‘Toxic Educational Programs’ aimed at Recruiting Jews Students Worldwide to work with Hilltop Gangs in Settlements

By: Madeeha Al-A’raj
The ‘National Bureau for Defending Land and Resisting Settlements stated in its latest weekly report , that the brutal war launched by Israel on the Gaza Strip 2 years ago has opened the door to a massive recruitment campaign of Jewish youth in many EU States and the USA to serve in the occupation army, as well as in the ranks of Jewish terrorist organizations in the settlements, outposts, and terrorist pastoral farms through educational programs that help integrate them into the so-called ‘occupying state s value system’ primarily the army and the militias operating in the settlements. Those programs circumvent all restrictions imposed on any individual´-or-citizen in these countries, holding them accountable before the law for anything related to hate speech´-or-violations of international humanitarian law.
These restrictions are applied to a large and exaggerated extent against Arab and Muslim citizens, especially after the September 11 attack. However, when it comes to Israel, Western governments in particular don’t take real measures to monitor their citizens who join the Israeli army and fight alongside it in its war of extermination,´-or-who participate in military and paramilitary groups operating in the West Bank and participating in the settlers violence and terrorism against Palestinian citizens.
One of the programs is the ‘Makhina Olamit’ one, which is designed for Jewish students from countries around the world who have completed high school and are offered a program ranging from nine months to a year, often in settlements in the occupied West Bank. These students are ideologically prepared with paramilitary training before being sent to settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem. One example is the Bnei Akiva Movement, the largest religious Zionist youth movement operating in more than 40 countries worldwide. Its website summarizes its program for Jewish students from around the world.
This English-language website advertises the program, which aimed students of both sexes in North America, Europe, Latin America, and Israel. The website describes the program as a gap year after graduation, before enrolling in university. The program lasts 9 as the website states, ‘is intended for Jewish high school graduates from around the world’ and ‘offers a unique blend of leadership training, experiences, Zionist education, and exploration of Israel.’
The program, as the website states includes leadership training, religious and lifestyle learning, community service, love of Israel, physical fitness and military preparation, Hebrew language learning and Jewish identity, seminars trips, safety and security. The Olamit program for the current year, 2025 - 2026, includes an orientation phase with a week spent in the Gush Etzion settlements south of Jerusalem, followed in the following months by a week with the army’, ‘volunteer programs’ in the occupied West Bank, and more.
Among those in charge of the Movement s Makhina Olamit Program, Rabbi Ari Haber, who appears as one of the program coordinators. Haber s FB page reveals that he lives in the settlement of Efrat in the occupied West Bank, which was established in 1980 on the lands of the villages of Al-Khader and Artas, south of Bethlehem. He is known for his extremist views supporting the war of annihilation in the Gaza Strip. In a message also posted on his FB account, Haber criticized the positions of Jewish rabbis in the USA who objected to Israel s actions in the Gaza Strip. According to him, ‘rabbis living in the diaspora have no right to rebuke Israel for its actions in the Gaza Strip´-or-even in the West Bank.’
All at once, there is a -dir-ect relationship between the Yeshiva leadership and prominent rabbis in the movement, such as, Rabbi Dov Lior of Kiryat Arba, Rabbi Ginzburg of Yitzhar, and Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, all of whom promote an ideological mindset and expand the distribution of extremist religious materials. Regarding the relationship between learning and practice, he emphasizes a shift from the theoretical scholastic narrative to the practical side, where messages of ‘reclaiming the land’ and ‘cleansing the area’ and a sense of a violent mission toward the Palestinians are emphasized.
Some students continue to serve in the Israeli army and are also invested in creating a moral and spiritual impact, emphasizing the ‘settlement mission.’ Habbas concludes that the radical settler yeshiva emphasizes a combination of Torah learning and the struggle for the land, affirming the exclusivity of Jews in the country, denying the rights of Palestinian communities, and sometimes -dir-ectly´-or-in-dir-ectly calling for violent action on the ground, including disregarding state authority if it conflicts with rabbiniciblical ideals.
