ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on Jewish colonization in the Lower Galilee during the years 1908–1914 and the formation of a new colonization model we describe as “armed settlement.” This model is characterized by the development of settlers’ ability to defend themselves and use limited violence while displacing the local population from the land. It emerged out of the effort of the Palestine Office of the Zionist Organization to lay the basis for Jewish autonomy by achieving a Jewish majority and Jewish control over most of the land in the area. To this end, it supported the HaShomer guarding organization and established “conquest groups” in Degania, Merhavia, and other sites. The armed-settlement model was more effective than the settlement model of the Jewish Colonization Association in forcing the local population off the land. The struggle that ensued in the wake of its implementation was a decisive factor in the formation of the two communities as national movements in confrontation. Attention to the armed-settlement model, or strategy, at its beginning opens up a new view on the development of Zionist colonization and its relations with the local population.
