Netanyahu’s government not only permits Jewish terror in the West Bank but also finances it

Settlers call it a revolution: More than 60 illegal farm outposts have sprung up in the West Bank during the past seven years, seizing vast tracts of Palestinian land. With cheap labor provided by 'at-risk' youths, this enterprise has also become a main fomenter of Jewish terror in the territories – and the state is generously footing the bill

Hagar Shezaf and Hilo Glazer report in Haaretz on 11 October 2024:

The road to Havat Dorot Illit – Upper Dorot Farm – actually starts with a steep descent. The sharp turn in the internal road of the settlement of Ma’aleh Shomron leads to a virgin trail in a nature reserve, which poses a challenge for even skilled drivers. The trail was carved out solely for the farm. For long minutes it looks like a road to nowhere.

Atop the hill is the home of the farm’s owners: Ben Yishai Eshed, along with his wife Leah and their two small children. One family and a herd of cattle, stuck like a bone in the throat of the veteran Palestinian communities living in the area. At some distance from the family’s home a concrete hut dominates the terrain. This is the makeshift headquarters of the soldiers from the Israel Defense Forces regional defense unit who are guarding the settler outpost. However, the heart of the farm pulsates from within a modest structure that’s off to the side: a large tent covered with black canvas. The mattresses that lie inside in a heap indicate that this is where the boys of Dorot Illit live.

In a promotional video on the web, Eshed boasts that on the farm with them are no fewer than six youths “who are volunteers and are learning how to work, appreciate and love the land.”

During our visit we came across two youngsters who said they were 17 and 16, though they looked younger. One told us that he had grown up in a remote town in northern Israel, dropped out of school a year ago and ended up on the farm via an acquaintance of his parents. Since settling in the isolated outpost he has undertaken a demanding routine of waking up at 5 A.M. and taking the cows to pasture. Over time he has also become adept at harvesting olives and doing maintenance work. After telling us his story, he speeds off with his buddy on an all-terrain vehicle.

Just then Eshed himself arrives from the main road. He’s puzzled for a moment by the unexpected guests who have come to hike in the nature reserve and found themselves on his farm, but immediately gives us a friendly look. “Did the kids offer you coffee?” he asks, adding that he means “the guys.” Who are the guys? “Kids of 15 or 16 who didn’t find themselves in school,” he explains.

Eshed parts from us cordially but firmly. We start to head back on the winding path. On the way we catch a glimpse of a storage container that bears the inscription, “Uri Eretz Ahavati” (Awake, My Beloved Land) – the name of the nonprofit for at-risk youths that is behind the farm’s experimental educational project. According to its reports to the Registrar of Associations, Uri Eretz operates “an educational framework for youths who have difficulty integrating into formal frameworks, which involves establishment of agricultural farms that serve as a form of boarding school for youths, where they are taught to love the land and to work the soil.”

Dorot Illit constitutes the first part of the project. In 2023, the nonprofit that operates the farm received almost 400,000 shekels (about $110,000) from the Negev and Galilee Development Ministry; Eshed also receives a token salary from the organization. In addition, the Agriculture Ministry approved a grant of almost 100,000 shekels over a two-year period. That’s not all. Until the end of 2023, the farm was also supported as part of a program for at-risk youth initiated by the Jewish National Fund.

This past July, settlers from the farm and its environs arrived at a nearby Palestinian village. According to the local inhabitants, the interlopers attacked them with iron pipes, clubs and stones, and torched their tents; a 3-year-old boy who was asleep in one of them was injured. Altogether five village residents were hospitalized. Eshed himself was documented at the scene. A complaint filed by one of the villagers was dismissed by the police, who claimed it was unable to locate the suspects.

Palestinians say this assault was the worst in a series of abusive acts perpetrated by the people from the farm. Indeed, they view their life in terms of before and after the establishment of the outpost.

The bottom line is that Havat Dorot Illit – one of the most extreme and unruly places in the West Bank, which has became a focal point of friction and violence almost from its very inception – enjoys a hefty slice of public funding. And it’s not the only one.

* * *

Settlers in the West Bank are talking about what has been going on in recent years in farming and shepherding outposts, almost all of which are illegal, as no less than a revolution. Its spirit embodies the “miracle” National Missions Minister Orit Strock described in the context of the events triggered by the October 7 massacre. Indeed, in the shadow of the year-long war, the government has tightened its grip over the West Bank. The main course in this whole meal are relatively small groups of gluttonous people from farms who are seizing control of large tracts of land.

The pioneers in this realm have been around for quite a while. The first communities they established, in the 1980s and 1990s, were Har Sinai Farm in the South Hebron Hills, Avri Ran’s Ranch in Givot Itamar and Skali Farm east of the settlement of Elon Moreh. By early 2017, there were 23 such outposts scattered across the West Bank. But since then there has been a dramatic surge in their number, with some 65 new ones established within just seven years. In 2021, Amira Hass reported in Haaretz on four farms that had been established within five years and controlled an area the size of the city of Holon.

Now there are around 90 such outposts that together cover approximately 650,000 dunams (162,500 acres) of land, or about 12 percent of the territory of the entire West Bank – an area that equals that of Dimona, Jerusalem, Be’er Sheva, Arad and Eilat combined.

The thriving enterprise of pastoral and agricultural outposts, which differ from the kind of outposts typically associated with so-called hilltop youth, was initiated and founded in a well-planned way. One only need listen to Zeev (“Zambish”) Hever, the longtime settler leader who has free access to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office. Hever, the brains behind the land grab in the territories and head of Amana, the main operational arm of the movement to create settler outposts, shed light on the project in June. In an interview with the magazine Nadlan Yosh (Judea-Samaria Real Estate), Hever referred to “safeguarding open territory” as Amana’s key mission and added that “the main means we use is agricultural farms.” He also noted that “the area occupied by these farms is 2.5 times the size of the area occupied by all the hundreds of settlements.”

Amana is definitely a powerful organization, with assets estimated to be worth 600 million shekels (currently about $158 million). Even so, by itself it could not have breathed life into such an ambitious undertaking. In recent years, the state has made outpost farms a flagship endeavor and heaped extraordinary largesse on them. Tens of millions of shekels in public funds are being injected into these communities directly by government ministries, the local authorities in the territories and the World Zionist Organization’s Settlement Division. Concurrently, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has announced that he is working to have the farms formally legalized.