One young Jew, who fell victim to the program, before rebelling against it and moving to Masafer Yatta to share the daily suffering of the Palestinians, is Sam Stein, who grew up in New York, in a small town on Long Island where Orthodox Jews make up the majority of the community. In an interview with Al-Quds Al-Arabi on Sept 21, he recounted some aspects of his education at school. Stein says, ‘The ‘makhina’ programs were part of the religious Zionist movement. The whole idea is to spend half the time studying the Torah and Jewish studies, and the other half doing something ‘a little more active.’ In the morning, we would wake up and attend Torah classes until lunchtime.
Every Tuesday, for example, we would go on a different trip and walk. On Wednesday evening, we had classes in ‘counter-terrorism.’ ‘All of this may seem normal on the surface, even the walking and volunteering, but they were deeply connected to the right-wing of Zionism.’ Sam realized that some of the groups he interacted with and participated in activities with inside the West Bank belonged to a very extremist organization, an organization that openly practiced violence against Palestinians, to the point that former PM Ehud Barak described it as ‘homemade terrorism and Jewish-made terrorism.’ One of the first ‘volunteer’ activities was at a center for ‘at-risk youth’ in a nearby settlement, ‘where I later realized that these young people were all ‘Hilltop Youth’, and that this center was essentially an outpost. We would go swimming with them in a spring.”
Sam recounts that during his work with settlers in the West Bank, as part of the ‘Al-Makhina Program’, he would accompany a number of young men to a Palestinian village. ‘We would steal from a village and help them build something that could be used to steal more land.’ He also recounts his experience ‘volunteering’ at an animal shelter in a settlement called ‘Eleazar’ on the land of the Palestinian village of Al-Khader, west of Bethlehem. He says the idea seemed ‘more innocent to him.
I wonder, ‘Oh my God, how abnormal it is to be in an animal shelter within a settlement, when the settlement itself is a violation of human rights!’ As for the ‘counter-terrorism’ ‘Magha Krava’ classes, their military nature was very apparent. They would provide us with shooting drills, and the targets were racist images of Palestinians wearing koffiyas and carrying knives.
In provocative settlement activities, FM and Minister of Settlement in the Ministry of Army, Bezalel Smotrich, joined settlers in a settlement march in the plain of the Ramin town in the Tulkarm Governorate. The plain is considered the object of these settlers’ ambitions, as they established a settlement outpost there in July of last year. Simultaneously, the occupation authorities announced last week the seizure of 35 dunums of citizens’ lands in the Ramallah and Al-Bireh Governorate, with two military orders under the name of ‘seizure orders’.
The first bore the number T/162/25 and targeted an area of 11,337 dunums of lands in the Ni’lin town and the Deir Qadis village, west of Ramallah, with the aim of establishing a barbed wire fence separating the town and village from the ‘Matityahu settlement’. The second order bore the number T/05/07 and targeted about 24,142 dunums of lands in the village of Beit Eilo, northwest of Ramallah, with the aim of completing the establishment of a buffer zone around the ‘Nahlael settlement’.
The occupation authorities also approved a settlement plan in the Kafr Qaddum village, east of Qalqilia. The Qalqilia Governorate reported that the occupation authorities published, through the Hebrew media, a plan to seize 35.31 dunums of Kafr Qaddum lands, located in basin n. (10) in the ‘Wadi Brus area’, north of the village. It explained that the plan aims to build 58 new settlement units for the ‘Mitzpe Yishai settlement’, built on village lands.
Unconnectedly, as part of updating its database of companies operating in illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which support Israeli settlement in occupied Palestine, the ‘OHCHA’ has listed the top 10 international companies that support Israeli settlement in Palestine, most of them Israeli. The list includes 20 foreign companies and 138 Israeli companies. High Commissioner Volker Türk called on these companies involved in supporting settlement activities to cease doing so. Most of the foreign companies are active in the construction, real estate, tourism, travel, and mining sectors, and the UN believes that their continued operations in settlements entrench the Israeli occupation and constitute a violation of International Law.
These companies by nationality are: Booking Holding, a Dutch company that provides travel and online reservation services. The company lists a large number of properties on its reservation platform, including hotels, apartments, and vacation homes within Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Motorola Solutions, an American company, operates internationally in the field of public safety and corporate security solutions. It is the sole supplier of an independent cellular network for the Israeli occupation army and specialized smart-phone devices.
