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Argumentative Essay Topic – Joint Family System Has Lost Its Value

Joint Family System Has Lost Its Value. You can find Previous Year Argumentative Essay Topics asked in ICSE board exams.

Introduction: Joint family system and its irrelevance in the present context

  • Irrelevant because of economic reasons
  • Irreverent because of educational and political factors
  • Irreverent because of social factors

Conclusion: Out of tune with modern time

Joint family in the true sense means a group of people belonging to the same line of descent staying together as one unit. The genesis of the system dates back to the feudal system prevalent during the Aryan period. It provided an effective way to combat natural calamities, and protection from the onslaught of enemies’. It was like an umbrella, protecting the old and the infirm, demonstrating the concept of ‘strength in unity’. However, such a family system has outlived its use in the present day context.

A joint family system is neither plausible nor practical now. The reasons are obvious. Increasing population, in rural areas made it difficult for people to subsist on the marginal landholding, compelling them to migrate to cities and towns in search of employment. This led to the emergence of nuclear families in cities. However, economic compulsions have now led to the joint family crumbling in the villages, as people are getting more ambitious and materialistic.

Education and growth opportunities have also made people move away from a joint family system. This was because such a system thrived under an authoritarian setup, where the ‘Karta’ or the family head took all the decisions. It stunts the aspiration of youth and becomes an impediment in their progress. In the age where enterprise, initiative and ideas command a premium, a joint family system is a hindrance and of no relevance.

Such a family system is also socially impractical. The society today has become one great family, where there is tremendous opportunity for people from different castes and creed. The crumbling boundaries have resulted in more and more inter-caste marriages taking place. This was possible only in an open society with complete freedom of thought and action. The nuclear families have also done away with internal squabbles and unpleasantness inherent in a joint family. Love and mutual respect has also increased for ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’.

Indeed the joint family system is a misfit and has lost its relevance in the modem age. It is no longer possible to live in such a system, which is completely out of tune with the time, where there is emphasis on excellence and not consensus.

Assignments

  • ‘Nuclear family system the need of the hour.’ Give your views for or against the statement.
  • ‘Life in the cities is not conducive to a joint family system.’ Do you agree?
  • Nurturing Families

Here Are The Many Advantages And Disadvantages Of Joint Family

Growing up in a joint family can have a significant influence on a child. So, is a joint family setup the right choice? Examine the characteristics of a joint family and take an informed decision.

Here Are The Many Advantages And Disadvantages Of Joint Family

The joint family is a beautiful institution—most of us have grown up listening to this idea and believing in it as well. Our movies portray a joint family as one where everyone eats together, laughs together, and supports each other during both good and bad times.

Like every other social system, the joint family system also has its share of advantages and disadvantages. But, the importance of a joint family is still acknowledged by many. Even in this age of the nuclear family, the joint family system exists and remains relevant.

What is a joint family?

In India, a joint family is usually a large undivided family where members of more than one generation live together under one roof (grandparents, parents, uncles, aunts, and their children).

As with every system, the family structure is also evolving. Some reasons for this change are scarcity of living space, an increase in the number of households where both partners work, a jump in the number of single parents, and so on. But, even with changing times, a sizable number of Indians still seem to be inclined towards the joint family system.

So, is the joint family a good or bad system? Let's delve deeper to understand what is keeping this old system alive, evolving, and relevant.

Characteristics of a joint family

  • The family is usually headed by the eldest member of the family.
  • The responsibility of making decisions rests with the head of the family, although family members can give suggestions.
  • The family members share a single kitchen
  • All the members are expected to contribute financially towards running the family.
  • All the members have to share the household chores.
  • They should cooperate with and support each other, making the system have its share of both merits and demerits.
  • After marriage, the children also live in the same house along with other family members.

Advantages of a joint family

  • Togetherness : Growing up with cousins, uncles, aunts, and grandparents gives children the opportunity to connect with everyone and forge close bonds. Especially, the bond with grandparents, which almost every child cherishes. This feature is among the key characteristics of a joint household.
  • Imbibing family values : Many values that parents want to teach children are taught well in the joint household. Growing up together, children learn to share, care for and respect everyone. They also learn how to empathize with those around them.
  • Shared support system : For working parents, who need someone trustworthy to be around their children, this family system is a boon. With uncles, aunts, or grandparents around, who care for children and have their best interest in mind, parents feel less worried. Thus, they have the freedom to make time to socialize, catch up with each other at a private dinner, or hang out with friends.
  • Division of labor : A big family works as a big team, especially when it comes to doing household chores like cooking or cleaning. Family members get together and ensure that tasks are done on time and, sometimes, even before time. As a result, no family member ever feels stressed about work.
  • Financial security : All the earning family members contribute to the common fund for household expenses. This system also acts as a security net. When a member suffers monetary loss or loss of job, others get together to ensure that his or her daily needs are taken care of.

Importance of the joint family

The joint family:

  • Teaches cooperation and optimum use of resources
  • Helps members understand and bond with each other
  • Teaches the concept of "one for all and all for one"
  • Makes elders feel wanted and supported

Disadvantages of a joint family

  • Lack of together time/privacy : With many family members around, the lack of privacy and/or together time, can become an issue. If a particular family member is called up frequently to shoulder responsibilities, it can lead to disharmony in married life. Also, in a joint household, a couple always has to be mindful about being watched and heard when they want to exchange a compliment or a gesture or engage in a discussion or an argument.
  • Decreased freedom to express : A couple, especially a woman, might struggle with finding her comfort zone outside her room. She might not have a say in many aspects like deciding on food choices, decorating the house or even, wearing something that is comfortable for her and stepping out of her room. At times, her ideas may also be dismissed by other family members.
  • Disagreement on finances : Contributions towards running the household and how the money should be spent is a major issue in joint households. While everyone is expected to contribute money towards running the house, it is the head of the family who controls the funds and decides on how the money will be spent. Sometimes, the decisions taken by the head of the family may not go down well with some family members, leading to disagreements and arguments.
  • Conflicts over parenting styles : Parenting becomes a challenge in a big family. Many adults with differing styles may bombard parents with advice on what to do and what not. There might be interference in almost everything related to childcare and upbringing, right from the use of diapers to food to disciplining. For a new mom, such intrusions can prove to be even more confusing and upsetting.
  • Discontent and distress : Over a period, all or some of the above factors might lead to discontent and unhappiness among members of the family. Along with these, even trivial issues like not being able to make a dish as per one's own recipe or inviting a friend over for a birthday bash can snowball into a confrontation. At times, a family member may try to take undue advantage of others, which can also cause immense frustration. Also, those who earn more than others may try to dominate, leading to friction among family members.

The HUF Act

The relevance of the joint family is supported by the HUF (Hindu Undivided Family) Act in India. This law states that a Hindu family can come together and create a HUF. However, all the members of a HUF should descend from a common ancestor. Along with other advantages, a HUF also enjoys tax benefits. Buddhists, Jains, and Sikhs can also form a HUF.

Preferred family structure

No family system in the world is perfect, and the same is true for a joint family. However, there are families that make the system work by demarcating responsibilities and duties, respecting each other, and being generous and helpful. In the end, it boils down to what we want for ourselves and our children, and what is feasible.

argumentative essay joint family system

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Essay on Joint Family

Students are often asked to write an essay on Joint Family in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Joint Family

Introduction.

A Joint Family is a large family where multiple generations live together. It is a system where relatives of all types share a common household.

In a Joint Family, everyone shares responsibilities. The elders guide the young, while the young respect and learn from the elders.

Joint families foster love, cooperation, and sharing. They provide a sense of belonging and security to all members.

However, joint families can face issues like conflicts, lack of privacy, and unequal distribution of work.

Despite challenges, joint families can be a source of strength, support, and unity.

Also check:

  • 10 Lines on Joint Family
  • Paragraph on Joint Family

250 Words Essay on Joint Family

Joint family, a fundamental unit of the social structure, has been an integral part of many cultures worldwide. It is a system where extended members of a family live under one roof, sharing a common kitchen, resources, and responsibilities. The joint family structure has been the backbone of many societies, particularly in countries like India, where it is deeply rooted in the cultural fabric.

The Dynamics of Joint Family

A joint family is a blend of grandparents, parents, children, and often uncles and aunts living together. The family is led by the eldest member, often the grandfather, whose decisions are considered final. The joint family system fosters a sense of unity, cooperation, and mutual understanding among members. It is a social system that guarantees emotional, financial, and social support.

Advantages of Joint Family

Living in a joint family cultivates virtues like patience, tolerance, and generosity. Children grow up in a nurturing environment surrounded by love and care from their grandparents, uncles, and aunts. The joint family system also provides financial stability as resources are pooled and expenses are shared, reducing the economic burden on individuals.

Disadvantages of Joint Family

Despite its advantages, the joint family system has its downsides. There can be conflicts due to differing opinions, and the lack of privacy can be constraining. Moreover, decision-making power is often centralized, which may lead to feelings of suppression among younger members.

While the joint family system has its pros and cons, its essence lies in the sense of belonging and security it offers. In the age of nuclear families, the importance of joint families should not be overlooked. They serve as a reminder of the strength of unity and the warmth of shared relationships.

500 Words Essay on Joint Family

The joint family system, a traditional and integral part of many cultures, is a large extended family arrangement prevalent in several societies. It is a system under which extended members of a family – parents, children, the children’s spouses, and their offspring, etc., live together. This essay discusses the concept of the joint family, its significance, benefits, and challenges.

Historical Overview and Cultural Significance

The joint family system has its roots deeply embedded in many societies, particularly in Asian cultures. Its existence can be traced back to ancient times when communal living was a necessity for survival. The joint family system is not merely a manifestation of living arrangements; it is a system that promotes values such as cooperation, sacrifice, and respect for elders. It emphasizes the principles of unity, togetherness, and familial harmony, which are fundamental to the fabric of many societies.

Advantages of Joint Family System

The joint family system offers numerous benefits. First, it provides a strong support system. In times of crisis, family members can rely on each other for emotional and financial support. This system also promotes sharing and caring, teaching younger generations the importance of these values.

Second, the joint family system is a great learning platform for children. They grow up in an environment where they learn to respect elders, understand the value of relationships, and develop a sense of responsibility and discipline.

Third, it can be economically beneficial. Expenses are shared, and resources are utilized effectively. It also allows for the pooling of resources to achieve common family goals, such as buying property or investing in business ventures.

Challenges Associated with Joint Family System

Despite its numerous advantages, the joint family system also has its share of challenges. The most common issue is the lack of privacy. With so many individuals living under one roof, it can be difficult to maintain personal space.

Another challenge is the potential for conflicts and power struggles. Differences in opinions, lifestyle choices, and financial matters often lead to disputes.

Lastly, the joint family system can sometimes hinder individual growth. The pressure to conform to family norms and traditions can limit personal freedom and discourage individualism.

The joint family system, with its unique blend of benefits and challenges, is a fascinating social structure. It fosters a sense of unity and cooperation, providing a solid support system and instilling important values in younger generations. However, it also presents challenges, such as the potential for conflict and a lack of privacy. As societies continue to evolve, it is crucial to find a balance between preserving the positive aspects of the joint family system and addressing its challenges. This balance will ensure that future generations can enjoy the benefits of this system while also fostering individual growth and personal freedom.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

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  • Essay on Importance of Family
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argumentative essay joint family system

Nuclear Family vs Joint Family Essay

Mostly, there are two types of the family i.e. Joint family and Nuclear family, joint family systems are very ancient in the society of India.

Many differences are found in various religions, castes in terms of property rights, marriage, divorce etc. Yet the ideal of joint family is acceptable.

The reason for joint family in India lies in ancient traditions and ideals in addition to the economy of the farming.

This ideal is transmitted to the people through the epic of Ramayana and Mahabharata, but nowadays people are living in single family.

