History
The core settlements of Gush Etzion before 1948 were Kfar Etzion, Massu'ot Yitzhak, Ein Tzurim and Revadim, built on tracts of land purchased from the early 1920s. From November 29, 1947, Kfar Etzion was under siege and cut off from Jerusalem. On May 13, 1948, when the village surrendered, 127 Jewish inhabitants were massacred by the Arab Legion. The other villages surrendered the next day. The inhabitants were taken prisoner and the homes were plundered and burned.
The establishment, defense and fall of Gush Etzion has been described as "one of the major episodes of the State of Israel-in-the-making," playing a significant role in Israeli collective memory. The motivation for resettling the region is not so much ideological, political or security-related as symbolic, linked in the Israeli psyche to the massive loss of life in the Israeli War of Independence.
Read more about this topic: Gush Etzion
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“All objects, all phases of culture are alive. They have voices. They speak of their history and interrelatedness. And they are all talking at once!”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)
“Jesus Christ belonged to the true race of the prophets. He saw with an open eye the mystery of the soul. Drawn by its severe harmony, ravished with its beauty, he lived in it, and had his being there. Alone in all history he estimated the greatness of man.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)