Ma'ale Shomron () is an

Israeli settlement Israeli settlements, also called Israeli colonies, are the civilian communities built by Israel throughout the Israeli-occupied territories. They are populated by Israeli citizens, almost exclusively of Israeli Jews, Jewish identity or ethni ...

in the northern

West Bank The West Bank is located on the western bank of the Jordan River and is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up the State of Palestine. A landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...

. Located about 300 metres above sea level, it is organised as a

community settlement A community settlement (, ''Yishuv Kehilati'') is a type of town or village in Israel and in the West Bank. In an ordinary town, anyone may buy property, but in a community settlement, the village's residents are organized in a cooperative an ...

and falls under the jurisdiction of

Shomron Regional Council The Shomron Regional Council (, ''Mo'atza Azorit Shomron'', English ''Samaria Regional Council'') is an Israeli regional council in the northern portion of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Thirty-five Israeli settlements fall under its jurisdict ...

. In 2019 it had a population of 996. The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law, but the Israeli government disputes this.

History

The settlement was established in February 1980 by a mixed group of Orthodox and

non-religious Irreligion is the absence or rejection of religious beliefs or practices. It encompasses a wide range of viewpoints drawn from various philosophical and intellectual perspectives, including atheism, agnosticism, religious skepticism, ration ...

Israelis Israelis (; ) are the Israeli citizenship law, citizens and nationals of the Israel, State of Israel. The country's populace is composed primarily of Israeli Jews, Jews and Arab citizens of Israel, Arabs, who respectively account for 75 percen ...

from the

Beitar The Betar Movement (), also spelled Beitar (), is a Revisionist Zionism, Revisionist Zionist youth movement founded in 1923 in Riga, Latvia, by Ze'ev Jabotinsky, Vladimir (Ze'ev) Jabotinsky. It was one of several right-wing youth movements tha ...

and

Herut Herut () was the major conservative nationalist political party in Israel from 1948 until its formal merger into Likud in 1988. It was an adherent of Revisionist Zionism. Some of their policies were compared to those of the Nazi party. Early y ...

movements. It is closely bordered by Karnei Shomron. According to ARIJ, Israel confiscated land from several

Palestinian Palestinians () are an Arab ethnonational group native to the Levantine region of Palestine. *: "Palestine was part of the first wave of conquest following Muhammad's death in 632 CE; Jerusalem fell to the Caliph Umar in 638. The indigenous p ...

villages in order to construct Ma'ale Shomron, including 268 dunums of land from

Azzun Azzun (also spelled Azzoun) (, from the root word عز ''′izz'' which means honor or esteem) is a Palestinian town in Qalqilya Governorate in the northern West Bank, located 9 kilometers east of Qalqilya and 24 kilometers south of Tulkarm. ...

, 69 dunams from Deir Istiya,Deir Istiya Town Profile
ARIJ, p. 18 and 367 dunums of land from

Kafr Thulth Kafr Thulth () is a Palestinians, Palestinian town located on high, flat land south of Azzoun, south of Tulkarm in the Qalqilya Governorate. The average elevation is above sea level. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the ...

/ Arab Al Khouleh (including land for Karnei Shomron and Emmanuel).

Archaeology

Located within the settlement is the archaeological site of ''Khirbet Jamma'in'', where an ancient

Israelite Israelites were a Hebrew language, Hebrew-speaking ethnoreligious group, consisting of tribes that lived in Canaan during the Iron Age. Modern scholarship describes the Israelites as emerging from indigenous Canaanites, Canaanite populations ...

village from the

First Temple period The history of ancient Israel and Judah spans from the early appearance of the Israelites in Canaan's hill country during the late second millennium BCE, to the establishment and subsequent downfall of the two Israelite kingdoms in the mid- ...

( Iron Age II) was discovered in 1976. A salvage excavation carried out in 1979, just before the establishment of the settlement, revealed a range of structures including four-room houses, an olive oil press, a winepress, a

watering hole A watering hole or waterhole is a geological depression in which a body of water forms, usually a pond or a small lake. A watering hole is "a sunken area of land that fills with water". Watering holes may be ephemeral or seasonal. Ephemeral ...

, a

quarry A quarry is a type of open-pit mining, open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock (geology), rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some juri ...

, and terraces. The archaeological evidence suggests that the village likely housed a population of around 600 to 800 individuals. However, by the 7th century BCE, the site had been abandoned.

Notable residents

* Dani Dayan, chairman of

Yad Vashem Yad Vashem (; ) is Israel's official memorial institution to the victims of Holocaust, the Holocaust known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (). It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; echoing the stories of the ...

, former

Consul General A consul is an official representative of a government who resides in a foreign country to assist and protect citizens of the consul's country, and to promote and facilitate commercial and diplomatic relations between the two countries. A consu ...

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

and former head of Yesha Council

References

External links

Official website
Mixed Israeli settlements Populated places established in 1980 1980 establishments in the Israeli Military Governorate Israeli settlements in the West Bank {{Israel-geo-stub