Prior to single family people lived together in joint family, there was a head in the joint family, whom everyone believed.

Joint families are ending nowadays and there has been an increase in single-family due to many reasons.

Nuclear Family vs. Joint Family Essay:

A typical single family is a husband, a wife, some children, the number of members in a nuclear family is very small.

In the joint family system, the number of dependents living under the roof is very large.

The grandparents, married brothers, sisters, son’s wives, grandchildren, grandchildren, other dependents and relatives living in a joint family.

Responsibility:

The responsibility of one nuclear family rests on the couple.

The joint family system places a responsibility on the head of the family, trains elderly youth for various occupations, marries them, gives them the start of life, and takes care of the frail and the old.

Binding of unity and affection:

Compared to the nuclear family, there are higher bonds of unity and affection between members of each other family and relationships in a joint family.

In a joint family, the prosperity and adversity of the family are shared equally.

A subsistence single family is dependent on the spouse or both.

A joint family system ensures the least subsistence of all family members

In single family, young couples get more freedom, they can do the things they love freely.

They can also take a risk with their money and demonstrate their commercial nature.

In joint family, individuals get less independence.

Family members have joint rights in family property and property, there is less potential for personality development.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Joint family Vs Nuclear Family Essay:

Experience and self-reliance:

In joint family i.e. where there are experienced married couple as parents who can give good advice to new couple.

Other experienced and intelligent members like grandparents, uncles and aunts can also help the new couple to manage with those problems.

Along with this, the attitude of looking at domestic problems in the joint family is also different.

Others get experience in joint family, so that you can solve problems easily and correctly, such as raising children, solving financial and marital problems.

On the other hand, in a single family, the couple has the freedom to make decisions themselves.

In a single family, the couple can make all the rules, rituals or traditions according to their own this creates self-sufficiency in them.

Raising children:

Raising children in a joint family is satisfactory, but it is difficult to teach them discipline because there are many instructors.

But in a single family it is easy to discipline a child because the children get all the instructions from their parents only.

In such a situation, the child easily accepts everything from the parents and behaves properly.

Everyone’s loneliness:

A child living in a single family feels lonely because he has no siblings to play as a joint family.

In distinction, this does not happen in a joint family.

Many times in single family parents are making mistakes, then there is no one to fix it, which has a bad effect on the upbringing of children.

Outside interference:

A single family is a separate couple family that survives the hassle of other reforms.

Due to lack of members and no interference in a family, the couple get a chance to understand each other.

All members in the joint family help each other. For example, you will also get support from other members of the household in handling the newborn.

Status of women:

The condition of women in the joint family is not very good, it only lives in the kitchen and the education of children, whereas in a single family, women have the right to live their own life.

RELATED ESSAY:

MY FAMILY ESSAY | MY MOTHER ESSAY | MY BEST FRIEND ESSAY

Conclusion:

There are various advantages and disadvantages of joint family as well as single-family, but in the end, it is entirely up to you in which circumstances you want to raise your life and your children.

There is nothing right or wrong, some people prefer to live in single family and some in joint family.

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13 Advantages and Disadvantages of Living in a Joint Family

13 Advantages and Disadvantages of Living in a Joint Family

5 Disadvantages of Living in a Joint Family

8 advantages of living in a joint family.

In India, the system of a joint family hails from the Vedic times and was popular even when the kings ruled this land. Living in a joint family means adjusting with all the uncles, aunts, and cousins. But, growing up with a set of different individuals, sacrificing your needs for the happiness of a loved one, and fighting over little things, pretty much makes you ready for the world. Joint families still prevail in India, but the number has depleted. Let’s find out what are the pros and cons of living in a joint family.

A family is that ‘umbrella’ whose value is not realised until the stormy clouds loom over you. But, when you look up with a hope that someone will come to your rescue, the first silent approaching steps will be of your family members. This is ‘FAMILY’. You grow up together, learn together; agree-disagree; fight and make-up, move on in your lives, but in the end, when you need someone, you know your siblings and your family will be right there.

India has always been known for its rich culture, various languages, and for the system of living in a joint family. A joint family does not only mean a group of people living together, it means that these people are tied with a blood relation and choose to live in a single household for many reasons – sometimes out of will and sometimes because of compulsion. Although the tradition of living in a joint family is shrinking with time, if you go in small cities and village of the country, where the roots of westernisation have still not touched, you will find many families living together as ‘one’ with a Basil/Tulsi plant in their yard. It might seem that you are watching a ’90s movie but it will be there.

With time the culture of living in a joint family is certainly plummeting in huge numbers, but why is that? Have you ever wondered why people now prefer living in nuclear families over a joint family? It is not just about privacy…there are many factors responsible, but are these reasons really justified? Does living alone or with just 2 people make you any happier?

Nuclear families are the deal of the day, there are many reasons for that. Let’s get you acquainted with the cons of living in joint family. It will present a better picture to let you decide if you want to settle for it or not:

1. Privacy is Compromised

Lack of privacy is a common complaint among people who live in a joint family. You are never alone. If you are distressed and want to be alone and cry to let it out, you’d prefer crying in your bed and telling your sad stories to your pillow. But that’s not possible if you are living in a joint family. Everyone knows everything about all the members of the family and this leads to interference in daily matters. More often than not, this interference is not appreciated and people end up hiding things so that others mind their own business. You will always be surrounded by people and they will try to help you for your sake, but sometimes it gets too much.

2. A small Decision Runs by Everyone

The problem of living in a joint family is even a small decision has to go through and get a green signal by every member of the family, particularly the head of the family. Whether it is about going out after 7 at night or a sleepover at a friend’s place. Sometimes, even trivial matters are given so much attention that it annoys you.

3. Financial Responsibility

In a joint family, it is about ‘us’. When it comes to financial responsibility, usually, the ‘Karta’ (the head of the family) handles financial matters while other male members of the family contribute. However, many times it happens that the burden of 2 or more families is on the ‘Karta’ of the family, and other members become idle and the burden on one person only increases.

4. Interference in Parenting

Living in a joint family sometimes deprives you of taking right decisions for your child. As a mother, you might not get to parent your child the way you want to, because there will be others in the house who will keep teaching you about what to do and what not to do. This may create hindrance in your style of parenting and ultimately it fuels your anger.

5. Woes of a Common Kitchen

Generally, in a joint family, all female members cook together and for all. When it comes to food, everyone has different choices and catering to the demands of all often makes them tired. Also, people cannot cook what they want and they have to strictly adhere to the rules of the family. If the family is a vegetarian one, then it will be very difficult to cook an egg or non-vegetarian food in the same kitchen.

These were certain cons of living in a joint family. Of course, living together is difficult because in a joint family you have to put someone else’s needs before yours, you have to compromise but all these situations make you a better person.

Your privacy will be compromised but there is a lot more than it that you will receive living in a joint family that you will always want to live in one. Here are some pros of growing up in a joint family that you would always cherish them:

1. A child is Never Lonely

If you are a working mom living in a joint family, you can rest assured of your child’s daily needs. If you are worried about who will serve him food or take care of him when he is sick, you need not. As you know in a joint family, there will always be people to take good care of him.

2. Happiness Doubles

If you have ever lived in a joint family, you must have experienced that sharing little joys and achievements with your family members makes them so happy. Even small achievements are rejoiced by one and all. And in the moments of sorrow, your family is always there to support you.

3. You Learn The Art of Sharing

If you notice a child raised in a nuclear family and the one raised in a joint family, you will observe difference in their behaviour. A kid brought up with many people is obviously more social but he also has a habit of sharing. Living in a joint family inculcates the habit of sharing from childhood. If your child has a chocolate, he will know that he has to distribute it among his siblings and cousins. As a kid, he might not like to share it, but it only prepares him for the future. The habit of giving and sharing makes you a person who is liked by all. Living in a joint family makes you focus on ‘we’ than on ‘me’.

4. You Learn to Respect

Growing up in a family with so many elders develops a sense of respect for others. Keeping your tongue in check around elders, respecting them, and obeying their commands…somehow shapes your personality. And a person who shows respects and treats others with respect is always appreciated.

5. Education Beyond Books

The education of a child living with aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents is not only restricted to academics and school but the horizon of his education is much wider. Living with grandparents, a child gets acquainted with the world of their times. With aunts and uncles, he gets familiar with their struggles. All in all, living in a joint family makes one understand that there is more to education than just school books.

6. Love and Care

The amount of love and care that one receives in a joint family cannot be uttered in words. If you are sick or sad, you will never find yourself alone. There will always be people to take care of you. It is the major benefit of living in a joint family; the love you receive is immeasurable and something you can never pay off.

7. The Feeling of Togetherness

If you live in a joint family, you can be sure that your child will never be bored or feel alone. He will always have cousins as his partners in crime. He will never be deprived of friends as he will always have his cousins to play with. As he grows, his bond with his cousins will only get better. In the lonely crowded world, your child will always have someone to share his problems.

8. One Becomes Socially Adept

A person coming from a joint family knows how to communicate with people of different age groups. Living with elders, siblings/cousins, nephews and nieces moulds his personality. All these basic elements of communication which are necessary for living happily in a society are inculcated in him right from the start when he lives in a joint family.

So, there were some benefits of growing up in a family with different individuals. If you have lived in a nuclear family adjusting with many people will be hard. But, choose wisely. It’s not as bad as you think it to be.

In this modern world, where a family is restricted to just 4 members, living in a joint family will obviously pose a challenge. But, if you want to make your life fun and experience the joy of togetherness, consider living in a joint family. There will be feuds, compromises, sacrifices, but at the end of the day, you will have a lot more people to depend on.

So, make a wise decision and remember that you can always overcome pitfalls with patience and love. After all, a joint family also has some wonderful benefits, especially for your kids whose grandparents adore them!

argumentative essay joint family system

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Joint family culture in india: meaning, characteristics, merits, demerits.

argumentative essay joint family system

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Joint Family Culture in India: Meaning, Characteristics, Merits, Demerits!

For the Indian students of Sociology, the study of the Indian family system deserves special attention, not only because they are born in Indian families but also for here the family system differs in material respects from the western family system. The family in India does not consist only of husband, wife and their children but also of uncles, aunts and cousins and grandsons.

This system, called joint family or extended family system is a peculiar characteristic of the Indian social life. A son after marriage does not usually separate himself from the parents but continues to stay with them under the same roof messing together and holding property in common.

The family has joint property and every person has his share in it since the time he is born. The earnings of all the members are put in a common fund out of which family expenses are met. Non-earning members have as much share as the earning members. The Indian family system is thus like a socialistic community in which everyone earns according to his capacity and receives according to his needs.

The family in India is based on patrilineal descent. Children are identified by name and allegiance with the father’s family. Property is passed from generation to generation within the father’s family.

I. The Meaning of Joint Family:

Some Definitions of Joint Family are the following:

(i) “ A joint family is a group of people who generally live under one roof, who eat food cooked at one hearth, who hold property in common and who participate in common worship and are related to each other as some particular type of kindred.” —Karve

(ii) “We call that household a joint family which has greater generation depth than individual family and the members of which are related to one another by property, income and mutual rights and obligations.” —I.P. Desai

(iii) “The joint family consists of persons having a common male ancestor, female offspring not yet married, and women brought into the group by marriage. All of these persons might live in a common household or in several households near to one another. In any case, so long as the joint family holds together, its members are expected to contribute to the support of the whole and to receive from it a share of the total product.” —Davis

(iv) “In a joint family not only parents and children, brothers and step-brothers live on the common property, but it may sometime include ascendants and collaterals up to many generations.” —Jolly

(v) “The Hindu joint family is a group constituted of known ancestors and adopted sons and relatives related to these sons through marriage.” —Henry Maine

Characteristics of Joint Family:

On the basis of the above definitions, the chief characteristics of joint family are the following:

(i) Large Size:

The first characteristic of the joint family is its large size. A single family consists of only the husband, wife and their children. But a joint family consists of parents, children, grand children and other near relatives along with their women. It is a group of which several basic families live together at one and the same time.

