Elon Moreh as a symbol

While the establishment of the Elon Moreh locality in the second half of the 1970s constitutes an important milestone in the evolution of post-1967 Jewish settlement in the biblical lands of Judea and Samaria (or the West Bank as they have been known since their 1950 Jordanian annexation), the episode has been surprisingly neglected by the professional literature. This article seeks to fill that lacuna by exploring the factors and circumstances underlying this momentous event, as well as the political and legal struggles attending its occurrence. As such, it not only offers the first comprehensive historical account of this episode but also shed important fresh light on one of the more intractable aspects of the Israeli‒Palestinian conflict.