Tens of millions of shekels in public funds are being injected into these communities. At least six government ministries are involved in financing and maintaining this burgeoning enterprise, whose underlying purpose is the systematic dispossession of Palestinian residents.
In contrast to the past, the owners of the new farms tend to play ball with the state – diverging from the “classic” ideology of the hilltop youth, who totally rejected cooperation in the past with what they saw as the establishment. The result is that outpost farmers are now working shoulder to shoulder with the state, which is granting loans for establishing their communities, allocating contracts for pasture land, hooking them up to infrastructure, underwriting their security needs, purchasing equipment for them and also offering “pasturing grants” and even “business entrepreneurship grants.”

Haaretz’s investigation reveals that at least six government ministries are involved in financing and maintaining this whole burgeoning enterprise, whose underlying purpose is the forceful takeover of land and systematic dispossession of Palestinian residents.

The generous basket of support is only one element of this whole initiative. The Jewish National Fund (Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael) has also become a significant supporter of it, its main contribution revolving around projects for at-risk youth on the farms and ranches.

In general, the term “at-risk youth” has in recent years become the linchpin for an entire industry of “laundering” the farms, particularly in terms of their image. The teenagers’ residence there under the aegis of an “educational” or “rehabilitative” framework accords the outposts valuable legitimization, which in turn is converted into fat budgets. Some of the programs are even included in the enrichment activities’ packages the Education Ministry offers educational institutions.

In the meantime, however, there is mounting evidence to the effect that in many cases the farming and shepherding outposts have become a breeding ground for extreme nationalist violence. Examples from recent years are rife: the Zohar Sabah Farm, in the Jordan Valley, from which settlers, some of them minors, set out to attack the principal of a Palestinian school on the grounds of the institution; the Hamachoch Farm, near Ramallah, whose inhabitants succeeded in driving off residents of the neighboring Palestinian village, Wadi al-Siq; Yinon Levy from Meitarim Farm, in the South Hebron Hills, who led assaults and harassment that forced residents of another village to flee. On these farms, the vanguard force is often comprised of at-risk teenagers themselves.

Since the war broke out a year ago, an ostensible passion for revenge among settlers on the farms has grown, along with their boldness. The Shin Ben handed the government a document recently in which it warned about the speedy proliferation of farms and the rise in the violent incidents that have emerged from them. “Let’s call a spade a spade,” says Hagit Ofran, who heads the Settlement Watch project in Peace Now. “The steep rise in settler violence across the West Bank is directly related to the emergence of the farm outposts. Their inhabitants are responsible for much of this violence.” At the same time, there has been a sharp rise in the number of Palestinian communities in proximity to the farms whose residents have been forcibly driven out of their homes.

“We’re talking about a scale of 35 expulsions [of villages] in the past two years, with the absolute majority of them being ‘October expulsions,'” notes Dror Etkes, founder of Kerem Navot, an NGO that monitors the settlements in the West Bank.

The international arena has not been indifferent to these developments. In the past year, the United States, Britain and other countries have imposed sanctions on the owners of six such farms. Explaining the reasons for the measures imposed on three farms last March, the Biden Administration stated that they had “engaged in repeated violence and attempts to engage in violence against Palestinians in the West Bank,” and in some cases against other Israelis as well.

But the young volunteers living in these communities are not affected by the international condemnation. “Since the war [started] we’re pretty much allowed to do everything, from the security standpoint and also when it comes to authorization,” says a youth who lives on Havat Oppenheimer – abutting the Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) settlement of Immanuel, in the northern West Bank – with alarming honesty. “The army is with us and it’ll be easier for us to take over land. Also in terms of the United States, because since October 7 their eye has been more on Gaza and less on Judea and Samaria [in the West Bank].” Indeed, since the war broke out, reservists have been deployed in the farm outposts on a permanent basis, bolstering the hold over land wielded by Havat Oppenheimer, aka Havat Se’orim (Barley Farm), and by similar outposts.

Barley Farm, which was established in mid-2023 by the head of the land department in the Samaria Regional Council, lies not far from Dorot Illit. “There are three farms along the same axis,” the youth says, adding, “It’s divided in an absolutely strategic way.

The jewel in the crown here is the “war room” – a part of the main building that’s full of split screens that receive feed from cameras scattered in the area, which enables observation of the whole sector 24/7. A control room planted in the heart of a verdant nature reserve. The farm’s owner even has a drone equipped with a night-vision mechanism, thanks to the generosity of the One Israel Fund, an American organization that supplies the farming outposts with a range of technological security-related devices.

* * *

Nili, located a few kilometers east of the Green Line, is a symbol of secular, bourgeois settlement. Its homes with their red tile roofs are embraced by a hermetically sealed fence. On the street leading into the settlement, an installation consisting of empty chairs silently calls for a deal to save the hostages in Gaza. From the observation point at the top of the hill, two Palestinian villages are visible nearby, reminding one of the basic purpose behind the founding of such communities. And yet today, the contribution of veteran settlements like this to the aim of driving a wedge between Arab communities in the West Bank looks almost marginal.

No binoculars are necessary for viewing new developments in the area. At the foot of Nili lies Magnezi Farm, named for its founder, Yosef Chaim Magnezi, who lives there with his wife Devora and their toddler son. “The contrast between Nili and Magnezi constitutes the essence of the whole story here,” activist Etkes avers. Magnezi covers about 5,000 dunams (1,250 acres) of farmland – the size of the city of Yehud-Monosson in central Israel, and four times the size of Nili – even though its entire population consists of a single family living in a truck-turned-residence, along with a few occasional guests.

Magnezi Farm has extended long tentacles into Palestinian-owned land around it by means of new dirt paths. Promotional materials written about the farm state that its purpose is “preventing an Arab takeover of territories in our precious land.” Magnezi, for his part, stated in an interview, “There are going to be Jews in these hills. There are those who understand more quickly and those [who understand] more slowly.”

The outpost, with its flock of 200 sheep, endless pasture land and groves of banana and mango trees, could not exist without an efficient network of volunteers. Most are teenagers, some of whom have dropped out of various frameworks and others who are not in contact with their families. According to the website of Hashomer Yosh (Guardian of Judea-Samaria), a government-backed organization that helps provide volunteers for the farms – which has just recently become the object of U.S. sanctions – “many young people come to Magnezi… among them Haredi youth from [the settlement of] Kiryat Sefer.”