(ii) Joint Property:

In a joint family, the ownership, production and consumption of wealth takes place on a joint basis. It is a cooperative institution, similar to a joint stock company, in which there is joint property. The head of the family is like a trustee who manages the property of the family for the material and spiritual welfare of the family members. The total earnings of all the family members are pooled together.

(iii) Common Residence:

The members of joint family usually live under the same roof. They may also live in separate houses in close proximity to one another. They eat the same food and wear the same type of clothes.

(iv) Co-operative Organisation:

The basis of joint family system is cooperation. A joint family consists of a large number of members and if they do not cooperate with one another it is not possible to maintain the organisation and structure of the joint family.

(v) Common Religion:

Generally the members of a joint family believe in the same religion and worship similar deities. They perform jointly the religious rites and duties. They celebrate all the festivals and social functions jointly. They also hold themselves jointly accountable for participating in social ceremonies like marriage, death and other occasions of family sorrows and rejoicing. They all share the family burden together.

(vi) A Productive Unit:

This feature of joint family is found among agricultural families. All the members work at one and the same field. They do the sowing and harvesting of the crops together. Even in the case of artisan classes all the members of a joint family do one and the same function.

(vii) Mutual Rights and Obligations:

The rights and obligations of the members of joint family are the same. None except the head of the family has special privileges. Every member of the family has equal obligations. If one female member works in the kitchen, the other does the laundry work, and the third one looks after the children. There is rotation of duties as well.

Origin of Joint Family System:

It may not, however, be presumed that joint family system originated in India. This institution is said to be the outcome of the settling down of the Aryans in different parts of the world. We have similar institutions practically all over the world. As we have learnt before in the ancient Roman society, the supreme authority rested in the eldest male member of the family who, in administering the family affairs, was entitled to take all steps.

When the pastoral stage was over and the people began to live a settled life by tilling the soil, constructing the house and maintaining the patrimony, joint family system came into existence. Difficulties of communication and travel compelled all the members of the family to live together and carry on jointly the family occupation in agriculture or trade.

Over and above these causes the kinship idea and the religion emphasizing ancestor worship further made joint family a complex organisation catering to the spiritual and economic needs of the large family groups which composed the society. In other parts of the world while joint family system has disappeared, in India, it still continues though suffering heavy strains brought about by industrialization and urbanization.

II. Merits of Joint Family System:

The following are the chief merits of the joint family system:

(i) Ensures economic progress:

It enables economic progress of the country since everyone in the family is guaranteed bare subsistence, a first condition of economic progress. Unless people are assured of food and shelter they would not devote themselves sincerely to the work of country’s progress. It is an essential condition of national progress that the citizens must at least get two meals a day. Joint family provides this to its members and thus enables them to devote themselves to nation’s progress.

(ii) Division of labour:

It secures the advantages of the division of labour. Every member in the family is given work according to his abilities without being taxed unduly. Every phase of family’s life is managed by all members including women and children. Thus, during the harvest season every member of the family helps in harvesting the crops. No outside labour is required.

(iii) Economy:

It secures economy of expenditure. Since things are consumed in large quantities they are secured at economic prices. Within small means a large family can be maintained if it lives jointly.

(iv) Opportunity for leisure:

It provides opportunities for leisure to the members. The female members divide the household work and finish it within a little time spending the rest of it in leisure.

(v) Social insurance:

In the joint family the orphans find a comfortable asylum instead of being thrown out. Similarly, widows are assured of their proper living for whom remarriage in India is unthinkable. The joint family acts as a social insurance company for the old, sick and incapacitated.

(vi) Social virtues:

It fosters great virtues like sacrifice, affection, co-operation, spirit of selflessness, broadmindedness among its members and makes the family a cradle of social virtues. Under the care of elders the undesirable and anti-social tendencies of the young are checked and they are prevented from going astray. They learn to exercise self-control. All members learn to obey family rules and respect their elders.

(vii) Avoids fragmentation of holdings:

It avoids fragmentation of holdings and the evils inherent therein. It prevents property from being divided.

(viii) Socialism:

According to Sir Henry Maine, the joint family is like a corporation where trustee is the father. Everyone in the joint family works according to his capabilities but obtains according to his needs. Thus it realises the socialistic ideal—from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.

III. Demerits of Joint Family:

If joint family system has received the highest praise for its many advantages, it has no less been vehemently denounced.

The main defects of the system are said to be the following:

(i) Home for idlers:

Joint family is the home for idlers and drones as the non-earning members do not want to earn their livelihood. When a person can eat comfortably without exerting himself, he is unlikely to indulge in any strenuous activity. Mostly, in the joint family it happens that some people have to exhaust themselves while the others lead a life of utter lethargy.

(ii) Hindrance in the development of personality:

In joint family there is very little opportunity for the fostering of individual autonomy or self-dependence. The whole environment of the family is not congenial for the growth of the individual because he is bound down by the minutest rules and regulations framed by the head of the family who looks upon men and women as children even when they attain adulthood.

(iii) Encourage litigation:

The joint family system encourages litigation, for at the time of partition of common property generally disputes crop up which are not settled without a recourse being taken to law. In case of agricultural families partition leads to fragmentation of holdings which is harmful from the viewpoint of agricultural progress.

(iv) Leads to quarrels:

It is the hotbed of quarrels and bickering especially among the female members. Generally, there is hatred and jealousy between the wives of brothers. There is continuous strife and fighting over the doings of children. There is also the clash of ideas and temperaments on account of which there are constant quarrels between the elder and young members of the family.

(v) Privacy denied:

In a joint family privacy is denied to the newlywed couple. The brides of the sons do not get an opportunity to develop their personality. They serve the entire family like slaves. They hardly meet their husbands during the day.

The invariable presence of other family members shames the bride and she cannot freely talk to her husband. Any natural love between husband and wife is prevented from blossoming. There is also no limit to the injustice done by the mother-in-law. In some cases this injustice becomes so inhuman and unbearable that women become fed up and commit suicide.

(vi) Unfavourable to accumulation of capital:

It is not favourable to large accumulation of capital. When one has to share one’s income with large family, it is not possible to save much. The property of the family being jointly owned is sometimes allowed to go waste.

(vii) Uncontrolled procreation:

In the joint family the responsibility for bringing up and educating the children is shared. No individual feels responsibility to control procreation because of the limited income of the family. The offspring of one member will be treated on the same footing as others. No distinction is made between the statuses of the family members. In this way no direct benefits occur to an individual in the joint family by practising family planning or earning more.

Thus the joint family system has got both its strong proponents as well as opponents. However, we are to remember that no institution is perfect and also that no institution full of defects can exist very long. The joint family system has been in existence since the society changed from the agricultural stage of economic development.

While the system is breaking down in cities, it still largely prevails in the villages especially among the agricultural families. Though there may be exceptions here and there, yet it cannot be said that the system has been completely abolished. It is no doubt true that the system once considered the pillar of stability is finding it difficult to withstand the dizzying pace of social mobility and the transformation of values.

IV. Disintegration of Joint Family:

The following factors are responsible for the disintegration of joint family system:

(i) Industrialization:

The joint family system is most suited to agricultural families. India today is on the way to industrialization. With the establishment of new factories in urban areas workers from the villages move to the cities which breaks the joint family.

(ii) Extension of communications and transport:

As we saw above difficulties of communication and travel in ancient times compelled all the members of the family to live together and carry on the family occupation in agriculture and trade jointly.

Today when the means of communication and transport have been extended it is no longer necessary for men to stay with the family and carry on the family occupation. Now they go to the city and take up any other occupation or even living in the village adopt some other trade and when they adopt a trade different from the family trade, they establish a new home.

(iii) Decline of agriculture and village trades:

The joint family system in India flourished in the days of yore when agriculture and trade in the villages were in a sound position. Today with the establishment of factories the commodities produced by the village craftsmen cannot compete in quality or price with those produced in factories with the result that the village industries suffer loss and after some time close down.

With the closing down of the village industry the workers move to the city. Further, more and more land is being acquired by the Government for setting up big public undertakings, creating new sectors for habitation and providing public amenities.

The population in the villages is growing at a faster rate than in the urban areas. Thus the pressure on land is high and not only the workers but land holders also are compelled to go to the city to find job there.

Owing to the onrush of people from the villages to the cities the Hindu joint family system breaks down. Besides the decline of agriculture and trade there are other causes as well which induce people to move to the city.

In the villages there are fewer facilities for entertainment and recreation, less opportunities for employment for the educated and inadequate opportunities for the education of children. A gentleman so called finds little attraction to stay on in the village.

(iv) Impact of the West:

India today has been greatly influenced in her social outlook by western thought and ideology. Our modern laws relating to marriage and divorce have been enacted on western pattern. Our education is entirely foreign in outlook and approach.

We have begun to look at the family as a partnership and not as a sacrament. Our views especially of the young men and women on sex and family relations have undergone a change. The influence of individualism has made deep inroads in the Indian outlook.

(v) New Social Legislation:

The joint family system in India has been very much influenced by the new social legislations consisting of the Civil Marriage Act (1872), Hindu Marriage Act, (1955), and Hindu Succession Act (1956). The Civil Marriage Act enabled the adult boys and girls to marry against the wishes of their parents.

The Hindu Marriage Act enabled the women to seek divorce under certain conditions. The Hindu Succession Act gave the right of equal inheritance to women. All these acts have influenced the solidarity of the joint family and relationships between brothers and sisters, parents and children and husbands and wives.

K. S. Sambasivan, a contemporary Indian writer, dealing with the effect of the modern forces on the working class families of India writes.

“Industrialization has contributed much to family disorganisation. In its result most of the important ties that bind all family members together in an agricultural society began to loosen. Again, the worker unaccustomed to the work life in the factory also becomes disorganised and in such a condition is not able to enjoy the richness of the family. This condition affects his emotions also, leading him to seek pleasure through unnatural forces like alcohol, prostitution etc. Factory occupation has made members of the same family economically independent. The joint family, so common in India, is gradually disappearing.”

Most of the workmen when questioned by researchers express themselves against joint family system and prefer to live in separate families. It means that the joint family system under modern influence is weakening.

It is, however, to be remembered that joint family system in India has not completely died out. The causes of its disintegration are mainly social. The Indian people still keep intact the family attachment and live their traditional morality. Hindu sentiments are even today in favour of joint family.

Even in cases where family property has got divided and income of the family members is not pooled, the constituent householders consider themselves duty bound to participate in ceremonial celebrations like marriage, birthday, and religious functions. Such participation keeps the joint family feelings alive. The thinkers who criticize the system have not been able to appreciate it properly.

Compromise and mutual adjustment are the keynotes of the Indian joint family system. The joint family is not a place where individuality is crushed but it is a cooperative institution where every member does his duty under the guidance of the eldest members.

In it we have a synthesis of individual and common interests; here are inculcated social virtues which make man a good citizen and teach him to live for all. What is needed today is to find out the ways by which the virtues of the joint family system can be retained. And this will require the intelligent cooperation of rulers and social scientists aided by enlightened public opinion.

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Nuclear Family and Joint Family

  • Last Updated: Aug 15, 2023

A family forms the first line of socialization for an individual and plays a pivotal role in shaping their perspective and behavior. The two primary types of family structures worldwide are nuclear family and joint family. A nuclear family typically includes parents and their offspring, while a joint family is an extended kinship network consisting of grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins.

 The two primary types of family structures worldwide are nuclear families and joint families. A nuclear family typically includes parents and their offspring, while a joint family is an extended kinship network consisting of grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins.

Nuclear Family

A nuclear family, also referred to as an elementary family, consists of two parents and their children, all living under one roof [1] . It is considered the basic unit in many societies.