Airbnb, an American tourism company, promotes tourism in West Bank settlements. Heidelberg Building Materials, a German company that produces building materials. Expedia Group, an American company, is a global leader in travel technology. ACS Construction Services, a Spanish company that is a global leader in infrastructure. Metronario Investments, a Canadian company, and Fosun International-limit-ed, a Chinese company that operates as a diversified investment conglomerate. Aegis Group, a French company listed on the stock market, and TripAdvisor, a leading Global Platform for tourism and travel.
List of Israeli Assaults over the Last Week Documented by the National Bureau:
Jerusalem:
- Forcing Jerusalemite, Moh’d Al-Qaq to demolish his home in the Al-Musrara Neighborhood. Al-Qaq said he was forced to demolish the house himself, because the municipality employees threatened that if he didn’t carry out the demolition, he would be forced to pay the costs of the demolition and rubble removal amounting to NIS 250,000.
- Injuring the young Jerusalemite, Moh’d Abdul Ghaffar Al-Jubeh, 19 by a live bullet in his thigh, shot by a settler in the ‘Al-Baqa a area’ adjacent to his residence in the Al-Thawri Neighborhood, south of Al-Aqsa Mosque, and was transferred to the hospital.
- Attacking Khallet Al-Sidra Bedouin Community, east of the Mikhmas town, and assaulted the residents at the site, committing acts of abuse against them and stealing a water tank from the community before fleeing the scene.
- Stealing olive fruits from lands belonging to the Al-Abbasi family in the Wadi Al-Rababa Neighborhood, as the occupation prevents the residents of the neighborhood from entering their lands and threatened them with arrest.
- Launching a campaign to distribute banners bearing the image of the Temple to various units of the Israeli occupation army, in a move aimed at strengthening the religious dimension among soldiers, and according to the organizations, to confirm that the battle is religious and ideological before being political.
- Performing Talmudic rituals at the Buraq Wall, west of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, to commemorate the so-called Hebrew ‘Feast of Tabernacles’, while the occupation forces closed the Lions Gate Street leading to the Buraq Wall, in the face of Jerusalemites.
Hebron:
- Attacking the Al-Zweidin village in the Yatta Badia, firing live ammunition, injuring a young man in the foot. A number of citizens were also injured with bruises and contusions as a result of the physical assault.
- Stealing sheep belonging to Ishaq al-Jabarin in the village of Sha b al-Batm stormed the ‘Haribat al-Nabi’ village, and attacked citizens homes, residents confronted them, while occupation soldiers arrested a foreign activist while he was documenting the settlers attacks.
- Attacking the house of citizen Yusef Musa and proceeded to break its windows before setting fire to his vehicle in the ‘Wadi al-Rakhim’ community in the same area.
- Uprooting 150 olive trees in the Um al-Khair village, and destroyed an agricultural fence and barbed wire belonging to citizens near the ‘Karmiel settlement’.
- Dashing children and a number of citizens, while a group of armed settlers attacked the homes of citizens in Huwara, Masafer Yatta. Others, under the protection of the occupation forces, stormed the archaeological site of Tel Ma in, south of Hebron. Attackedg houses of citizens in the Huwara area, east of Yatta, with stones, and attempted to seize the home of citizen Ibrahim al-Jabour, but the residents confronted and prevented them. Doing so
Ramallah:
- Injuring 2 citizens in the Deir Jarir village after settlers stormed one of the areas in the town, which led to the outbreak of clashes during which the occupation forces fired live bullets at young men, resulting in the injury of two citizens, and the settlers burned a citizen s vehicle.
- Chopping trees on citizens lands located between Abu Falah and Turmusaia, northeast of Ramallah, in the Marj Sa i area, and targeted agricultural areas owned by residents of the two towns.
- Storming the outskirts of the village of Al-Mughayyir under the protection of the occupation forces, the Wadi Qatuniya area in the Khalayel area, Wadi Al-Banat near the southern sector, and the eastern plain, and grazed their sheep on those lands, as part of the pastoral settlement policy to seize citizens lands.