Magnezi Farm. Two-hundred sheep, endless pasture land and groves of banana and mango trees.Credit: David Bachar
Magnezi and his wife delegate numerous tasks to the members of their young workforce – some of whom are classified as at-risk – including maintenance of infrastructure and shepherding work. The ostensible therapeutic-rehabilitative wrapping provided by the farm is based on manual labor in a place where people “live simply and make do with little, [and which is] connected to nature,” Magnezi told the Channel 7 News website last year. “The young people, to their credit, have this fire in their eyes. They’re the ones who need to do these crazy things. The youths want to establish a farm and be active. They must be permitted to do so.”

Magnezi’s ostensibly educational enterprise has thus become a magnet for problematic young people. One of these is Einan Tanjil, from Kiryat Ekron, a town near Rehovot, who arrived in the West Bank hills as an adolescent. Last February, he became one of the first people on whom the U.S. administration imposed sanctions. In November 2021, when he was 19, Tanjil and around 20 masked settlers attacked Palestinians who were harvesting olives in the groves of Surif, a village near the settlement of Bat Ayin. He also clubbed three Israeli human rights activists and was convicted of aggravated assault using a cold (nonexplosive) weapon and of attempted assault.

During the court proceedings, Tanjil requested to be held in custody on the Magnezi Farm. Yosef Chaim Magnezi appeared at the hearing and described at length how he had assisted young people like Tanjil. “I have been occupied a great deal with these young people, I really believe in these people,” he stated. “They are very strong people and I feel that they need to be given a direction in life.” Devora, his wife, also mentioned their role in rehabilitating young people like Tanjil. “This is part of my mission,” she said, “to accept folks that have no place to be.”

For its part, however, the Probation Service wasn’t impressed by the couple’s words – nor was the judge. The state’s representative reminded the court that Magnezi himself had been investigated on suspicion of making threats and of trespassing in an incident that took place in a nearby Palestinian village. She added that his farm was a focal point of “disturbances and friction.”

On a visit to the farm by Haaretz two weeks ago, one of the volunteers, an 18-year-old from a Haredi community, was spotted doing maintenance work. He related that he had arrived at Magnezi two years earlier, after dropping out of a yeshiva and getting involved in criminal activities. “I was in jail for youthful nonsense,” he said. “I am the person I am today thanks only to the farm.” And he added, very simply, “This is a settlement farm. Before this, Arabs used to come here.”

Now the place is booming, the young man said, pointing to an isolated orange structure about a kilometer away by foot – a “daughter farm” where other volunteers like him are now living. “We started here and we are advancing to there.” Life at “the new site,” he said, has been complicated by constant friction with the Palestinians in the area.

The determined move to expand is no small matter: Not long ago, the farm reported that it was in economic straits and launched a crowdfunding campaign under the slogan “Saving Magnezi’s Farm.” The public responded by donating around half a million shekels. The nonprofit that acted as the pipeline for the donations is right-wing activist Shai Glick’s Btsalmo organization. By the way, that same organization was also the platform on which funds were raised for another “needy” person – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – to pay for his legal defense.

Besides the Hashomer Yosh organization, the Regavim nonprofit, which also helps support Magnezi Farm, receives generous government funding yearly. The Agriculture Ministry has provided a modest grant to the farm and other support for its operations comes from none other than the JNF.

Young settlers heading for a Palestinian hamlet near the Zohar Sabah Farm in the Jordan Valley. “These guys – 15, 16, 17 years old – are the spearhead of the State of Israel, and they are the ones who are winning the battle,” says Uri Cohen, of Havat Nof Gilad.Credit: Avishay Mohar/Activestills
* * *

The JNF’s activity in the West Bank has sparked furious disagreement within the organization. Some of its local representatives are center-left in their political orientation and others are North American Jews – groups that don’t typically approve of the settlement enterprise. When members of Jewish communities around the world donate generously to the JNF, they may not realize that their money is actually underwriting activities benefiting extremist settler outposts, some of them violent, throughout the West Bank.

Nevertheless, during the past three years the JNF has transferred 5.5 million shekels to its farm youth program, which helps volunteers on agricultural and shepherding outposts and is branded as a scheme for assisting at-risk youth. As part of this program, teenage volunteers participate in vocational training, different sorts of workshops and matriculation courses – paid for by the JNF. The vocational training includes options for developing particularly useful skills for settler outposts, such as welding, installation of security cameras, agricultural work and proficiency in Arabic. Such activities risk not only failure to bring about the eventual departure of the young people from the farms – they may help ensure that they will remain there.

A document obtained by Haaretz reveals the list of mostly illegal outposts supported within the framework of the JNF farm program, some of which have been sanctioned by Washington because of their violent character. Some officials in JNF are concerned that its continued funding of the program might be a violation of those sanctions.

Havat Hamachoch and Havat Rimonim are both such outposts. Both farms, as well as the person who runs them, Neria Ben Pazi, have been subjected to U.S. sanctions for their role in expelling local Palestinian communities. Another farm involved in the same JNF program that’s also on the U.S. blacklist is that of Zvi Bar Yosef. About a year ago, Haaretz reported a slew of example of violent attacks that originated on Zvi’s Farm, including some described as pogroms.

All told, until the end of 2023, more than 200 teenagers had taken part in the JNF project in dozens of West Bank farms. Eighty of the youths were among the beneficiaries of the 1.5 million shekels (about $415,000) the JNF transferred to the Binyamin Regional Council in the West Bank. The JNF transferred an even larger sum, 2 million shekels, to Artzenu, an organization that has funded training programs for 150 youths in 25 additional farms. Indeed, Artzenu is one of the organizations most closely identified with the many volunteers streaming into those outposts. Cooperation with it was frozen by the JNF following a Haaretz report about it last year.

When Diaspora Jews donate generously to the JNF, they may not realize that their money is actually underwriting activities benefiting extremist settler outposts, some of them violent.
In the view of left-wing activists, projects promoted as serving at-risk youth have always been an effective means for taking over land in the West Bank. As early as 2013 a therapeutic outpost called Haroeh Haivri (the Hebrew Shepherd) was established near Kfar Adumim, east of Jerusalem, to “rehabilitate” hilltop youth. The farm was built without a permit, but later the state legalized it. At present it operates in cooperation with the armed forces and receives a generous grant of 2 million shekels a year from the Education Ministry.