Joint Family

A joint family, or an extended family, is a large family unit that includes three or more generations living together. It includes the parents, their children, and other relatives such as grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins [2] .

Comparison Between Nuclear and Joint Family

Advantages and disadvantages of a nuclear family.

  • Autonomy : Nuclear families provide a high degree of independence and freedom to make decisions [3] .
  • Financial Management : It is simpler to manage expenses and savings as there are fewer family members involved.
  • Less Conflict : There may be fewer conflicts and disagreements as fewer people live together.

Disadvantages

  • Lack of Support : In a nuclear family, parents often need to manage work and childcare simultaneously, which can be stressful.
  • Lack of Shared Responsibility : With fewer adults in the household, responsibilities cannot be distributed as evenly as in joint families.

Advantages and Disadvantages of a Joint Family

  • Shared Responsibilities : Duties and tasks are shared among members, reducing individual workload.
  • Support Network : Joint families offer a built-in support network in terms of child-rearing, elder care, and emotional support [4] .
  • Preservation of Traditions : Traditions and cultural practices are more likely to be preserved and passed down through generations.
  • Less Privacy : Due to the large number of family members, privacy can be limited.
  • Conflicts : Larger family sizes can lead to more disagreements and conflicts [5] .
  • Financial Pressure : The responsibility of supporting a larger number of people may result in financial pressure.

Changing Trends in Family Structure

Over time, societal shifts and economic pressures have led to a transformation in family structure. More families are transitioning from joint to nuclear families, primarily due to urbanization and globalization.

However, there is also a new trend of ‘joint-nuclear’ families emerging, especially in urban areas. These are nuclear families that maintain close ties and frequent interaction with their extended families while still maintaining separate households. This system aims to blend the benefits of both nuclear and joint families.

The Way Forward: Building Healthy Family Relationships

Regardless of the family structure, what matters most is creating a supportive, nurturing environment. Open communication, mutual respect, and shared responsibilities can foster healthy relationships within any family setting.

Whether it’s a nuclear family offering a sense of autonomy or a joint family providing a robust support network, each family type has its unique strengths. Recognizing these strengths and navigating through the challenges will help maintain harmonious relationships within the family.

In conclusion, both nuclear and joint families have their distinct advantages and challenges. The choice between a nuclear family and a joint family can depend on several factors, including cultural norms, economic conditions, personal preferences, and the need for support or autonomy. The family type does not determine the quality of relationships and values within; instead, it’s the nurturing environment that makes the family healthy and fulfilling.

[1] O’Neil, D. (2006). Nuclear Family: Definition, Advantages & Disadvantages . Study.com.

[2] Oxford Reference (2021). Extended (or joint) family . Oxford University Press.

[3] McGoldrick, M., Carter, B., & Garcia-Preto, N. (2016). The Expanded Family Life Cycle: Individual, Family, and Social Perspectives . Pearson.

[4] Beteille, A. (1961). The Joint Family and Social Change . Economic Weekly.

[5] Jayson, S. (2005). Family Face-off: Traditional vs. the Modern . USA Today.

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30+ great argumentative essay topics about family with essay prompts, bob cardens.

  • July 31, 2022
  • Essay Topics and Ideas , Samples

To help you get started with argumentative essay writing, we’ve compiled a list of some potential argumentative Essay Topics About Family. Whether you’re looking for something lighthearted or something a little more serious, we’re sure you’ll find something on this list on Topics About Family with essay prompts

Argumentative Essay Topics About Family with prompts

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Joint family system: it’s features, functions and other details.

argumentative essay joint family system

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Family is one of the universal and permanent institutions of mankind. In every society and at every stage of development we found some sort of family. As a result we found different types of family all over the world. But in India we found a peculiar family system which deserve special attention. The family in India does not consist only of husband, wife and their children but also of uncles, aunts and cousins and grandsons.

Joint Family System

Image Courtesy : upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/HinduMarriageIndia.jpg

This system is called joint family or extended family system. This joint family system is a peculiar characteristic of the Indian social life. Usually a son after marriage does not separate himself from the parents but continue to live under the same roof eating food cooked at one hearth participating in common worship and holding property in common and every person has share in it.

All the members of joint family keep their earnings in a common fund out of which family expenses are met. Accordingly Indian Joint family system is like a socialistic community in which every members earns according to his capacity and receives according to his needs. This joint family or extended family is organized on close blood relationships. It normally consists of members of three to four generations.

In other words joint family is a collection of more than one primary family on the basis of close blood ties and common residences. The entire members are bound by mutual obligations and have a common ancestor. It consist of an individual his wife and married sons their children and unmarried daughter, his brother and his parent.

But to have a clear understanding of the meaning of joint family we must have to analyze some of its definitions given by different sociologists.

Some of this definitions are as follows:

(1) According to Smt. Iravati Karve, “A joint family is a group of people who generally live under one roof, who eat food cooked at one hearth, who hold property in common and who participate in common worship and are related to each other as some particular type of Kindred.”

(2) According to K.M. Kapadia, “Joint family is a group formed not only of a couple and their children but also other relations either from father’s side or from mother’s side depending on whether the joint family is patrilineal or matrilineal.”

(3) According to Henery Maine, “The Hindu joint family is a group constituted of known ancestors and adopted sons and relatives related to these sons through marriage.”

(4) According to K. Davis, “The joint family consists of males having a common male ancestor female offspring not yet married and women brought into the group by marriage. All of these persons might live in a common household or in several households near to one another. In any case, so long as the joint family holds together, its members are expected to contribute to the support of the whole and to receive from it a share of the total product.”

Joint or Extended family

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Thus we conclude that the joint family comprises of a large number of members which has greater generation depth and who are related to one another by property, income, household and mutual rights and obligations. It is organised on the basis of close blood ties.

Features or Characteristics of Joint Family:

Joint family has the following features or characteristics.

(1) Large in Size:

The most important characteristic of joint family is that it is large in size. Because it consists of members of three to four generations. It includes parents, grandparents, children grand children and other close blood relatives. Several nuclear families live together as one and constitute a joint family.

(2) Joint Property:

Joint or common property is another important characteristic of joint family. All movable and immovable property of the family held jointly. Ownership, production and consumption of property take place jointly. All the members pool their income in a common family fund from which expenditure is incurred equally irrespective of their income. The head of the family acts as a trustee of the family property and looks towards the material and spiritual welfare of the family members. A family continue to remain joint till it’s property held jointly. Division of property means division of family.

(3) Common Kitchen:

It is the next important feature of joint family. All the members of joint family eat food cooked at one hearth. There is division of work in a joint family. Male members work in the field whereas female members remain engaged in the hearth. The eldest female member remains in charge of the kitchen and supervises the work of other women. This joint kitchen keeps the joint family integrated. Because separate kitchen means separation of family.

(4) Common Residence:

All the members of a joint family live under a common roof or in a common residence. This joint living crates a sense of unity among all the members of the family. As the joint family consists of several nuclear family when it became too large and the accommodation became insufficient they may live in separate houses in close proximity to one another. Thus living in a common residence all the members eats similar type of food, wear similar type of dresses and shows similar type of behavior.

(5) Common Worship:

All the members of a joint family believe in a particular religion and worships common gods and goddesses. This common god is known as ‘kula devatas’. All the members participate in common prayer and worship their ‘kula devatas’ jointly. They have similar faith and beliefs. All the members celebrate religious rites, duties and festivals jointly. This joint worship passes from generation to generation.

(6) Similar rights and obligations:

All the members of the joint family except the head enjoy similar rights and shows similar obligations towards each other. This keeps the joint family integrated. Each member remain conscious about his rights and obligations.

(7) Close blood ties:

All the members of joint family are bound by close blood ties. In other words there exists close blood relationships among the members of joint family.

(8) Absolute power of the head:

In a joint family the eldest male member or the head enjoy absolute power over others. In every respect his decision is final and binding.

(9) Co-operation:

Co-operation is the basis of joint family. All the members co-operate with each other in realization of their common objective and while performing family functions.

(10) Socialistic Ideals:

Joint family based on socialistic ideals “from each according to his capacity and to each according to his necessity”.

The Functions of Joint Family:

Here is your essay for students on the Functions of Joint Family!

Joint family is a peculiar and unique social institution of Indian Society. Joint family or extended family system is a peculiar charac­teristic of the Indian social life. Since its origin it has been instrumen­tal in providing protection, economic support and recreation to its members. It also helps in fostering good qualities among the mem­bers. It nourishes and socializes its members. As an important social institution it has brought about the well being of its members in sev­eral ways. It performs many functions. Some of its important func­tions or advantages or merits are stated below:—

(1) Economic functions:

Joint family performs a number of economic functions. It guarantees food, clothing and shelter to its members. All the members of joint family works together on a coop­erative basis and in that way it saves money that would have been spent on hired labour. Besides collective purchase of household ar­ticles also saves money. It avoids fragmentation of agricultural land and thereby helps in increasing productivity. By this way joint family ensures economic progress of the family as well as society.

(2) Protective functions:

Joint family performs a number of protective functions for its members. It acts as a safe home for the physically or mentally handicapped, sick, old members.

It also acts as an asylum for the orphans. It also assures a proper living for the widows. Thus joint family acts as a social insurance company for the old, sick and destitute.

(3) Recreational functions:

Joint family performed a num­ber of recreational functions for its members. It provides healthy recreation to all its members. By arranging feasts on different reli­gious, social and festive occasions it provides recreation to its mem­bers. The joking relationships in the joint family are another source of amusement.

(4) Fosters social virtues:

Joint family fosters good social virtues like sacrifice, love, affection, cooperation, mutual help, self­lessness, renunciation among its members and makes the family a cradle of social virtues. Under care and guidance of the elders the youths are prevented from being wayward. These social virtues are learned during the process of socialization.

(5) Socialism:

Socialism prevails in joint family because it believes in the socialistic principle i.e. “from each according to his ability and to each according to his necessity. Hence Sir Henry maine is right when he remarked that the joint family is like a corporation where the father acts as it’s trustee. Earnings of all the members are kept in a common family fund from where the expenditures are met.

(6) Acts as a unique device of division of labor:

Joint family acts as a unique system of division of labor. All the advan­tages of modern division of labor are enjoyed by joint family. All the works of the family are equally distributed according to the abilities of its members. All the family members help during harvesting of crops. None is over burdened. It brought economic benefits to family.

(7) Provides leisure:

Joint family provides necessary leisure to its members. As all the works are divided among the members and it finish within a little time and the rest time is spent in leisure. Besides the sick and old member are provided with more leisure

(8) Agency of social control:

Joint family acts as an agency of social control. As an informal agency it controls the deviant behaviors of its members. The unsocial and anti-social activities of its members are suppressed within a healthy family environment.

Agency of Socialization:

Joint family acts as an impor­tant agency of socialization. Family first socializes the child. Child learns a number of civic virtues in the family. The environment of family guides the growth of a child. The child gets his first lessons in the family. The family moulds the personality of the individual and continues to exercise its influence throughout life.

Dysfunction’s (Demerits or Disadvantages) of Joint Family:

Here is your essay for students on the Dysfunction’s (Demerits or Disadvantages) of Joint Family!

Although joint family is an important social institution and has been performing a number of functions is not free from criticism. Inspite of its instrumental role in preserving the Indian social struc­ture it has many things to its discredit. However, joint family has the following dysfunctions and demerits.

(1) Hinders the development of Personality:

Joint family hinders the development of individual personality. The karta or the head of the family enjoy absolute authority in the family. His deci­sions are binding in family matters. Such authoritative nature of joint family leaves little scope for the development of self-dependency and personality of the junior members. Individual autonomy are severely restricted.

