On the top of Mount Gerizim in the city of Nablus in the northern West Bank, the Samaritans stand as one of the oldest living sects in the world, carrying a history that extends back thousands of years, and they consider themselves an authentic extension of the children of Israel and the heirs of the first Torah.
Despite the small number of its members, which does not exceed a thousand according to the latest estimates, the Samaritans have preserved their language, rituals, and their own version of the ancient Scriptures.
The Samaritans believe that they are the “true descendants of the children of Israel” and are different from the Jews. They possess the original copy of the Torah, dating back more than 3,600 years, written on the skin of a deer, and they believe in five books of the Torah.
While it is united by an ideological affinity and common historical roots with the Jews, the sect’s position remains trapped in a difficult gray space. Israel, which presents itself to the world as a “state of the Jews,” does not recognize them, but rather deals with them as an existential threat and considers them outside the official religious framework.
Thus, they found themselves in a complex equation. They were a sect ideologically close to ancient Judaism, and socially intertwined with Palestinian society. This situation was a reason for restrictions on them, because what the Samaritans believed was not consistent with the political form that Israel wanted to present to the world about Judaism.
Nader Sadaqa…a Samaritan prisoner outside the classifications
“Do not drag me into your space, I am fighting in my space,” with these words the freed prisoner Nader Sadaqa was confronting the occupation investigators, while they were trying to exploit the religious dimension in addressing him, considering that this might constitute a different effect during the investigation and arrest, and at certain times there was a focus on this aspect in an attempt to “make me an example to other members of the sect,” as he says.
The freed prisoner, Nader Sadaqa, narrates what he was exposed to inside the occupation prisons, during 21 years of detention, as he faced exceptional pressure, as a Samaritan Jew. He says, “During the investigation, I always returned the discussion to my true square: I am here as a national fighter, so judge me in this context. As for the attempt to drag me into the square of focusing on religious identity or using it as an entry point for pressure or distortion, it did not succeed with them.”
Sadaqa added in his interview with Al Jazeera Net, “I was arrested in the usual way. There was a special force that located my place and suddenly stormed it and arrested me. Before that, I was wanted for two years on an intense basis, against the backdrop of a cell consisting of 6 members, 5 of whom were martyred and I was left alone.”
He was charged with participating in a banned organization and leading operations that resulted in the death and injury of Israelis, accompanied by another story that is deeper in his view and in its essence, which is accusations of belonging and loyalty to the Palestinian cause.
Sadaqa confirms that the real background was his national identity and political affiliation, “These are matters of which I am proud.” And during the occupation, as he explains, his religious identity was not absent from the scene. It was present in the background, and his presence as a Samaritan made his situation different.
During the investigation, he describes his experience as an extension of a well-known methodology of psychological and physical stress, sleep and food deprivation, and long interrogations aimed at losing concentration and control.
But the difference, according to his words, was in the nature of curiosity and security that converged around his religious identity. “There was an urgency in the questions about: ‘How and why?’” To try to understand and contain this situation, which conflicts with the Zionist narrative, there was a transition between pressure and persuasion, and a long dialogue that carried a security nature on the one hand and a curious one on the other.
During his talk to Al Jazeera Net, Sadaqa did not want to present himself as a single hero. He was careful in every word, stressing that he was part of a broader national experience, in which his comrades who paid heavy prices participated. However, the more the spotlight was shed on a specific prisoner and the more people sympathized with him, the more the security focus increased on trying to cancel his presence and cover up, as the occupation policy is based on the principle of “the more your name appears, the more you are targeted.”
He adds that this focus was not limited to the investigation screen only, but later extended to attempts directed to silence the impact of his experience within the sect and his family, through harassment and measures practiced by the occupation forces with the aim of reducing their influence.
Although, according to him, the Shin Bet does not usually deal from a purely religious perspective, the presence of “a Samaritan standing in the Palestinian resistance square” constitutes, in his estimation, a source of confusion for the institution.
Sanctity is under siege and a novel is being fought
If the story of Sadaqa revealed part of the occupation’s attempts to silence the different voices within occupied Palestine, then what is happening in Mount Gerizim reveals the broader picture.
On the mountain, which the Samaritans see as their religious destination and the center of their faith, the occupation has continued for years to carry out archaeological excavations and engineering and administrative classifications in an attempt to change the character of the place.
According to a report by the Applied Research Institute – Jerusalem (ARIJ), the occupation has reclassified dozens of Palestinian religious sites as “Jewish national heritage areas,” which opens the door to retelling history according to the Zionist narrative, and reducing any religious presence that contradicts the centrality of Jerusalem in the modern Jewish faith.