The Liel pre-military academy, named for Staff Sgt. Liel Gidoni, who was killed in Operation Protective Edge in 2014, and geared to at-risk youth, was established four years later after settlers took over an abandoned army camp in the Jordan Valley. The Education Ministry allots it about 170,000 shekels a year, on average.

Another relatively new farm outpost is Lechatchila Farm, created in 2019 in the Jericho area, for dropout Haredi youth. Since its creation, tensions have been constantly rising between it and neighboring Bedouin shepherding communities. This project, too, is part of the JNF’s farm youth project and it has been funded it to the tune of about 1.25 million shekels in the past two years.

* * *

In any event, the millions the JNF heaps on the activities of volunteers in the unauthorized outposts are only one cog in a multi-institutional, resource-heavy mechanism of governmental support. In seeking out yet another public body involved in underwriting such enterprises, we must go back to August 2022, when Naftali Bennett was prime minister of the “government of change.”

At that time, Bennett, who also held the settlements portfolio in the government, approved the annual working program of the WZO’s Settlement Division, which included “planning essential infrastructures and security components in Young Settlement [i.e., illegal outposts] with a horizon for regularization.” Under the cover of this convoluted language, the division transferred 15 million shekels to farm outposts in 2023. This year, the budget was almost tripled – to 39 million shekels (over $10 million).

Yisrael Gantz, the head of the Binyamin Regional Council, described the plan with palpable emotion at a meeting last year. “We have here an EB [exceptional budget] of great interest and importance, which is at our disposal for the first time in history,” he said. “[The IDF] Central Command defined exactly what to put where, the Settlement Division transferred the funds and we need to execute [the plan]. This is the first time that Young Settlement is receiving a government budget on the table.”

It emerges that the outposts in question are spending the 54 million shekels, over two years, to acquire utility task vehicles, drones, cameras, generators, electric gates, illumination poles, fences, solar panels and more. WZO’s Settlement Division is not disclosing what types of “security components” were purchased for which outposts. However, Peace Now reports that devices used for security purposes have recently been installed in at least 30 farms, including five on which international sanctions have been imposed for violent acts against Palestinians.

At a gathering held by the Religious Zionism party in June, the director general of the Settlement Division, Hosha’aya Harari, spoke about the extensive public support being offered to the settler farms. He stated that 68 such communities had been funded in 2023. He also mentioned the 7.7 million shekels earmarked for “building new roads” within the outposts in general. These dirt roads are crucial arteries for the outposts, enabling the settlers to expand deep into the surrounding territory.

Besides seizing land, the farmers often act as self-appointed inspectors who deal with illegal Palestinian construction, by means of drones, threats and reports to the authorities. They have been joined by so-called land patrol departments set up by various councils, to which the Settlements Ministry has allocated tens of millions of shekels since 2021. Over the past two years, the patrol bodies have received an average of 35 million shekels per year, in order “to prevent planning and construction violations and the seizure of state lands” – even though it is the Civil Administration that has the authority to supervise Palestinian construction. The funding has been used to acquire all-terrain vehicles and to install cameras in open areas, for partial funding of salaries and “building roads and closing off areas.”

Perhaps it’s only natural for the state to see the outpost farms as start-ups – as an innovative enterprise designed to take over maximum territory with minimum manpower – and, accordingly, to provide the settlers with “business entrepreneurship” grants. Thirteen “farmers” received such funding, a total of 1.6 million shekels, from 2020 to 2022. Among the recipients were entrepreneur Zvi Laks from Eretz Hatzvi Farm west of Ramallah, who was granted 140,000 shekels, and Issachar Mann, who runs an outpost in the South Hebron Hills and received 120,000 shekels.

These two farms are examples of outposts that are presented to the public as places of leisure and recreational activities, but whose real raison d’être is hidden. Eretz Hatzvi is described on its website as a “hospitality complex with an amazing ecological pool,” which offers “country-style breakfasts.” The Mann Farm promises vacationers “desert hospitality,” of which the crowning glory is a “Bedouin tent” divided into three bedrooms. A night there will set you back 800 shekels ($212); its main attraction is a pair of wading pools that face the endless expanses of the Judean Desert.

Like the other illegal communities mentioned here, these two outposts also rely on a workforce manned by young volunteers (the Eretz Hatzvi site contains a photo gallery titled “Our Special Youth”); both are also part of the JNF’s Farm Youth program. In July, the U.S. sanctioned the Mann Farm because of systematic violence perpetrated by its settlers.

* * *

Meirav Barkovsky, who is a member of the Jordan Valley Activists group that helps protect Palestinian shepherds, encounters the outpost farmers on a daily basis. But a visit to Asael Farm, aka Havat Eretz Shemesh, is an experience she won’t forget.

“One Saturday last November, we were informed that settlers stole cows from two Palestinians and took them to Asael Farm,” she tells Haaretz, adding that she and two other activists decided to go to the outpost, founded by Asael Kornitz. “We thought we would go there, speak to them and maybe persuade them to give back the cows. We were optimistic, maybe naïve – in hindsight, even stupid.”

The three ascended the hill leading to the farm on a path that ended at a metal fence. The mooing on the other side indicated that they had come to the right place. “A bright light blinded us,” Barkovsky recalls. “We got out of the car and called to them, we said we had come about the cows. Suddenly, in an instant, a group of masked youths arrived from the direction of the outpost and attacked us.”

If they were masked, how did you know they were youths?

Barkovsky: “You see it in their appearance, in the body revealed by the folds in their shirts.”

The settler farms across the West Bank cover around 162,500 acres.
Sasha Povolotsky, who also belongs to the Jordan Valley group and was the driver during the incident, adds, “I would say that there were 10 teenagers of different ages. You could see they were young by their body build. Most of them weren’t tall, they were thin, almost hairless under the shirts. You could clearly see that it was a boy’s body.”

Accompanying the group of youths was a hefty man, older than the others. The activists relate that the teenagers shoved the two women and snatched their cellphones, while the older man beat Povolotsy brutally. “He pummeled him with his fists,” Barkovsky says. “Sasha’s whole face was bloody when he got up. They went on pummeling him and he fell again.”