(2) Encourages birth rate:

Joint family encourages birth i rate. No individual member faces the problems of having more child j birth. It is the responsibility of joint family to bring up the children and provide education to them. Besides irrespective of parental income all children are treated equally in a joint family. Hence no individual finds any cause to control reproduction. Thereby it encourages birth rate.

(3) Home for idlers:

Joint family gives stress on collective responsibility. Some members take advantage of this and became lazy. In a joint family some active members work harder while others become lazier. Because in a joint family there is no reward for the hard working members and no punishment for the lazy members. All are treated equally in every respect. This also lessens the interest of hard working members in doing hard work. As a result joint family became a home for idlers and family prosperity is impaired.

(4) Pitiable condition of Women:

Conditions of women are very pitiable in the joint family system. They are the worst sufferer. They toil for the family day and night and eat only after all the male members. They enjoy low status in the family. Very often the daugh­ter in law faces different kinds of ill-treatment by the mother-in-law and sister-in-laws.

(5) Frequent Quarrels:

Because of large size in general and presence of many women in particular in the joint family quarrels occurs frequently. There is hatred, jealousy and constant bickerings among the female members. There is always clash of ideas, inter­ests, ideals and temperaments which makes the joint family a hotbed of quarrels. Quarrels became more severe when the male members got involved.

(6) Lack of Privacy:

Absence of privacy particularly to the newlywed couple impaired their personality in a joint family system. Due to the presence of large number of individuals and elders the newlywed couple could not meet each other during day time to dis­cuss their problems. Hence joint family environment is not congenial for the newly married couple to enjoy their life in full.

(7) Absolute authority of the head:

In a joint family system the head or ‘Karta’ enjoys absolute and unquestionable authority. Being the eldest member he is orthodox in his attitude and temperament. He normally do not allow new ideas and change to be introduced easily. Dynamic members do not find scope for utilization of their plan for development. Besides he insists on the practice of old customs, tradi­tions etc. All this hinders the process of development of joint family.

(8) Low Standard of Living:

Standard of living in a joint family is very low due to number of factors such as pitiable condition of women, lack of privacy, frequent quarrels and litigation, improper care of common property, laziness of some members etc.

In spite of the above dysfunctions joint family system still con­tinue to exist in modern day. Of course the system is breaking down in cities but it still prevails in rural areas. But it cannot said that the system has been completely abolished. It continues to exist in Indian Society withstanding the challenges of time. It still exists today in a renewed and modified form.

Related Articles:

  • Significance of Joint Family System in India
  • Joint Family: Top 9 Characteristics of Joint Family – Explained!

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Joint Family Vs Nuclear Family – A Brief Discussion

argumentative essay joint family system

In the mazes of human relationships, family holds a special place. It provides a support system, a sense of belonging, and emotional strength. Families come in different shapes and sizes, and two prevalent structures are the joint family and the nuclear family. Each has its own set of advantages and disadvantages, making the choice between them a deeply personal and often complex decision. However, before getting into this discussion, let’s understand what is a nuclear family ? Also, what does it mean by joint family?

Understanding Joint Family and Nuclear Family

Joint Family - A joint family, also known as traditional family , is a traditional family arrangement where multiple generations – grandparents, parents, children, and sometimes even relatives – live together under one roof. This system develops a sense of togetherness and shared responsibility among family members.

Nuclear Family - A nuclear family, on the other hand, consists of only the immediate family members – couples and their children – living together. This structure promotes independence and self-sufficiency among family members. So, those who are wondering what is nuclear family, need to know that it is a small part of traditional family.  

Benefits of Joint Family

There are countless benefits of traditional family . Given below is a list of advantages of living in a joint family setting.

Emotional Support - Joint families offer a strong emotional support system as there are more people to share joys and sorrows.

Financial Security - Shared financial responsibilities often provide a more secure economic environment for everyone involved.

Cultural Preservation - Traditions, values, and customs are easily passed down from one generation to another within a joint family.

Child Care - With multiple adults around, children receive more attention and care, ensuring a nurturing environment.

Disadvantages of Joint Family

While there are so many benefits of joint family, one cannot deny the fact that it has a few downsides as well.

Lack of Privacy - Limited personal space and privacy can lead to tension and conflicts among family members.

Dependency - Individual decision-making might be curtailed due to the influence of elder family members.

Conflict - Differences in opinions and lifestyles can lead to disputes that are often challenging to resolve.

Benefits of Nuclear Family

Nuclear family comes with a lot of advantages. Here are some benefits to consider.

Independence - Nuclear families enjoy greater independence and freedom in decision-making. It allows individual growth.

Privacy - Each family member has their own space. Nuclear family is known for ensuring privacy and personal freedom.

Flexibility - Nuclear families can adapt more easily to changes and make decisions swiftly. This is a luxury joint family does not offer.

Focused Attention - Parents can concentrate more on the upbringing of their children. It ensures a focused approach to their education and well-being.

Disadvantages of Nuclear Family  

Like traditional family, nuclear family comes with some downside as well. So, people who are wondering what is nuclear family, need to consider the cons before coming to any decision.

Limited Support - In times of need, there might be limited emotional and financial support, as the family network is smaller.

Loneliness - The absence of constant company, especially for the elderly, can lead to feelings of isolation and loneliness.

Increased Pressure - Parents in nuclear families often face heightened pressure in balancing work, parenting, and household responsibilities.

Joint vs. Nuclear: Which One Is Better?

The question of whether a joint family or a nuclear family is better cannot be answered definitively. It greatly depends on individual preferences, cultural backgrounds, and specific circumstances. Some may find immense comfort in the warmth of a joint family, while others may thrive in the independence of a nuclear setup.

Lastly, both joint and nuclear families have their merits and drawbacks. The key lies in understanding the needs and aspirations of your family members and choosing a structure that promotes harmony, mutual respect, and overall well-being. After all, the essence of a family is not defined by its structure but by the love, care, and support its members provide to one another, regardless of how they choose to live together.

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Joint Family vs Nuclear Family

A family is like a bowl of fruit salad, different in taste, color, looks, but together makes that amazing flavor which can make anyone forget their pain and take a sigh of relief. Family is the soil where our roots are held together and from where we grow as an individual, yet attached to the roots.

The importance of family in India

In India the family is the most important institution that has survived through the ages. India is a country that emphasizes family integrity, family loyalty, and family unity. The Indian family has been a dominant institution in the life of the individual and in the life of the community

Basically, there are two types of families - Joint family and nuclear family

Joint Family

Joint family is a type of extended family, which consists of parents, their children, spouses of the children and their offspring in one household. In India, the system of a joint family hails from the Vedic times and was popular even when the kings ruled this land.

Nuclear family

A nuclear family is one which consists of the husband wife and their unmarried children. Soon after marriage, the children leave their parental home and establish their separate household. Hence a nuclear family is an autonomous unit free from the control of the elders. Since there is physical distance between parents and their married children, there is minimum interdependence between them.

Going on since ages

India has always been known for its rich culture, various languages, and for the system of living in a joint family. A joint family does not only mean a group of people living together, it means that these people are tied with a blood relation and choose to live in a single household for many reasons – sometimes out of will and sometimes because of compulsion.

You Learn the Art of Sharing in Joint Family

If you have ever lived in a joint family, you must have experienced that sharing little joys and achievements with your family members makes them so happy. Even small achievements are rejoiced by one and all. And in the moments of sorrow, your family is always there to support you. A kid brought up with many people is obviously more social but he also has a habit of sharing. Living in a joint family inculcates the habit of sharing from childhood. Living in a joint family makes you focus on ‘we’ than on ‘me’.

Education Beyond Books

As the joint family has many elderly persons, you get a very good social education just by listening to the stories and the experiences. They help you become a more mature and in times of need these are the lessons one could use for making decisions about life. All in all, living in a joint family makes one understand that there is more to education than just school books.

Feeling of Togetherness in Joint Family

Joint family creates an emotional bond between two generations and it helps to keep the family united in all the situations. The tradition and culture are passed on to the coming generations so that they can take it forward. The proverb “United we stand, Divided we fall”, goes true in the joint family system.

Possibility of conflicts

As many people live together, the chances of conflicts over values are more. The problem of living in a joint family is even a small decision has to go through and get a green signal by every member of the family, particularly the head of the family. Thus, it in a way invades privacy.

Nuclear Family

A sense of freedom

Nuclear families have more freedom as compared to a joint family system. They do not have to worry about what the other members of the household may think. They can roam around freely and come back at any time without being answerable to anyone. Democracy exists in a nuclear family.

Development of Personality

Nuclear family plays an important role in the development of personality of individuals. Children are closer to the parents and can have more free and frank discussion about their problems with parents which helps for the better development of their personality. Adults in nuclear families will learn to be independent and will take responsibility to support their family. The same will be learned by kids, and they can easily sustain when they migrate to a new area to live on their own.

Less Quarrels

Nuclear families face fewer quarrels when compared to a joint family. Usually, they are the small quarrels between a husband and wife or a child and the parents. It’s easy to convince everyone in the family in case of taking decisions.

Problem Free Unit

There is no chance of in-laws’ conflict. Financial problem does not arise in nuclear family. Money can be saved for future achievement and to face uncertain crisis of family. All enjoy independent life and can be engaged in any economic activities to supplement family income. The will and desires of children are considered and are given proper weight.

Feeling of loneliness is one of important drawbacks in nuclear family. After completion of household task, the housewife becomes alone at home. At times when the other members of the family go for a vacation, the one left behind feels very alone. Even during the time of emergency, there is hardly anyone to look up to. Children may follow the same trend and may leave their parents once they start earning. This will cause loneliness in elderly parents.

Impact on children

When both parents are working, it will be much difficult to manage kids. Also, children may get attracted to bad habits and bad friends easily when compared with children that have a lot of support and guidance from grandparents, uncles and aunts.

Decreasing number of joint families

The main cause behind the deterioration of the joint family is due to the lack of opportunities and a increase in the towns and cities. People started migrating to the cities leaving their roots behind in the search of jobs. Even if someone wants to bring their family to the cities with them, it is very difficult.

Happiness matters

Being in any of these families will give you a different experience and life style, altogether. It doesn’t really matter to which family you belong to, what matters is how you respect the people elder to you and take care of the ones younger to you, because that’s what family values are. At the end of the day, a person should be happy going back home after having a long day at work.

Nuclear families being popularized

When compared to joint family, nuclear families many a times feel better. They provide a peace and calm environment at home as there are very few quarrels. Every individual after coming from work requires a peaceful atmosphere at home. As they say - “small family, happy family.” But at the same time, things like depression can be only fought by living with a healthy and happy group of people, which is not possible in nuclear families.

Irreplaceable concept of joint family

The ones who love staying together know the values and importance of having elderly people in the house. It is important, especially during tough times to make good decisions in life. The children that have been brought up in the joint families would most probably opt for continuing the culture, if the family us happy and has a healthy environment.

A family is that ‘umbrella’ whose value is not realized until the stormy clouds loom over you. But, when you look up with a hope that someone will come to your rescue, the first silent approaching steps will be of your family members. This is ‘FAMILY’. You grow up together, learn together; agree-disagree; fight and make-up, move on in your lives, but in the end, when you need someone, you know your siblings and your family will be right there.

Of course, living together is difficult because in a joint family you have to put someone else’s needs before yours, you have to compromise but all these situations make you a better person. There will be feuds, compromises, sacrifices, but at the end of the day, you will have a lot more people to depend on.

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Essay on joint family vs. nuclear family system

argumentative essay joint family system

A joint family comprises members of the family that are related one another and share a common ancestry, religion, and property. All the working members of the family pool together what they earn and ha them over to the head who is usually the eldest.

The family head takes care of the entire family. Any member who brings in extra money has equal status. Hence, the joint family puts into practice the concept: ‘To each according to his needs, from each accord to his abilities.” The idea is socialistic in character.

