Nahal Forecasting Plant
Overview of Nahal's forecasts
The Nahal outpost is a settlement established in an area controlled by the State of Israel by soldiers serving in the Nahal Corps and by decision of the Israeli government. This activity, of promoting Jewish settlement throughout the Land of Israel, was in the past among the main functions of the Nahal. The outpost was in fact a combination of a military unit and a civilian settlement that makes its living mainly from agriculture and conducts community life as a base for a future settlement. According to this principle, the soldiers work in the outpost and guard it until the state decides to establish a civilian settlement in its place.
This method served national settlement missions, in areas where the Jewish population was sparse and which were considered a preferred settlement destination (mainly in the Negev, Galilee and the Arava and after the Six-Day War mainly in the areas that were transferred to Israel during the war). The first attempt to settle soldiers in a permanent location was made at Kibbutz Nir Eliyahu: on July 27, 1950, members of the "El Nir" group (a union of several nuclei of immigrants from Turkey, Romania and Poland who had been trained in kibbutzim: Gilad, Ein Harod, Kfar Giladi and Ashdot Yaakov) landed and established a kibbutz opposite the Qalqilya enclave and in order to create a Jewish settlement continuum between the then colony of Kfar Saba and Kibbutz Ramat HaKovesh, and near Beit Berl College. The success of the "pilot" in Nir Eliyahu led to the adoption of this method, with "Nachalim A" (now Kibbutz Nahal Oz) officially considered the first Nahal stronghold, facing Gaza. It is where the Nahal house is located to this day (it is no longer active as such).
Most of the settlements were naturalized over the years and became kibbutzim and moshavim, some were abandoned, some were converted into IDF bases, and some were settled as private farms. In 2001, the last Nahal settlement was closed, thus ending the story of this enterprise.
In 1949, about a year after the establishment of the state, the Security Service Law was enacted, in which the ideas of settlement and security were legally merged. The law emphasized security settlement and considered it the first line of defense for the state. Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion saw the agricultural training that the youth in these settlements would acquire as having two noble goals; one, military, and the other, agricultural. Ben-Gurion believed that the state should fill its army with pioneering, nation-building content, hence the importance of agricultural training in these localities. It was the Security Service Law that laid the foundation for the existence of the Nahal, and indeed from that moment on, efforts began to promote the idea within an organized military framework. Those ideas were only a principle in those days and did not lead to practical actions until 1950.
Pioneer youth movements as a main factor in the establishment of Nahal
The pioneering youth movements that operated in the Jewish settlement even before the establishment of the state arose out of the needs of the youth themselves and associated themselves, in one way or another, with the pioneering settlement. Most of the graduates of the movements, both boys and girls, went out to establish pioneering settlements throughout the country in a framework called the "nucleus." Starting in 1944, the nuclei of the youth movements began to join the conscript training that took place in one of the Palmach kibbutzim, for the purpose of training and work. At the beginning of the War of Independence, the training format was changed and the boys were separated from the nucleus girls and sent to the front. The new situation raised concerns in the youth movements about the final disintegration of the nuclei and the inability to rehabilitate the institution when the fighting ended. In the midst of all this, the State of Israel was established, the fighting on the fronts intensified, and the Palmach, which led the fighting, was unable to change the situation and drew increasing criticism from the youth movements. June 11, 1948 was a fateful day. On this day, the provisional government approved the conscription of 17-year-olds for approximately two months of training, as a reserve in case the situation at the front worsened. The youth responded enthusiastically and they trained initially at the military camp in Kfar Yona and then at Camp 80 in Pardes Hana. The leadership of the youth movements foresaw that their trainees, whom they had educated for settlement and pioneering, would turn to fighting and established an emergency committee to deal with maintaining the integrity of the groups. The movements put forward a proposal according to which these 17-year-old recruits would train in kibbutzim and be under the auspices of the Palmach. This proposal was called the Hatz – Pioneer Military Training. The request was passed on to Ben-Gurion and remained on his desk.
On August 10 of that year, the leaders of the pioneering youth movements sent a letter to the interim Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, and various government officials, requesting that: "A special framework be established for the cadets, not linked to any military brigade, except for training, and to demand that the cadets be sent to the settlement farms together with the girls, to maintain the integrity of the cadets and not to disperse them for military specializations in the various brigades."