“I was oozing blood,” Povolotsky says. “It turned out that he broke my nose and eye socket.”

But the event wasn’t yet over. Povolotsky: “As we were fleeing back down on the winding road, an all-terrain vehicle carrying the kids was right behind us. They threw rocks as they drove by our car. The glass shattered, I was barely able to drive. It wouldn’t have taken much for us to plummet into the valley.”

“Sasha’s driving, driving fast, but they’re getting closer and ramming us with the vehicle from behind,” Barkovsky continues. They summoned an ambulance and the police, who met them on the way down from the outpost. “But the officer didn’t agree to go up with us to identify the assailants,” Polovotzky says. “We filed a complaint, and two weeks later we were informed that the case had been closed because of the difficulty of locating suspects.” Two of the suspects were only 15, and two others were 16 and 17.

For his part, Kornitz said that he “has no knowledge of an event like that.”

The residents of Asael Farm systematically terrified one neighboring Palestinian community, ultimately forcing the residents to leave. But Kornitz has received two entrepreneurship grants of 150,000 shekels from WZO’s Settlement Division, and support from the state. The Agriculture Ministry approved a generous “pasturing grant” of more than a quarter of a million shekels across two years. In general, that ministry is an important pipeline for transferring government funds to the farm outposts. Ministry data shows that between 2017 and 2023, it approved grants of more than 3 million shekels for outposts, of which about half the amount was actually paid out. Some of the outposts that received the funding were later subjected to international sanctions.

In addition to direct support, the state also funds the settler farms indirectly via nonprofits that are involved with their operations, and by ensuring that they have a workforce. The majority of the government’s grants are transferred under the aegis of the Volunteering for Agriculture program, through which ministries pump 20 million shekels a year into these nonprofits. According to a report by Peace Now, some 30 percent of those grants go to the West Bank.

One of the organizations, Hashomer Yosh, serves as a central job-placement agency for volunteers and for teenagers in particular on behalf of the settler farms. The green T-shirts with the organization’s logo can be seen in the outposts; some volunteers include girls doing National Service as an alternative to serving in the military. On October 1, the United States imposed sanctions on Hashomer Yosh. But the state has, at least until now, embraced the nonprofit, allocating an average of 1.8 million shekels a year to it from public coffers.

In September, Hashomer Yosh staff met with Welfare Minister Yaakov Margi, for the purpose of “promoting pioneer youth on the farms,” according to the organization. Its CEO, Avichai Suissa, refused to elaborate on the subjects discussed. Margi’s bureau noted that the meeting had been arranged before sanctions were imposed and that an active connection with the group was not on the agenda. The ministry’s spokesperson added, “The meeting dealt solely with the plight of the youths.”

A young settler-shepherd with his flock in the Jordan Valley, last month. “In the past the farmers themselves would go to confront the Palestinians and the activists. Now these youngsters are on the front line,” says activist Yifat Mehl.Credit: Mistaclim – Looking the Occupation in the Eye
Another key nonprofit in the same realm is Shivat Zion Lerigvei Admadata, more commonly known as the (above-mentioned) Artzenu organization. Last year, the group received some 4 million shekels from the education, agriculture and Negev and Galilee development ministries. The scope of public funds invested in the organization has grown fivefold in just two years. The nonprofit’s declared mission of is “to strengthen the young generation’s bond with working the land in order to preserve open territories.” In May 2023, Shivat Zion added “handling and operation of educational programs for at-risk youth” to its official goals.

Its program supporting young volunteers on agricultural outposts is the organization’s flagship project. A statement on its website says that in recent years, more and more teenagers “have found a safe haven at these farms” and that “Artzenu emphasizes empowering these teenagers and creates a holistic atmosphere for them.” The head of Artzenu is Yonatan Ahiya, chairman of the Sovereignty Now faction of Likud and a major recruiter for the party.

Nonprofit groups whose political leanings seem to be less obvious also play an important role in the government’s project to finance the farm outposts. One example of this is the Hiburim – Beit She’an and Valley Association, which mostly operates so-called garin Torani groups – literally, Torah nucleus or core groups of people who settle in largely nonreligious communities – in Beit She’an and Afula. In recent years, however, the organization has developed a program called Hiburim – Connecting Through Agriculture (hiburim means “connections” in Hebrew), and now about one-third of its activity takes place in the West Bank, for example, in the settlement of Hamra in the Jordan Valley.

Adjacent to Hamra lies a very well-known farm outpost, Emek Tirza Farm, which has been involved in some of the most violent incidents in the valley. In the wake of this, the United States, Britain and the European Union have recently imposed sanctions on Emek Tirza and the person who runs it, Moshe Sharvit. Veteran activists in the Jordan Valley recall incidents in which the outpost’s residents have stoned Palestinians and their flocks, beaten them and sicced dogs on them over long periods of time.

For the international community, the last straw at Emek Tirza was the fact that some weeks after the war in Gaza started, Sharvit and his cohorts forcibly expelled the inhabitants of Ein Shibli, a neighboring Palestinian community. Villagers were attacked, threatened by a person who posed as a Shin Bet security service agent, and they say they were given an explicit deadline from Sharvit himself: “You have five hours to leave.” One family relates that a few days before fleeing, residents from the outpost arrived, assaulted the father of the household and wreaked havoc on their property.

For the international community, the last straw at Emek Tirza was the fact that some weeks after the war in Gaza started, Sharvit and his cohorts forcibly expelled the inhabitants of Ein Shibli, a neighboring Palestinian community.
In another incident, which took place on April 15 not very far from Emek Tirza, two Palestinians were shot to death. A military source told Haaretz that afterward, the Shin Bet identified Sharvit as being present at the site and armed, but his weapon was not confiscated for inspection for some weeks.

The farm does not thrive thanks only to private donations, but also because it receives help from the state and from the Amana settlement organization, for example, by being allotted grazing land or getting hooked up to the water system. There are also occasional bonuses directly from government itself. In 2023, for example, Sharvit was the beneficiary of a so-called pasturing grant from the Agriculture Ministry.

Over the years, Emek Tirza has become a prosperous outpost, one of whose calling cards is its educational project for youth. “They are not dropouts from [formal] frameworks,’ Sharvit insists in a YouTube video describing his activity. “They are in a far more rigid and demanding framework. There are demands here that must be met.”