The joint family system is a feature of agricultural societies. These are in existence in countries as China and India whose economy is based on agricultural produce. Collective living, collective fanning and collective share in family wealth are the traditional features of the joint.

The joint family preserves the tradition, customs and mariners handed down to it. Traditional culture and skill in art and craft are safeguarded from generation to generation. There is division of labour where the members attend to different work and contribute to the welfare of the family as a unit.

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A joint family provides an ideal setting for culture of virtues. The foundation of joint family is based on cooperation and unselfishness and tolerance. Children are taught from young age the virtues of patience, respect for elders, discipline, good habits. Each thing has to be shared. The congenial atmosphere becomes a nursery for the cultivation of virtues.

For persons living in nuclear families there is a feeling of insecurity. This feeling of insecurity is not there in a joint family where the unemployed, the sick, the aged and the handicapped are well taken care of. There is a sense of social security, and old age and illness are not looked upon with fear.

In a nuclear family, a working mother tries her best to strike a balance between service and household chores. At the same time she tries to be a good mother and a good wife. However, the joint system may at times prove a hindrance to individual enterprise and initiative.

The joint family has a number of advantages. However, it does not always work. When many people of different mentality and disposition live under one common roof, negative human traits are bound to crop up. Members then have a tendency to stress on their rights and ignore their duties. When this kind of attitude prevails, the atmosphere is not conducive to peace and harmony.

With many changes in the political, social and economic spheres, the Hindu joint family appears to be outmoded for present times. Joint property goes hand in hand with the joint family. When the joint family property is divided, the joint family gets dismembered.

Today technical skill is acquired in professional fields by training in technical institutions. It need not be passed on from generation to generation.

Modern means of communication and the trend of urbanising rural areas have brought new ideas and a new society has evolved which is in close touch with cities that offer all the comforts and joys of modern life. Thus, the joint family system is lessening.

Also, the feeling of social security present in a joint family often makes the members idle and lazy. Hard work is rarely rewarded and laziness seldom punished. Thus members lose initiative. There is also lack of dynamism.

There could be resistance to new customs and progressive ideas of young people by the elder generation. Old customs and traditions are enforced without finding out the views of the young. Lack of privacy may adversely affect freedom of couples or individualism in a joint.

There are advantages and disadvantages. Much depends on the nature of individual members. In rural areas, nature of people is always) simple and cooperative. In the final, much depends on the degree of adaptability of the members comprising the joint whether they are refined personalities or otherwise whether they would cherish the blessings of a joint or whether they would prefer to stay separate.

Related Articles:

  • 6 essential characteristics of Joint Family in India
  • What are the advantages of Joint Family?
  • Here is your essay on Joint family
  • 8 most essential characteristics of Joint Family

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Need to defend your opinion on an issue? Argumentative essays are one of the most popular types of essays you’ll write in school. They combine persuasive arguments with fact-based research, and, when done well, can be powerful tools for making someone agree with your point of view. If you’re struggling to write an argumentative essay or just want to learn more about them, seeing examples can be a big help.

After giving an overview of this type of essay, we provide three argumentative essay examples. After each essay, we explain in-depth how the essay was structured, what worked, and where the essay could be improved. We end with tips for making your own argumentative essay as strong as possible.

What Is an Argumentative Essay?

An argumentative essay is an essay that uses evidence and facts to support the claim it’s making. Its purpose is to persuade the reader to agree with the argument being made.

A good argumentative essay will use facts and evidence to support the argument, rather than just the author’s thoughts and opinions. For example, say you wanted to write an argumentative essay stating that Charleston, SC is a great destination for families. You couldn’t just say that it’s a great place because you took your family there and enjoyed it. For it to be an argumentative essay, you need to have facts and data to support your argument, such as the number of child-friendly attractions in Charleston, special deals you can get with kids, and surveys of people who visited Charleston as a family and enjoyed it. The first argument is based entirely on feelings, whereas the second is based on evidence that can be proven.

The standard five paragraph format is common, but not required, for argumentative essays. These essays typically follow one of two formats: the Toulmin model or the Rogerian model.

  • The Toulmin model is the most common. It begins with an introduction, follows with a thesis/claim, and gives data and evidence to support that claim. This style of essay also includes rebuttals of counterarguments.
  • The Rogerian model analyzes two sides of an argument and reaches a conclusion after weighing the strengths and weaknesses of each.

3 Good Argumentative Essay Examples + Analysis

Below are three examples of argumentative essays, written by yours truly in my school days, as well as analysis of what each did well and where it could be improved.

Argumentative Essay Example 1

Proponents of this idea state that it will save local cities and towns money because libraries are expensive to maintain. They also believe it will encourage more people to read because they won’t have to travel to a library to get a book; they can simply click on what they want to read and read it from wherever they are. They could also access more materials because libraries won’t have to buy physical copies of books; they can simply rent out as many digital copies as they need.

However, it would be a serious mistake to replace libraries with tablets. First, digital books and resources are associated with less learning and more problems than print resources. A study done on tablet vs book reading found that people read 20-30% slower on tablets, retain 20% less information, and understand 10% less of what they read compared to people who read the same information in print. Additionally, staring too long at a screen has been shown to cause numerous health problems, including blurred vision, dizziness, dry eyes, headaches, and eye strain, at much higher instances than reading print does. People who use tablets and mobile devices excessively also have a higher incidence of more serious health issues such as fibromyalgia, shoulder and back pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, and muscle strain. I know that whenever I read from my e-reader for too long, my eyes begin to feel tired and my neck hurts. We should not add to these problems by giving people, especially young people, more reasons to look at screens.

Second, it is incredibly narrow-minded to assume that the only service libraries offer is book lending. Libraries have a multitude of benefits, and many are only available if the library has a physical location. Some of these benefits include acting as a quiet study space, giving people a way to converse with their neighbors, holding classes on a variety of topics, providing jobs, answering patron questions, and keeping the community connected. One neighborhood found that, after a local library instituted community events such as play times for toddlers and parents, job fairs for teenagers, and meeting spaces for senior citizens, over a third of residents reported feeling more connected to their community. Similarly, a Pew survey conducted in 2015 found that nearly two-thirds of American adults feel that closing their local library would have a major impact on their community. People see libraries as a way to connect with others and get their questions answered, benefits tablets can’t offer nearly as well or as easily.

While replacing libraries with tablets may seem like a simple solution, it would encourage people to spend even more time looking at digital screens, despite the myriad issues surrounding them. It would also end access to many of the benefits of libraries that people have come to rely on. In many areas, libraries are such an important part of the community network that they could never be replaced by a simple object.

The author begins by giving an overview of the counter-argument, then the thesis appears as the first sentence in the third paragraph. The essay then spends the rest of the paper dismantling the counter argument and showing why readers should believe the other side.

What this essay does well:

  • Although it’s a bit unusual to have the thesis appear fairly far into the essay, it works because, once the thesis is stated, the rest of the essay focuses on supporting it since the counter-argument has already been discussed earlier in the paper.
  • This essay includes numerous facts and cites studies to support its case. By having specific data to rely on, the author’s argument is stronger and readers will be more inclined to agree with it.
  • For every argument the other side makes, the author makes sure to refute it and follow up with why her opinion is the stronger one. In order to make a strong argument, it’s important to dismantle the other side, which this essay does this by making the author's view appear stronger.
  • This is a shorter paper, and if it needed to be expanded to meet length requirements, it could include more examples and go more into depth with them, such as by explaining specific cases where people benefited from local libraries.
  • Additionally, while the paper uses lots of data, the author also mentions their own experience with using tablets. This should be removed since argumentative essays focus on facts and data to support an argument, not the author’s own opinion or experiences. Replacing that with more data on health issues associated with screen time would strengthen the essay.
  • Some of the points made aren't completely accurate , particularly the one about digital books being cheaper. It actually often costs a library more money to rent out numerous digital copies of a book compared to buying a single physical copy. Make sure in your own essay you thoroughly research each of the points and rebuttals you make, otherwise you'll look like you don't know the issue that well.

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Argumentative Essay Example 2

There are multiple drugs available to treat malaria, and many of them work well and save lives, but malaria eradication programs that focus too much on them and not enough on prevention haven’t seen long-term success in Sub-Saharan Africa. A major program to combat malaria was WHO’s Global Malaria Eradication Programme. Started in 1955, it had a goal of eliminating malaria in Africa within the next ten years. Based upon previously successful programs in Brazil and the United States, the program focused mainly on vector control. This included widely distributing chloroquine and spraying large amounts of DDT. More than one billion dollars was spent trying to abolish malaria. However, the program suffered from many problems and in 1969, WHO was forced to admit that the program had not succeeded in eradicating malaria. The number of people in Sub-Saharan Africa who contracted malaria as well as the number of malaria deaths had actually increased over 10% during the time the program was active.

One of the major reasons for the failure of the project was that it set uniform strategies and policies. By failing to consider variations between governments, geography, and infrastructure, the program was not nearly as successful as it could have been. Sub-Saharan Africa has neither the money nor the infrastructure to support such an elaborate program, and it couldn’t be run the way it was meant to. Most African countries don't have the resources to send all their people to doctors and get shots, nor can they afford to clear wetlands or other malaria prone areas. The continent’s spending per person for eradicating malaria was just a quarter of what Brazil spent. Sub-Saharan Africa simply can’t rely on a plan that requires more money, infrastructure, and expertise than they have to spare.

Additionally, the widespread use of chloroquine has created drug resistant parasites which are now plaguing Sub-Saharan Africa. Because chloroquine was used widely but inconsistently, mosquitoes developed resistance, and chloroquine is now nearly completely ineffective in Sub-Saharan Africa, with over 95% of mosquitoes resistant to it. As a result, newer, more expensive drugs need to be used to prevent and treat malaria, which further drives up the cost of malaria treatment for a region that can ill afford it.

Instead of developing plans to treat malaria after the infection has incurred, programs should focus on preventing infection from occurring in the first place. Not only is this plan cheaper and more effective, reducing the number of people who contract malaria also reduces loss of work/school days which can further bring down the productivity of the region.

One of the cheapest and most effective ways of preventing malaria is to implement insecticide-treated bed nets (ITNs).  These nets provide a protective barrier around the person or people using them. While untreated bed nets are still helpful, those treated with insecticides are much more useful because they stop mosquitoes from biting people through the nets, and they help reduce mosquito populations in a community, thus helping people who don’t even own bed nets.  Bed nets are also very effective because most mosquito bites occur while the person is sleeping, so bed nets would be able to drastically reduce the number of transmissions during the night. In fact, transmission of malaria can be reduced by as much as 90% in areas where the use of ITNs is widespread. Because money is so scarce in Sub-Saharan Africa, the low cost is a great benefit and a major reason why the program is so successful. Bed nets cost roughly 2 USD to make, last several years, and can protect two adults. Studies have shown that, for every 100-1000 more nets are being used, one less child dies of malaria. With an estimated 300 million people in Africa not being protected by mosquito nets, there’s the potential to save three million lives by spending just a few dollars per person.

Reducing the number of people who contract malaria would also reduce poverty levels in Africa significantly, thus improving other aspects of society like education levels and the economy. Vector control is more effective than treatment strategies because it means fewer people are getting sick. When fewer people get sick, the working population is stronger as a whole because people are not put out of work from malaria, nor are they caring for sick relatives. Malaria-afflicted families can typically only harvest 40% of the crops that healthy families can harvest. Additionally, a family with members who have malaria spends roughly a quarter of its income treatment, not including the loss of work they also must deal with due to the illness. It’s estimated that malaria costs Africa 12 billion USD in lost income every year. A strong working population creates a stronger economy, which Sub-Saharan Africa is in desperate need of.  

This essay begins with an introduction, which ends with the thesis (that malaria eradication plans in Sub-Saharan Africa should focus on prevention rather than treatment). The first part of the essay lays out why the counter argument (treatment rather than prevention) is not as effective, and the second part of the essay focuses on why prevention of malaria is the better path to take.

