the State; second, that no Israeli government had a mandate for surrendering any part of this inalienable trust; third, that the key to the integration of the new areas lay in immigration and intensive settlement.

The movement campaigned by means of mass meetings throughout the country, as well as by political lobbying among all the partners to the government coalition. From April 1968, it began publishing its own bi-weekly paper, Zot ha-Areẓ. It was directly involved in the resettlement of Jews in *Hebron in 1968, and less directly in other settlement projects on the West Bank and the Golan Heights. In 1970, a group sympathetic to the ideas of the Land of Israel Movement was formed in the U.S. under the name of "Americans for a Secure Israel." This group publishes a periodical, Outpost, which appears at irregular intervals.

After the adherence of the Israeli government to the U.S. peace proposals (associated with the socalled "Rogers Plan") in the summer of 1970 and the subsequent withdrawal of Gaḥal from the government coalition, the Land of Israel Movement spearheaded a "National Committee to Oppose Withdrawal," which included leading members of the main political parties both of the government and the opposition, with Dr. Chaim Yaḥil as chairman.

In 1973, a group of leading members of the Land of Israel Movement joined the new Center Block (Likud) under the leadership of Menaḥem *Begin. The group was represented in the Likud list by General (Res.) Avraham Yoffe and by the writer Moshe *Shamir, and Yoffe was elected to the Eighth Knesset as a result of the elections held on December 31, 1973.

In March 1976 this group joined with the Independent Center and the State List (led by Yigael Hurvitz) to form a new party, La'am ("For the People"), which became the third largest component of the Likud. In the elections to the Ninth Knesset in May 1977, La'am gained eight seats with Moshe Shamir representing the Land of Israel group. The Likud was now in power and the Land of Israel group was at the center of the political map with the majority of La'am supporting its position.

Throughout this period, the original Land of Israel Movement, led by Zvi Shiloaḥ, remained in existence as a nonparty forum. In September 1977 it formed an association with Gush Emunim and with the En Vered Circle (a group of Labor veterans from the moshavim). All these elements were united in a common determination to develop and extend Israeli settlements beyond the Green Line, and in particular in Judea and Samaria. They withdrew their support from the Begin administration after the signing of the Camp David accords in September 1978, and finally found a means of expressing their radical opposition to the government peace plans through a new formation, the Land of Israel Loyalists (Berit Ne'emanei Ereẓ Israel) set up at the end of 1978. This body had a wide political base both within and outside the government coalition. Led by such personalities as Professor Yuval Ne'eman, Yigael Hurvitz, Moshe Shamir and Moshe Tabenkin, it aimed at rallying mass opposition to the proposed autonomy plan and the peace agreements with Egypt.

A significant development came in October 1979 with the establishment of Tnu'at ha-Tehiyah ("The Movement for Revival") consisting of the chief elements of Berit Ne'emane Ereẓ Israel with the exception of a group led by Yigael Hurvitz which remained in the government coalition resuming the name of Rafi. Teḥiyah was set up as a full-fledged political party inexorably opposed to the autonomy plan and to further concessions to Egypt. Prominent in its leadership were two members of the Ninth Knesset, Geulah Cohen and Moshe Shamir, who withdrew from the Likud in order to identify with the new party as a rightwing opposition. Professor Yuval Ne'eman had a central role in a collective leadership which included Gershon Shafat and Rabbi Eliezer Waldman (central figures in Gush Emunim) as well as Dr. Israel Eldad, Professor Yair Sprinzak, Israel Shenkar and Zvi Shiloah. Teḥiyah mounted a public campaign in 1980 prior to the elections for the Tenth Knesset (in those elections, held in June 1981, Teḥiyah won three seats). The effect of this political challenge was widely felt, especially among the Likud factions and in the National Religious Party. Whilst some were inclined to rejoice at the removal from their midst of the "Land of Israel Loyalists," thinking this would free them for a more moderate political line, others felt that the new development dictated a firmer stand on the part of the older established parties in all that concerned concessions to Egypt, autonomy and settlement on the West Bank. A major feature in Teḥiyah's platform was the emphasis on the need to combine religious and secular elements of the country in a single political framework.

With the electoral success of Teḥiyah and the rise of the more aggressive *Gush Emunim the movement gradually lost its attraction for the younger generation.

bibliography:

R.J. Isaac, Israel Divided. Ideological Politics in the Jewish State (1976); M. Ben Ami (ed.), Sefer Eretẓ Israel Hashelemah (1977); H. Fisch, The Zionist Revolution: A New Perspective (1978).

[Harold Harel Fisch]