The farm is also known as a “country hospitality compound.” On its website Sharvit and his wife invite the public to stay in air-conditioned tents on the site, splash about in a “pampering pool” and to hold family events in “our khan,” which has a “large dance floor that is sufficient for an exciting occasion.”

However, in a tour Sharvit conducted for visitors to the farm, which was documented by the BBC last month, he mentioned the ultimate purpose for which the place was established. “We are seizing a few thousand dunams here, about the size of a not-so-small city… 7,000 dunams [7 sq. km.], it’s endless.” He went on to outline the strategy of the entire farm outpost enterprise. “The biggest regret when we built settlements was that we got stuck within the fences and didn’t expand outside. [Ultimately,] space is the most important thing here. This farm is very important, but the most important thing is the surrounding area… We are holding open areas which no one enters, no one approaches.”

Sharvit has many partners in the project involving the Jewish takeover of the Jordan Valley. Driving along the Alon Road, which connects the valley to the Trans-Samaria Highway, one sees an extraordinary array of agricultural and shepherding outposts. No fewer than 30 such communities have been established along this road in the past few years, and the settlers’ media is already trumpeting the successful creation of “tremendous territorial continuity,” from the Sha’ar Binyamin industrial zone north of Jerusalem all the way to the northern Jordan Valley.

The Nof Gilad farm in the Jordan Valley. “The taxes go to the Welfare Ministry, the Welfare Ministry subsidizes the teens,” the farm’s owner told an activist who confronted him. “Why are you asking me?”Credit: Hadas Parush
* * *

On the same road, between the settlements of Hemdat and Maskiot, lies Havat Nof Gilad (Um Zuka), a religious outpost established by Uri and Efrat Cohen in 2016. It too enjoys the largesse of the state, including a grant of 530,000 shekels from the Agriculture Ministry.

Here too, building and other projects at the site depend on a workforce of teenage volunteers who have not found their place in conventional educational settings. “Each of them came here with their own situation and their life,” Efrat Cohen said in a show on social media about various farms in the West Bank. For his part, Uri perceives them as a vital combat force in the war he is fighting. “We are here and we will triumph. The question is how long it will take and what price we will pay,” he says in the video. “These guys – 15, 16, 17 years old – are the spearhead of the State of Israel, and they are the ones who are winning the battle.”

The teenagers in Nof Gilad do everything: welding, guard duty at night, taking the animals to pasture. There is strict discipline on the farm, they say. “There’s a really tight schedule,” one youth related, explaining that he’s lived on the outpost for four years. “Work all day, responsibility, guarding the herd at night – life, everything.” The Cohens, he added, “are sort of like my parents”; they help him when he’s in a “bad mental state.”

Another youth, not yet 17, said: “I feel that it [life on the farm] is maturing me more than school did.” And another young man who arrived on the farm as a minor, did army service and returned, explained: “A kid of 16 who comes here, guards at night, gets to sleep three hours a night and work all day, do things he doesn’t always feel like doing – he turns out differently. In the end, what builds a person’s character most is coping with difficulty.” At least 15 youths like him have become integrated into life at Nof Gilad over the years, he added.

How do these youths end up there, of all places? According to Cohen, the Welfare Ministry should answer that question. “You pay taxes,” he said to an activist who confronted him. “The taxes go to the Welfare Ministry, the Welfare Ministry subsidizes them [the teens]. Why are you asking me?”

Under the auspices of regional councils in the West Bank, the Welfare Ministry is indeed involved in integrating teenagers into agricultural and shepherding outposts, but it maintains that it doesn’t direct them there. The practice dates back to a decision made by the Bennett-Yair Lapid government under the heading of “Strengthening therapeutic, educational responses for youth in the Judea and Samaria region.” The main outcome of the decision was a program called Mit’habrim (Connecting), one of whose goals is to institutionalize the connection between the Welfare Ministry and the outposts.

Haaretz spoke to a number of welfare personnel who work in the settlement councils and are knowledgeable about how Mit’habrim works. Two of them consented to talk about how it is implemented, and what emerges is that the councils don’t necessarily send the young people to the farms directly but rather help facilitate their stay there. The Shomron Regional Council, for example, has made available a social worker along with three coordinators who work with the farmers in order to “train them to identify signs of distress among the youths.” Another element of the program involves encouraging the teenagers to take part in courses, training programs and enrichment activities. “The idea is to see them, so they won’t become lost youth,” the source said.

At the regional council, they emphasize that the youths are not removed from their parents’ legal custody, and that they don’t necessarily fit the criteria of at-risk youth. “For the most part they are very ideological young people, functioning, who don’t find their place in the standard frameworks.”

“Most of the guys on the farms aren’t residents of Judea and Samaria and aren’t what’s known as hilltop youth,” adds someone who is involved in the Mit’habrim program in the Binyamin Regional Council. “They come from places like Jerusalem, Petah Tikva and Holon. We want to ensure that the youngsters who come to us from the outside don’t encounter risky situations. Once the young person is there, they need to be supervised and accompanied. They need to be directed toward productive activity.”

A young man who lived on farms as a minor says that most of the teenagers there are “people who dropped out of school because of learning disabilities or incompatibility with the system, sometimes due to religious incompatibility or because of ADHD.” They hear about the outposts by word of mouth, he said. “If you drop out of school, you know that this [option] exists.” He added that in one instance, a boy who got into trouble with the law and was supposed to be sent to a rehabilitative framework, was able to persuade the judge to allow him to reside on a farm instead.

The issue of the sort of youths who are directed to live in such outposts came up in a meeting last March of the Knesset’s Special Committee on Young Israelis chaired by MK Naama Lazimi (Labor). Participating in the meeting, convened in the wake of the pogrom perpetrated by settlers in the Palestinian town of Hawara, was Galit Geva, director of the Welfare Ministry’s unit for severely at-risk populations. She told the committee that there were 320 youths – 240 boys and 80 girls – on West Bank farms who are in touch with social workers. About two-thirds of the youths are originally from settlements and the rest from various places around the country, many of them from Jerusalem.

Apparently, the Welfare Ministry had allotted a social worker to four local authorities in the territories: Samaria, Binyamin, the Etzion Bloc and the Hebron Hills. However, many of the youths on farms were actually living in the Jordan Valley, where there was no state supervision. Human rights activists in the area have warned on many occasions that there are young settlers, in some cases children, who take animals to pasture on their own and are vulnerable to various dangers there. There has been no official response to this situation.