According to what the sect’s secretary, Lutfi Fayyad, told Al Jazeera Net, the excavations’ hidden goal was to seize archaeological assets and transfer them to centers far from the hands of the Samaritans. These excavations were concentrated at the highest point of the mountain, far from the residential area, and it was designated as an archaeological area in which construction is prohibited.
For his part, Ishaq Radwan, a member of the sect, said in his interview with Al Jazeera Net that the Israeli occupation has been working for years to conduct excavations and changes to the features of the mountain, “with the aim of presenting a narrative that contradicts the Samaritan narrative, and proving that the mountain is not the holy place as we believe.”
He adds, “No one can prevent us from performing our worship in the way we deem correct. Mount Gerizim is the fourth pillar of the Samaritan faith, and we practice our rituals in the Samaritan church and on the site of the sacrifice as we inherited them without changing their essence.”
But the challenges are not only related to the religious narrative, but also to daily life. The Samaritans, as Radwan says, stand between two political parties, and seek to remain as an undivided sect. They lean towards the Palestinian side, and are looking for justice and peace. However, the reality is complicated, especially with the military barriers that hinder them from reaching the mountain.
Radwan describes the presence of a military gate at the top of Mount Gerizim as “a prison-like barrier that obstructs our lives and limits our ability to move around and live our normal lives.”
For his part, Fayyad explains that the daily harassment lies more in Area C, where the Samaritans are prevented or made difficult to build and natural urban expansion. “We are forced to comply with difficulties, harassment, and failure to facilitate construction on plots of land that we own, despite meeting the legal conditions, while the settlers in the neighboring outposts are able to build completely freely and at an increasing pace in recent years,” he says.
The Israeli contradiction
The violations against Samaritans in general reveal the contradiction between Israeli claims claiming to protect minorities and actual practice on the ground.
Sadaqa sums it up: “The presence of Jews who are hostile to Zionism confuses them, because these voices emerge from within the Jewish identity itself and reveal the contradiction between the Jewish religion and Zionism as a political project.” Hence, as Sadaqa sees it, Israel came up with the term “self-hating Jew.”
Accordingly, Israel, which presents itself as an advocate for the Jews, distinguishes between a Jew who rejects the Zionist narrative and another who rejects it or adopts the Palestinian identity, and acts with the latter as an enemy.
The occupation deliberately places the Samaritans in the heart of a political conflict. Lutfi says, “The influx of settlers to some places of religious importance turns these sites into political points of contention, instead of their religious sanctity being respected, which increases the frustration among the Samaritans and narrows the space for their freedom to practice their rituals,” he said.
Radwan agrees with this: “There is no situation in Palestine that can remain far from politics. The general context in the country makes politics present in every detail. Samaritans try not to be politicized or speak about politics, but politics surrounds everyone because of the current circumstances that the people are living in.”
Expansion project
For his part, Ihsan Al-Khatib, professor of political science at Murray State University, believes that Israel is adopting an expansionist project that seeks hegemony, and does not care about minorities or religious sanctities on the land. Some mosques were transformed by the occupation into museums or restaurants, and the Maman Allah cemetery was also encroached upon and its lands were stolen, in a clear message that says that Israel is the state of the Jews and does not care about others.
Al-Khatib points out, in his interview with Al-Jazeera Net, that the areas of ancient Nablus, including Mount Gerizim, are included in the UNESCO Tentative World Heritage List, but the occupation policies aim to redefine historical and religious sites according to its narrative, and that Israel’s restrictions on the Samaritans are part of a broader policy to push non-Jews to leave, which explains the arrest of Sadaqa, who is treated as a Palestinian fighter regardless of whether he is a Samaritan or a Jew, according to his speech.
However, Al-Khatib points out that there are Jews who oppose these policies, such as members of the “Naturei Karta” movement and the majority of American Jews who support the two-state solution. These people face restrictions or are prevented from entering Israel because of their anti-occupation positions, and some Jewish Zionists are politically punished if they criticize the Israeli government or call for a boycott of its policies.
This paradox reveals that what is happening in occupied Palestine is not just a conflict over land or religious sites, but rather a conflict over identity and rights. The experience of the Samaritans, the sons of Moses who were denied by Israel, represents a living example of the steadfastness of minorities in the face of policies aimed at making the other invisible and imposing the narrative of the Israeli occupation.