Geva Binyamin, New Jewish City in Samaria

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                       

                                      Sons of Jacob gather on his deathbed to hear of their future

Judea and Samaria was the original land of the 12 tribes of Jacob that the 12th tribe of Judah belonged.  From Judah came the Jewish people.               

Geva Binyamin (Hebrew: גֶּבַע בִּנְיָמִין, lit. 'Benjamin Hill'), also known as Adam (Hebrew: אדם), is to be an Israeli settlement in Judea/Samaria built over land expropriated from the Palestinian village of Jaba'. It is organized as a community settlement  In 2022, it had a population of 5,913. This was just approved.

I don't use the term, "settlement".  It's too historic a term used in American history, building settlements to protect the whites from the marauding Indians, as they wrote in their history books.  I feel we should use the more descriptive words such as village, town, city, etc.  

Geba had originally been a Jewish village or town.   The village's name Jaba' is the Hebrew word for "hill", according to Edward Henry Palmer, writing in 1881. Biblical scholars Edward Robinson and Eli Smith believed that the village's name made it "decidedly another ancient Geba or Gibeah", but they were not aware of the existence of an ancient village with either of those names in Jaba's vicinity. A possibility, they noted, was that Jaba' was the "Gabe", mentioned by the Byzantine historian Jerome, that was located 16 Roman miles from the coastal city of Caesarea. Others identify this Jaba with the Geba of the Mishnah, explicitly noted as being in Samaria. By the way, in Hebrew, the "b" and the "v" are the same letter with a dot in one making it the other sound.  So we have either Geva or Geba.                              

The biblical site of Geba is identified with the modern village of Jeba, located in the land of Benjamin, southwest of Michmash. It is a Levitical city, and its location on the northern border of Judah is mentioned in 2 Kings 23:8. 

In the Bible, 48 "Levitical cities" were allocated to the tribe of Levi, who were not given their own territory like the other tribes of Israel. These cities were taken from the other tribes and were given to the Levites for their maintenance and upkeep of the religious institutions. The 48 cities included six "cities of refuge" for accidental murderers and 42 other cities. 

Geba was fortified by King Asa (915-875 BCE) during his war with Baasha (King of Israel) (1 Kings 15:22) and was also mentioned in Isaiah's prophecy regarding the Assyrian advance on Jerusalem (Isaiah 10:28).  Geba and Mizpah became key fortresses in a line of frontier posts along the border with Israel. 

At a later date, Palestinians who were allowed in the land by the British who held the 30 year mandate from the 1920s to 1948 inhabited the village remains. At this same time, the Brits managed to keep most Jews out at the time they needed to remove themselves from the German WWII about to begin, and wanted entrance into Palestine but most were kept out except those who entered illegally according to the damning law of the English.                              

In 2017, Jenin had a population of approximately 50,000 people, whilst the Jenin refugee camp had a population of about 10,000, housing families of Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their homes during the 1948 Palestine War. The camp has since become a stronghold of Palestinian militants against British colonialism and Israeli occupation, being the location of several incidents relating to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.

Just recently, the town was a Palestinian town.  Jaba' (Arabic: جبع) ;had become a Palestinian village in the northern West Bank, in the Jenin Governorate of the State of Palestine, located 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) southwest of the city of Jenin- a very Palestinian town housing many terrorists. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the village had a population of 8,942 in the 2007 census and 10,413 by 2017.  

The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law, but the Israeli government disputes this. Jews lost their land to the Romans in 70 CE, and though many remained, most were taken away as Roman slaves to Rome, then to Germany, and some escaped to land that became Spain. 

It was during the Ottoman Empire that Jewish cities were used by a few Arabs. The Ottoman Empire took over Samaria (along with the rest of Palestine) in 1517 AD. They ruled the region for nearly 400 years, until the end of World War I. According to Wikipedia, the Ottoman Empire took control of the region in 1516-1517 AD, and that Ottoman rule lasted until 1917-1918 AD, according to the Jewish Virtual Library.                                        

Defense Minister Israel Katz and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on a joint tour of Judea and Samaria

(Photo: Elad Malka, Shira Keinan, Ministry of Defense)

• Current Situation: The region is under Israeli control, and there are Israeli settlements alongside Palestinian towns and cities. 
• Population Dynamics: While there are Israeli settlements, the West Bank also has a large Palestinian population, including those in towns like Jeba. 

At the initiative of ministers Israel Katz and Betzalel Smotrich, the Political-Security Cabinet approved the establishment of 22 West Bank settlements in Binyamin, the Dead Sea region, the Jordan Valley, Mount Hebron and Samaria, including Homesh and Sa-Nur, which will be rebuilt. 

The land is so old, going back historically almost 4,000 years, that Jews lived here since the Exodus which took place from 1579 to 1570 BCE, depending on your calendar;  at least 3800 years ago, that Jews had lived here way way back.  King Saul (1030-1010 BCE)  was the first of their kings, and he came after the Judges who handled community life after the Exodus.  The land of Judea and Samaria (its surroundings) belonged for thousands of years before the Greeks and Romans and especially the Palestinians, the late-comers.  

                                               

      

Is it so weird that the people of Israel; the Jews,  want their original land, filled with their ancestors' bones and history and religion?  Why is it that people do not understand?