“We see children, some of them not even of bar-mitzvah age, who are very neglected, who are out in the field for hours with their herds in order to seize grazing lands of Palestinians,” relates Gali Hendin, of the Mistaclim – Looking the Occupation in the Eye nonprofit. Yifat Mehl, another activist, adds, “The young people are the spearhead of spontaneous violence. In the past the farmers themselves would go to confront the Palestinians and the activists. Now these youngsters are on the front line. They are the vanguard.”

In a letter she sent last March to the Welfare Ministry in the name of the Jordan Valley activists, Prof. Michal Shamai, from the School of Social Work at the University of Haifa, compared the youths living on farm outposts to the phenomenon of “child soldiers” who have been recruited during wars in African countries. “This is not what a rehabilitation process of at-risk youth should look like. Places like those are fertile ground for the development of hate. And hate is not rehabilitation,” Shamai told Haaretz. This week the activists contacted the Welfare and Social Affairs Ministry again, reporting “suspected harm to minors.” The activists warned about the “subjection of teens and youths to situations of physical and emotional harm, suspected physical neglect and absence from school frameworks.”

In a letter to the Welfare Ministry, Prof. Michal Shamai, from the School of Social Work at the University of Haifa, compared the youths living on farm outposts to “child soldiers” who have been recruited during wars in African countries.
In addition, the young people on the farms are cheap labor. Roni (not her real name) was recently living on a farm in the Jordan Valley during a year of volunteer service before going to the army. However, she decided to leave early because she felt that she and the other young people were employed there under exploitative conditions.

“At first it all looked rosy and enchanting,” Roni says. “You get full responsibility and a feeling of home. But we would work from 6 A.M., with a half-hour lunch break, until 7 P.M. Guard duty at night, farming in the morning, and in the afternoon construction work or cleaning jobs. We got no payment, of course, other than 400 shekels a month stipend (about $110) from the organization through which we were doing our year of service.” It’s hard for the younger volunteers to revolt, she explains, “because for them the farm owner and his wife are like father and mother. They’re kids of 15-16 who feel that they [the farm couple] have saved their life.”

Binyamin Achimeir.
* * *

One morning last April, 14-year-old Binyamin Achimeir, who lived on the Malachei Hashalom outpost along the Allon Road, set out alone at 6 A.M. to take a flock of sheep to pasture. He didn’t return. The next morning his body was found nearby – he had been brutally murdered by a Palestinian from the nearby village.

Achimeir, whose family lives in Jerusalem, wasn’t the type of teenager who dropped out of school and simply ended up among the youths on West Bank hilltops. He combined yeshiva studies with volunteering on the farm on weekends. His sister, Hanna Achimeir, a journalist with i24NEWS, thinks it’s wrong to attach the at-risk label to these young people. “I understand the temptation to make the connection,” she says, “but in my view it’s mistaken. Most of the religious youths who go to the farms have a drive to search for meaning. For a young person who has an affinity with nature or a desire for quiet, heading out there is natural.”

Achimeir, who lives in Jaffa, adds that “for teenagers in Tel Aviv, the search [for meaning] could take the form of trying out all sorts of edgy experiences that the city can offer. In national-religious society there are endless restrictions, along with the feeling that around the corner another, parallel, world is lurking. If you grew up in a bourgeois community and you’re a bit curious, either you’ll find yourself in Cats Square [a hangout for young people in Jerusalem] or you’ll head for the farms if you are something of a hippie.”

Malachei Hashalom Farm was founded by Eliav Libi, who lives there with his family. He recently established an offshoot called Havat Harashash. According to left-wing activists, its residents terrorized a nearby Bedouin community called Ein Rashrash until its inhabitants fled about a year ago.

The web series about West Bank farms devoted an episode to Harashash, starring the teenagers living there. One of them, a 17-year-old, related that he had been doing volunteer work on the farm for two years. “You don’t actually get paid, right?” the interviewer asked, and received an affirmative reply.

Following the murder, the farm launched a crowdfunding campaign via the nonprofit Btsalmo, under the heading “The Answer to Murder,” which raised about 433,000 shekels. However, the so-called answer came in the form of a series of assaults by settlers from the whole region on 10 neighboring Palestinian villages. The result? Four Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded in the rampage, in which cars were torched and homes were severely damaged.

Destruction in the village of Duma, in the wake of the murder of Binyamin Achimeir in April. Four Palestinians were killed in the settler riots in the area.Credit: Tomer Appelbaum
* * *

There are those who think that at least some of the farm outposts have a truly beneficial effect on their young volunteers. Indeed, they seem to be the pillars of the outpost of Nof Avi, near the urban settlement of Ariel. The farm was founded by Israel and Sara Rappaport, who make a living selling cattle and are raising their three daughters there; a group of volunteers is always on site. Some of the youths wear a T-shirt emblazoned with the inscription, “Rappaport’s wounded.” Amos, the father of a teenager who lived on the farm, believes that “wounded” is a fitting term.

“My son left home at the age of 14 and a half,” he relates. “He hung out on the street and soon got into trouble. He was arrested for break-ins, being in possession of a knife, using a penknife. He wound up in one of the hangouts in Jerusalem and met guys from the Eli [settlement] area. The connection with the farms happened there. One day he simply informed us that he was living with a young couple on a farm in Samaria.” It was the Rappaports’ outpost.

“It was a sort of salvation for us,” Amos says. “After months of not knowing what was happening with him, finally we had an address. There were other guys like him there also, who volunteered and did productive, positive things. His stay there was all for the good.”

However, Amos’ son didn’t end up using the farm as a springboard to a normative way of life; he was drawn to more extreme places. “He went through two or three farms like that until he arrived at a much wilder outpost. Four months ago he was jailed. I don’t know what kind of person he would have become if not for those farms, but I tend to believe that his condition would be worse.”

A request from Haaretz to Sara Rappaport to talk about the “wounded” was rejected. “It’s hard for me to trust Haaretz,” she said in response.