The decision to establish Nahal
Prime Minister Ben-Gurion agreed to the request of the leaders of the pioneer youth movements, and so on August 16, 1948, about a week after their request, he agreed not to disband the groups and to create special frameworks for them, not linked to a defined military brigade, and to allow continued training within the framework of the "Pioneer Youth Fighters" - Nahal. In this letter, the Prime Minister gave the new framework its name. On September 12, 1948, Chief of Staff Yaakov Dori issued an order dedicated to the structure of the Gadna and included a chapter concerning the establishment of Nahal within it. The trainees trained in Camp 80, representatives of the youth movements were authorized to visit their trainees in the camp, an agreement was reached with the localities regarding the stay of the Nahal members there, and rules were established for the training of the Nahal members and their work, as well as rules for discipline and social activity. The Nahal began to integrate as a fighting force in various military operations, and the Youth and Nahal Division was established in the Ministry of Defense to link youth movements with the army and between the Nahal and the settlement movement. In establishing the Nahal, the commanders had before their eyes the Palmach experience, which was based on pioneering youth movements, combining work and training, and the spirit of volunteerism.
At the end of the War of Independence, three security problems needed to be solved in the young state. One, the many breaches in the border with Arab countries, especially in the Jordanian and Egyptian sectors, which are sparsely populated by Jewish settlements. This situation necessitated rapid settlement in these areas. The second was the Egyptian threat that continued to intensify, and the third was the security problems that remained after the armistice agreements in the demilitarized areas throughout the country, such as Latrun, Jerusalem, the Sea of Galilee, and Hula. All of the problems required solutions, and some of them were addressed by settlement. The security establishment referred to the settlements of the book as the "security belt of the state," and the civilian settlement nuclei were not sufficient for this purpose. The security need led to the idea of establishing settlements by soldiers, while they were still serving. The soldiers designated to establish the military settlements were lone soldiers, who did not enlist as part of the settlement groups, and Nahal soldiers in their second year of service, with experience and seniority in the field of settlement. An examination of the reasons that led to the decision to establish the settlements shows that there was an immediate need to establish settlements in those areas of political and security importance.
The Nahal outpost is a settlement established in an area controlled by the State of Israel by soldiers serving in the Nahal Corps and by decision of the Israeli government. This activity, of promoting Jewish settlement throughout the Land of Israel, was in the past among the main functions of the Nahal. The outpost was in fact a combination of a military unit and a civilian settlement that makes its living mainly from agriculture and conducts community life as a base for a future settlement. According to this principle, the soldiers work in the outpost and guard it until the state decides to establish a civilian settlement in its place.
This method served national settlement missions, in areas where the Jewish population was sparse and which were considered a preferred settlement destination (mainly in the Negev, Galilee and the Arava and after the Six-Day War mainly in the areas that were transferred to Israel during the war). The first attempt to settle soldiers in a permanent location was made at Kibbutz Nir Eliyahu: on July 27, 1950, members of the "El Nir" group (a union of several nuclei of immigrants from Turkey, Romania and Poland who had been trained in kibbutzim: Gilad, Ein Harod, Kfar Giladi and Ashdot Yaakov) landed and established a kibbutz opposite the Qalqilya enclave and in order to create a Jewish settlement continuum between the then colony of Kfar Saba and Kibbutz Ramat HaKovesh, and near Beit Berl College. The success of the "pilot" in Nir Eliyahu led to the adoption of this method, with "Nachalim A" (now Kibbutz Nahal Oz) officially considered the first Nahal stronghold, facing Gaza. It is where the Nahal house is located to this day (it is no longer active as such).
Most of the settlements were naturalized over the years and became kibbutzim and moshavim, some were abandoned, some were converted into IDF bases, and some were settled as private farms. In 2001, the last Nahal settlement was closed, thus ending the story of this enterprise.
In 1949, about a year after the establishment of the state, the Security Service Law was enacted, in which the ideas of settlement and security were legally merged. The law emphasized security settlement and considered it the first line of defense for the state. Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion saw the agricultural training that the youth in these settlements would acquire as having two noble goals; one, military, and the other, agricultural. Ben-Gurion believed that the state should fill its army with pioneering, nation-building content, hence the importance of agricultural training in these localities. It was the Security Service Law that laid the foundation for the existence of the Nahal, and indeed from that moment on, efforts began to promote the idea within an organized military framework. Those ideas were only a principle in those days and did not lead to practical actions until 1950.