  • The thesis appears early, is stated clearly, and is supported throughout the rest of the essay. This makes the argument clear for readers to understand and follow throughout the essay.
  • There’s lots of solid research in this essay, including specific programs that were conducted and how successful they were, as well as specific data mentioned throughout. This evidence helps strengthen the author’s argument.
  • The author makes a case for using expanding bed net use over waiting until malaria occurs and beginning treatment, but not much of a plan is given for how the bed nets would be distributed or how to ensure they’re being used properly. By going more into detail of what she believes should be done, the author would be making a stronger argument.
  • The introduction of the essay does a good job of laying out the seriousness of the problem, but the conclusion is short and abrupt. Expanding it into its own paragraph would give the author a final way to convince readers of her side of the argument.

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Argumentative Essay Example 3

There are many ways payments could work. They could be in the form of a free-market approach, where athletes are able to earn whatever the market is willing to pay them, it could be a set amount of money per athlete, or student athletes could earn income from endorsements, autographs, and control of their likeness, similar to the way top Olympians earn money.

Proponents of the idea believe that, because college athletes are the ones who are training, participating in games, and bringing in audiences, they should receive some sort of compensation for their work. If there were no college athletes, the NCAA wouldn’t exist, college coaches wouldn’t receive there (sometimes very high) salaries, and brands like Nike couldn’t profit from college sports. In fact, the NCAA brings in roughly $1 billion in revenue a year, but college athletes don’t receive any of that money in the form of a paycheck. Additionally, people who believe college athletes should be paid state that paying college athletes will actually encourage them to remain in college longer and not turn pro as quickly, either by giving them a way to begin earning money in college or requiring them to sign a contract stating they’ll stay at the university for a certain number of years while making an agreed-upon salary.  

Supporters of this idea point to Zion Williamson, the Duke basketball superstar, who, during his freshman year, sustained a serious knee injury. Many argued that, even if he enjoyed playing for Duke, it wasn’t worth risking another injury and ending his professional career before it even began for a program that wasn’t paying him. Williamson seems to have agreed with them and declared his eligibility for the NCAA draft later that year. If he was being paid, he may have stayed at Duke longer. In fact, roughly a third of student athletes surveyed stated that receiving a salary while in college would make them “strongly consider” remaining collegiate athletes longer before turning pro.

Paying athletes could also stop the recruitment scandals that have plagued the NCAA. In 2018, the NCAA stripped the University of Louisville's men's basketball team of its 2013 national championship title because it was discovered coaches were using sex workers to entice recruits to join the team. There have been dozens of other recruitment scandals where college athletes and recruits have been bribed with anything from having their grades changed, to getting free cars, to being straight out bribed. By paying college athletes and putting their salaries out in the open, the NCAA could end the illegal and underhanded ways some schools and coaches try to entice athletes to join.

People who argue against the idea of paying college athletes believe the practice could be disastrous for college sports. By paying athletes, they argue, they’d turn college sports into a bidding war, where only the richest schools could afford top athletes, and the majority of schools would be shut out from developing a talented team (though some argue this already happens because the best players often go to the most established college sports programs, who typically pay their coaches millions of dollars per year). It could also ruin the tight camaraderie of many college teams if players become jealous that certain teammates are making more money than they are.

They also argue that paying college athletes actually means only a small fraction would make significant money. Out of the 350 Division I athletic departments, fewer than a dozen earn any money. Nearly all the money the NCAA makes comes from men’s football and basketball, so paying college athletes would make a small group of men--who likely will be signed to pro teams and begin making millions immediately out of college--rich at the expense of other players.

Those against paying college athletes also believe that the athletes are receiving enough benefits already. The top athletes already receive scholarships that are worth tens of thousands per year, they receive free food/housing/textbooks, have access to top medical care if they are injured, receive top coaching, get travel perks and free gear, and can use their time in college as a way to capture the attention of professional recruiters. No other college students receive anywhere near as much from their schools.

People on this side also point out that, while the NCAA brings in a massive amount of money each year, it is still a non-profit organization. How? Because over 95% of those profits are redistributed to its members’ institutions in the form of scholarships, grants, conferences, support for Division II and Division III teams, and educational programs. Taking away a significant part of that revenue would hurt smaller programs that rely on that money to keep running.

While both sides have good points, it’s clear that the negatives of paying college athletes far outweigh the positives. College athletes spend a significant amount of time and energy playing for their school, but they are compensated for it by the scholarships and perks they receive. Adding a salary to that would result in a college athletic system where only a small handful of athletes (those likely to become millionaires in the professional leagues) are paid by a handful of schools who enter bidding wars to recruit them, while the majority of student athletics and college athletic programs suffer or even shut down for lack of money. Continuing to offer the current level of benefits to student athletes makes it possible for as many people to benefit from and enjoy college sports as possible.

This argumentative essay follows the Rogerian model. It discusses each side, first laying out multiple reasons people believe student athletes should be paid, then discussing reasons why the athletes shouldn’t be paid. It ends by stating that college athletes shouldn’t be paid by arguing that paying them would destroy college athletics programs and cause them to have many of the issues professional sports leagues have.

  • Both sides of the argument are well developed, with multiple reasons why people agree with each side. It allows readers to get a full view of the argument and its nuances.
  • Certain statements on both sides are directly rebuffed in order to show where the strengths and weaknesses of each side lie and give a more complete and sophisticated look at the argument.
  • Using the Rogerian model can be tricky because oftentimes you don’t explicitly state your argument until the end of the paper. Here, the thesis doesn’t appear until the first sentence of the final paragraph. That doesn’t give readers a lot of time to be convinced that your argument is the right one, compared to a paper where the thesis is stated in the beginning and then supported throughout the paper. This paper could be strengthened if the final paragraph was expanded to more fully explain why the author supports the view, or if the paper had made it clearer that paying athletes was the weaker argument throughout.

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3 Tips for Writing a Good Argumentative Essay

Now that you’ve seen examples of what good argumentative essay samples look like, follow these three tips when crafting your own essay.

#1: Make Your Thesis Crystal Clear

The thesis is the key to your argumentative essay; if it isn’t clear or readers can’t find it easily, your entire essay will be weak as a result. Always make sure that your thesis statement is easy to find. The typical spot for it is the final sentence of the introduction paragraph, but if it doesn’t fit in that spot for your essay, try to at least put it as the first or last sentence of a different paragraph so it stands out more.

Also make sure that your thesis makes clear what side of the argument you’re on. After you’ve written it, it’s a great idea to show your thesis to a couple different people--classmates are great for this. Just by reading your thesis they should be able to understand what point you’ll be trying to make with the rest of your essay.

#2: Show Why the Other Side Is Weak

When writing your essay, you may be tempted to ignore the other side of the argument and just focus on your side, but don’t do this. The best argumentative essays really tear apart the other side to show why readers shouldn’t believe it. Before you begin writing your essay, research what the other side believes, and what their strongest points are. Then, in your essay, be sure to mention each of these and use evidence to explain why they’re incorrect/weak arguments. That’ll make your essay much more effective than if you only focused on your side of the argument.

#3: Use Evidence to Support Your Side

Remember, an essay can’t be an argumentative essay if it doesn’t support its argument with evidence. For every point you make, make sure you have facts to back it up. Some examples are previous studies done on the topic, surveys of large groups of people, data points, etc. There should be lots of numbers in your argumentative essay that support your side of the argument. This will make your essay much stronger compared to only relying on your own opinions to support your argument.

Summary: Argumentative Essay Sample

Argumentative essays are persuasive essays that use facts and evidence to support their side of the argument. Most argumentative essays follow either the Toulmin model or the Rogerian model. By reading good argumentative essay examples, you can learn how to develop your essay and provide enough support to make readers agree with your opinion. When writing your essay, remember to always make your thesis clear, show where the other side is weak, and back up your opinion with data and evidence.

What's Next?

Do you need to write an argumentative essay as well? Check out our guide on the best argumentative essay topics for ideas!

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Your college admissions essay may end up being one of the most important essays you write. Follow our step-by-step guide on writing a personal statement to have an essay that'll impress colleges.

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Christine graduated from Michigan State University with degrees in Environmental Biology and Geography and received her Master's from Duke University. In high school she scored in the 99th percentile on the SAT and was named a National Merit Finalist. She has taught English and biology in several countries.

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Essay on Joint Family

Essay on Joint Family

Family does not mean bonded to each other only by blood relation. It does mean connecting with them emotionally. A happy life is not possible without a happy family. Everyone needs a family who cheers with them in happy times, stands with them in their bad times, guides them in difficult times and so on. Family is an important part of our survival.

10 Lines Essay on Joint Family

1) A joint family consists of at least three generations living together in one house.

2) Joint families have a common kitchen, rituals, property, residence and sometimes have common occupations.

3) Joint family is practiced from the Vedic period in India.

4) The elder member is responsible for decision making.

5) Members of a joint family never feel alone.

6) Joint families are the major support system in every situation.

7) Privacy is violated in a joint family.

8) Quarrels and conflicts are common issues.

9) The main cause of decline in joint families is urbanization.

10) Joint families are more stable than nuclear families.

Long Essay on Joint Family in English

Here, I’m providing an essay on the merits and demerits of joint families in very easy language. You can go through this essay to know the different aspects of joint families.

1200 Words Long Essay – Merits and Demerits of Joint Family

Introduction

Joint family is all about “us” rather than “I”. We all are well aware of the famous proverb “united we stand, divided we fall”, this can be seen in the joint families. Unity is the main power to fight all the problems. That’s why the joint family is considered as the most stable type of family.

 A joint family is like a flower bouquet, which contains several flowers that are different in shapes, sizes and colors but together they produce a pleasant fragrance of harmony.

Joint Family in India

A joint family is a family which consists of many generations living together in one house. A joint family consists of all the family members from grandparents to grandchildren. This type of family system is generally practiced in India.

Joint family can be seen as the extension of a nuclear family and hence also referred to as the extended family. The food is prepared together by all the women members in one common kitchen. In most of the cases, members of a joint family follow the same occupation. Joint family practice common religious activities, usually all the rituals are performed by the elder member of the family.

The joint family is large in size as it contains many family members. Family shares expenditure so that no member has the burden to feed the family alone. If there is any unemployed person in the family he too can survive in a joint family.

The children of a joint family are said to have sharing as well as compromising nature. They develop the ability of adjusting according to the situation.

Advantages/ Benefits of Joint Family

A joint family possesses many advantages when compared to nuclear families. Since the family members of a joint family are multiplied as compared to the nuclear family, therefore we can say that the enjoyment and benefits are also multiplied. Some of them are mentioned below:

  • Never Lonely:   In joint families, children will never feel alone. They always have someone who takes care of them.  
  • Sharing and Caring:  Living in a joint family teaches you the true meaning of love and care. Children develop the nature of sharing and caring on their own. They are emotionally bonded to each other.
  • Knowledge beyond Books: The elder people always share their life experiences with others. Learning from their experience will give you knowledge beyond the books.
  • Meaning of Respect:  The true meaning of respect is only understood by living in a joint family. Joint family consists of several members including grandparents. Therefore, respecting everyone is the ultimate quality developed in the people of joint families.
  • Less Financial Burden:  The total expenses are distributed among all the working members. Therefore, nobody feels the burden of running home alone.
  • Support:  The joint family is the major support system. People share every happy and unhappy moment together.
  • Division of Labor:  All the work is equally divided by the members of the family. Women distribute their job so that no one will feel the load.   