“The farm owners are helping prevent the deterioration of these teenagers,” says an educator who works with at-risk teenagers throughout the West Bank. “When a youth is in a crisis and he is effectively a type of nomad, the farm is an anchor for him. Wherever such young people are, they need to be looked after. If instead of being tossed into Cats Square or onto beaches at the Kinneret, he will do shifts guarding on a farm. Maybe from the point of view of Haaretz, that looks like exploitation, but for him it will be a type of secure framework.”

Rabbi Arik Ascherman, who is the founder of the human rights organization Torah of Justice and who has been attacked a number of times during his years of activism, standing between Palestinians and abusive settlers, is familiar with this approach. “The farm owners perceive themselves as educators,” Ascherman says. “I of course dispute that. Beyond the wicked things these youths do to Palestinians, we also need to consider what the stay on the farms does to them.”

In response

The JNF stated in response: “The JNF’s Noar Besikuy [at-risk youths] program exists in communities in the social and geographical periphery across the country. The program accords youth an opportunity to integrate into various frameworks in Israeli society, as active, contributing citizens. This is a valuable educational program that educates youth to love the country, through which youths are enveloped by a learning environment that includes, among other elements, Zionist education aimed at getting to know the land, vocational training in various fields, basic life skills and proficiency, and more.

“The activities and programs in which the youths take part forge in them confidence, hope and the opportunity for healthy integration in society. The cooperation with the Binyamin Regional Council and the various nonprofits taking part in the program deals solely with educational programs for youth. The JNF does not work with the farms at all, the JNF works with dropout youths and we continue to operate in accordance with educational programs for youth. The JNF has not worked with Shivat Zion since 2023.”

A settler near the village of Surif, in 2021. Some 20 masked settlers attacked Palestinians harvesting olives there that year.Credit: Shai Kendler/Megafon News
The Agriculture Ministry stated that it “supports pasturing in order to preserve open areas. Support [i.e., funding] is provided for the territory in which the grazing takes place. As a condition for receiving support, the rights to the land of those making the request are examined. The place of residence of the person making the request is irrelevant. In addition, the ministry supports public institutions (nonprofits) with respect to the activity of volunteers in the realm of agriculture. In this context, too – with respect to the voluntary activity carried out in Judea and Samaria for which the support is being requested – the rights are examined of the owner of the land on which the activity is carried out, by means of the Civil Administration.”

The Negev, Galilee and National Resilience Ministry noted in response to the article that it has been tasked for the past three years with pooling funds from the Israel Land Authority and the agriculture and education ministries, and allocating them “equally” among nonprofits that organize volunteer groups “active in rural towns that maintain farming activity in areas of national preference.” As result, “In 2022 some 16 organizations received support amounting to 20 million shekels from all the ministries, [and] in 2023, some 18 organizations received support amounting to 16 million shekels.” The funding, the ministry said, was allocated “legally and in accordance with the criteria approved by the Justice Ministry.”

The Welfare Ministry stated in response to this article that it “does not directly or through its various branches fund or refer youth to farms of one kind or another as a therapeutic framework. At the same time, because the youths arrive at these farms independently – ‘one friend brings another’ – and in the understanding that the Welfare Ministry’s chief commitment is to assist and take care of young people who are at risk and in danger, the ministry has allotted social workers and youth counselors who work with the local authorities, in order to locate youths who are residing in Judea and Samaria without a guiding hand.

“The purpose of the therapeutic teams is to reconnect them with their families and with as normative a way of life as possible. As part of the work involved in finding the youths, and as much as is needed, the teams make contact with the people on the farm with the aim of getting to the youths and assessing their level of risk. They cannot be removed from the hilltops or the farms by force, just as they cannot be removed from Cats Square, for example. Nevertheless, if the assessment of the experts is that a boy or girl is at a high level of risk, we will act according to the regular means, under the Youth Treatment and Supervision Law.

“As of today, there is not one farm in the State of Israel that is categorized as an official institution that treats at-risk youth. These farms are not funded and are not supervised, either officially or unofficially. The Welfare Ministry does not see the farm as a framework that provides a therapeutic-rehabilitative response to the youths’ needs. The farm is seen as the place where the youth resides. As part of the task of locating and treating [young people], the role of the therapeutic teams is to tailor a ‘personal suit’ to each youth, irrespective of whether he is on a farm, on a hilltop, on the street or at home.”

A spokesperson for the Israel Police stated: “With regard to the incident on April 15, 2024 [the shooting deaths of two Palestinians], we note that immediately upon receiving the report, an investigation was launched, which is being conducted at this time thoroughly and professionally, and in which a range of investigative actions have and will be taken with the aim of arriving at the truth.

“Regarding the attack on the Palestinians near Dorot Illit on July 7, 2023: Upon receipt of the complaint by the police, a range of investigative actions were carried out. In the light of the findings and in accordance with the evidentiary foundation that was obtained, it was decided to close the case. If new information is received, the case will be reopened.

“Regarding the event on Kornitz’s farm: In total contradiction to what is alleged in your query, when a report was received about the event, police officers arrived at the place, gathered testimony and documented everything involved at the site. At the conclusion of a comprehensive investigation, and in accordance with the evidentiary foundation that was obtained, it was decided to close the case. If new evidence or information is received by the police which will lead to a development in the investigation, they will be examined as usual.”

Hiburim – Beit Shean and the Valley stated: “Hiburim – Connecting Through Agriculture is proud to be at the forefront of social action in Israel and to activate tens of thousands of volunteers in the realm of agriculture throughout the State of Israel for a decade. Since the start of the war, the nonprofit has been working in hundreds of farms that were on the verge of collapse, with an emphasis on farms in the western Negev and in the north. All the activity of the nonprofit is subject to law and it acts according to the law.”

The Btsalmo organization said that it “helps Israel’s citizens everywhere and doesn’t discriminate between citizens.”

Eliav Libi, in response to allegations that Malachei Hashalom Farm and Harshash are responsible for expelling residents of neighboring Bedouin communities, stated that this is a “flagrant lie” but refused to respond substantively to allegations of violence.

Moshe Sharvit stated in response: “Go on with your smugness and your hostility toward the Jewish people and its redemption. You will certainly not be part of it. The land will spew you out of itself.”

Issachar Mann maintained that he is not aware that sanctions have been imposed on him.

The WZO’s Settlement Division and the Artzenu nonprofit (Shivat Zion Charity Trust) did not respond.

No response was received from Ben Yishai Eshed.

This article is reproduced in its entirety