- Setting up a new caravan on Talit-Asour in a move aimed at expanding the settlement outpost there, giving the settlers a dominant position over the surrounding areas. The establishment of the new caravan paves the way for transforming the site into a permanent point and possibly expanding it later, which would affect the vital area of the villages near the area.
- Preventing farmers in the Rantis town, west of Ramallah from harvesting their olives. In the village of Um Safa, settlers stormed the ‘Jabal al-Ras’ area and raided the land of Bashir Abu Moh’d, stole its contents, broke doors, and destroyed water tanks.
- Attacking the house of Nazih Maadi, destroyed the surrounding fence, stole some of its contents, and broke a number of fruit trees in the Kafr Malik village.
- Preventing citizens in the village of Beit Ur al-Tahta from harvesting olives, forced them at gunpoint to leave their land, 2 citizens were injured by live bullets, and others were beaten.
- Attacking the Atarat town, injured the young Jihad Ajaj, 26, who died of his wounds from a settler’s bullets, in addition to 3 others, who were injured with wounds ranging from serious to moderate, and they were transferred to the Palestine Medical Complex in Ramallah in the Deir Jarir village, east of Ramallah.
Nablus:
- Storming the northern neighborhood of Qusra town, fired live ammunition at civilians, and carried out a provocative tour among citizens homes.
- Organizing a provocative tour in the eastern area of the Burin village, south of Nablus, among citizens homes, accompanied by the occupation army, before withdrawing.
- Stealing olives in the villages of Naqoura and Deir Sharaf, northwest of Nablus. Eyewitnesses confirmed that a group of settlers spread among citizens lands in Naqoura and Deir Sharaf and proceeded to steal olives. They were expelled from the area after they were discovered. Settlers also stole olives from Palestinian lands at the entrance to Duma village, southeast of Nablus, where they proceeded to pick olives from Palestinian lands located at the main entrance to Duma village, in a provocative move that sets a dangerous precedent in the region.
- Warning by the Sebastia Mayor Moh’d Azem of provocative marches that settlers intend to carry out, coinciding with the Jewish Sukkot holiday, towards the old train station in Sebastia. Azem pointed out that settlers attacks on the town and archaeological sites, especially in the Masodeia area. He added that the archaeological area, inhabited by 15 Palestinian families, is constantly subjected to incursions and settlement campaigns, including attempts to establish a ticket office for settlers, under the protection of the Israeli army.
- Storming the Khirbet Yanun Plain, southeast of Nablus, closed agricultural roads, prevented farmers from reaching their lands, and grazed citizens lands planted with wheat and barley, damaging the crops.
Salfeet:
- Forcing 10 families to leave their agricultural lands in the areas of ‘Al-Safaha, Al-Manqa and Batin Al-Shami’ in the village of Farkha, west of Salfeet, and prevented them from picking olives. Under the protection of the occupation forces, they attempted to assault the residents, which resulted in a young man suffering a broken nose as a result of the beating. He was subsequently transferred to the Yasser Arafat Hospital in the city of Salfeet. Storming the Kafel Haris town to perform Talmudic rituals in religious shrines inside the town.
- Assaulting Mah’d Abdel Rahman Raddad and his wife while they were working on their land located between the towns of Al-Zawiya and Rafat. They expelled them from their land, severely beaten them, before stealing their olive crops.
Tulkarm:
- Seizing olives from the lands of the Shofa village, southeast of Tulkarm, after forcing farmers and workers to leave. They confiscated the olives, agricultural tools, and mobile phones.
Jordan Vallwy:
- Storming the Samra and Hammamat Al-Maleh areas and began provoking, intimidating, and threatening residents, destroyed solar cells and an internet point in the Al-Maytah Community.
- Leashing their sheep among residents homes in the Shallal Al-Auja community and carried out provocative actions aimed at inciting residents in the area.
- Attacking a number of palm trees in the northern Jordan Valley belonging to Arsan Subaih in Al-Farisiya and assaulted the surrounding fence. About 20 settlers stormed the Al-Hadidiya community and began assaulting families, resulting in a woman sustaining bruises.
- Demolishing inhabited homes in the Al-Murshayhat area, west of Jericho, amid a heavy military deployment, without prior warning, leading to the displacement of a number of families and the destruction of their property.

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