Disadvantages of Joint Family

Living in a joint family will sometimes affect the lifestyle of the family members. Apart from having various advantages, joint families also have some disadvantages. Some of them is mentioned below:

  • Privacy:  The main issue in the joint family is privacy. People in a joint family will never be allowed to enjoy their private life. Everyone knows the secret of every other person in the house therefore the term privacy does not exist in joint families.
  • Financial Issue:  Sometimes, expenditure is not equally distributed due to difference in income of the members. It also leads to dissatisfaction among some members.
  • Parenting Issues: Parents have to treat their children according to the system of joint family. As they always try to give their opinion.
  • Disagreement:  While taking any important decisions, it is very difficult to get every member to agree on a particular solution.
  • Unnecessary Fights and Conflicts:  Living in a joint family is not that easy. Fights and quarrels are quite common in the house. When people with different mindset live together under the same roof, mismatch of thoughts will always raise conflicts.
  • Decision Making: All the important decisions are taken by the head of the family. Although other members can give their views, the final decision lies in the hands of the family head.

Characteristics/ Features of Joint Family System

  • Most of the decisions are taken by the elder member of the family, usually referred as the “Karta” of the family.
  • All members contribute money for overall expenses.
  • Members of a joint family share joint property.
  • All the members follow common rituals and worship, followed by generations.
  • Joint family is all about joint responsibilities.

Joint Family Vs Nuclear Family

There are a lot of differences between joint families and nuclear families. Let us discuss some main differences.

In joint families, children are raised with the love and affection of their elders. They enjoy their childhood in the lap of their grandparents. Children never feel bored nor alone. They always have someone by their side. Even the place of friends is occupied by the cousins. On the other hand, in nuclear family’s children have no one to whom they can share their feelings. They live alone with their parents. As a result, children from nuclear families are easily prone to mental diseases like Depression.

Children from joint families develop various social etiquette, they easily get mixed with others. The children from joint families are more adjustable than those in nuclear families.

Sometimes both the parents are working, due to which they have less interaction with their kids. There are more chances of kids trapped in bad habits as parents don’t have much time for them. However, they always fear for their children as there is no one to take care of them. But in joint families, there are other members who take care of the children in absence of their parents.

Reasons for Decline in Joint Family

Today we can see a huge shift of joint families to nuclear families. According to an early survey there had been a decline in the joint family from 19.1% to 16.1%. The main cause of deterioration of joint family is urbanization. People are more influenced by the western culture.  

Unemployment and migration to the cities for better job opportunities are other reasons for decline in joint families. As it is somehow difficult for elders to shift completely in the cities by leaving their ancestor’s house.  

Everyone wants to live a life of their own choice. Desire for independence had shifted the attention and likelihood towards the nuclear family system. However, for better education and facilities nobody wants to live in the rural areas. Therefore, inconvenience can also be the reason for shifting towards more nuclear family.

Family is the essential segment of our life. Everyone wants to live a happy and prosperous life with their family. It can be nuclear or joint. Both types of families have their own merits and demerits. It is our personal preference to choose the type of family in which we want to live.

I hope the above given essay on merits and demerits of joint family would be fruitful for your knowledge. I have tried to keep the language simple for your better understanding.

Related Link :

  • Essay on Nuclear Family
  • Speech on Joint Family
  • Essay on Small Family
  • A Picnic with Family Essay

FAQs: Frequently Asked Questions on Joint Family

Ans. A joint family consists of all the family members living together under the same roof.

Ans. Joint family is also known as joint household.

Ans.  The word “Family” originated from the Latin word ‘famulus’ meaning servant.

Ans.  There are various types of families like nuclear family, compound family, joint family, lineal family, etc.

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argumentative essay joint family system

The Unpunished: How Extremists Took Over Israel

After 50 years of failure to stop violence and terrorism against Palestinians by Jewish ultranationalists, lawlessness has become the law.

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Ronen Bergman

By Ronen Bergman and Mark Mazzetti

  • May 16, 2024

This story is told in three parts. The first documents the unequal system of justice that grew around Jewish settlements in Gaza and the West Bank. The second shows how extremists targeted not only Palestinians but also Israeli officials trying to make peace. The third explores how this movement gained control of the state itself. Taken together, they tell the story of how a radical ideology moved from the fringes to the heart of Israeli political power.

By the end of October, it was clear that no one was going to help the villagers of Khirbet Zanuta. A tiny Palestinian community, some 150 people perched on a windswept hill in the West Bank near Hebron, it had long faced threats from the Jewish settlers who had steadily encircled it. But occasional harassment and vandalism, in the days after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, escalated into beatings and murder threats. The villagers made appeal after appeal to the Israeli police and to the ever-present Israeli military, but their calls for protection went largely unheeded, and the attacks continued with no consequences. So one day the villagers packed what they could, loaded their families into trucks and disappeared.

Listen to this article, read by Jonathan Davis

Who bulldozed the village after that is a matter of dispute. The Israeli Army says it was the settlers; a senior Israeli police officer says it was the army. Either way, soon after the villagers left, little remained of Khirbet Zanuta besides the ruins of a clinic and an elementary school. One wall of the clinic, leaning sideways, bore a sign saying that it had been funded by an agency of the European Union providing “humanitarian support for Palestinians at risk of forcible transfer in the West Bank.” Near the school, someone had planted the flag of Israel as another kind of announcement: This is Jewish land now.

Such violence over the decades in places like Khirbet Zanuta is well documented. But protecting the people who carry out that violence is the dark secret of Israeli justice. The long arc of harassment, assault and murder of Palestinians by Jewish settlers is twinned with a shadow history, one of silence, avoidance and abetment by Israeli officials. For many of those officials, it is Palestinian terrorism that most threatens Israel. But in interviews with more than 100 people — current and former officers of the Israeli military, the National Israeli Police and the Shin Bet domestic security service; high-ranking Israeli political officials, including four former prime ministers; Palestinian leaders and activists; Israeli human rights lawyers; American officials charged with supporting the Israeli-Palestinian partnership — we found a different and perhaps even more destabilizing threat. A long history of crime without punishment, many of those officials now say, threatens not only Palestinians living in the occupied territories but also the State of Israel itself.

A roadblock near a Palestinian village.

Many of the people we interviewed, some speaking anonymously, some speaking publicly for the first time, offered an account not only of Jewish violence against Palestinians dating back decades but also of an Israeli state that has systematically and increasingly ignored that violence. It is an account of a sometimes criminal nationalistic movement that has been allowed to operate with impunity and gradually move from the fringes to the mainstream of Israeli society. It is an account of how voices within the government that objected to the condoning of settler violence were silenced and discredited. And it is a blunt account, told for the first time by Israeli officials themselves, of how the occupation came to threaten the integrity of their country’s democracy.

The interviews, along with classified documents written in recent months, reveal a government at war with itself. One document describes a meeting in March, when Maj. Gen. Yehuda Fox, the head of Israel’s Central Command, responsible for the West Bank, gave a withering account of the efforts by Bezalel Smotrich — an ultraright leader and the official in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government with oversight over the West Bank — to undermine law enforcement in the occupied territory. Since Smotrich took office, Fox wrote, the effort to clamp down on illegal settlement construction has dwindled “to the point where it has disappeared.” Moreover, Fox said, Smotrich and his allies were thwarting the very measures to enforce the law that the government had promised Israeli courts it would take.

This is a story, pieced together and told in full for the first time, that leads to the heart of Israel. But it begins in the West Bank, in places like Khirbet Zanuta. From within the village’s empty ruins, there is a clear view across the valley to a tiny Jewish outpost called Meitarim Farm. Built in 2021, the farm has become a base of operations for settler attacks led by Yinon Levi, the farm’s owner. Like so many of the Israeli outposts that have been set up throughout the West Bank in recent years, Meitarim Farm is illegal. It is illegal under international law, which most experts say doesn’t recognize Israeli settlements in occupied land. It is illegal under Israeli law, like most settlements built since the 1990s.

Few efforts are made to stop the building of these outposts or the violence emanating from them. Indeed, one of Levi’s day jobs was running an earthworks company, and he has worked with the Israel Defense Forces to bulldoze at least one Palestinian village in the West Bank. As for the victims of that violence, they face a confounding and defeating system when trying to get relief. Villagers seeking help from the police typically have to file a report in person at an Israeli police station, which in the West Bank are almost exclusively located inside the settlements themselves. After getting through security and to the station, they sometimes wait for hours for an Arabic translator, only to be told they don’t have the right paperwork or sufficient evidence to submit a report. As one senior Israeli military official told us, the police “exhaust Palestinians so they won’t file complaints.”

And yet in November, with no protection from the police or the military, the former residents of Khirbet Zanuta and five nearby villages chose to test whether justice was still possible by appealing directly to Israel’s Supreme Court. In a petition, lawyers for the villagers, from Haqel, an Israeli human rights organization, argued that days after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, a raiding party that included settlers and Israeli soldiers assaulted village residents, threatened murder and destroyed property throughout the village. They stated that the raid was part of “a mass transfer of ancient Palestinian communities,” one in which settlers working hand in hand with soldiers are taking advantage of the current war in Gaza to achieve the longer-standing goal of “cleansing” parts of the West Bank, aided by the “sweeping and unprecedented disregard” of the state and its “de facto consent to the massive acts of deportation.”

The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, and the relief the villagers are seeking — that the law be enforced — might seem modest. But our reporting reveals the degree to which decades of history are stacked against them: After 50 years of crime without punishment, in many ways the violent settlers and the state have become one.

Separate and Unequal

The devastating Hamas attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, the ongoing crisis of Israeli hostages and the grinding Israeli invasion and bombardment of the Gaza Strip that followed may have refocused the world’s attention on Israel’s ongoing inability to address the question of Palestinian autonomy. But it is in the West Bank where the corrosive long-term effects of the occupation on Israeli law and democracy are most apparent.

A sample of three dozen cases in the months since Oct. 7 shows the startling degree to which the legal system has decayed. In all the cases, involving misdeeds as diverse as stealing livestock and assault and arson, not a single suspect was charged with a crime; in one case, a settler shot a Palestinian in the stomach while an Israel Defense Forces soldier looked on, yet the police questioned the shooter for only 20 minutes, and never as a criminal suspect, according to an internal Israeli military memo. During our review of the cases, we listened to recordings of Israeli human rights activists calling the police to report various crimes against Palestinians. In some of the recordings, the police refused to come to the scene, claiming they didn’t know where the villages were; in one case, they mocked the activists as “anarchists.” A spokesman for the Israeli National Police declined to respond to repeated queries about our findings.

The violence and impunity that these cases demonstrate existed long before Oct. 7. In nearly every month before October, the rate of violent incidents was higher than during the same month in the previous year. And Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights group, looking at more than 1,600 cases of settler violence in the West Bank between 2005 and 2023, found that just 3 percent ended in a conviction. Ami Ayalon, the head of Shin Bet from 1996 to 2000 — speaking out now because of his concern about Israel’s systemic failure to enforce the law — says this singular lack of consequences reflects the indifference of the Israeli leadership going back years. “The cabinet, the prime minister,” he says, “they signal to the Shin Bet that if a Jew is killed, that’s terrible. If an Arab is killed, that’s not good, but it’s not the end of the world.”

Ayalon’s assessment was echoed by many other officials we interviewed. Mark Schwartz, a retired American three-star general, was the top military official working at the United States Embassy in Jerusalem from 2019 to 2021, overseeing international support efforts for the partnership between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. “There’s no accountability,” he says now of the long history of settler crimes and heavy-handed Israeli operations in the West Bank. “These things eat away at trust and ultimately the stability and security of Israel and the Palestinian territories. It’s undeniable.”

How did a young nation turn so quickly on its own democratic ideals, and at what price? Any meaningful answer to these questions has to take into account how a half-century of lawless behavior that went largely unpunished propelled a radical form of ultranationalism to the center of Israeli politics. This is the history that is told here in three parts. In Part I, we describe the origins of a religious movement that established Jewish settlements in the newly won territories of Gaza and the West Bank during the 1970s. In Part II, we recount how the most extreme elements of the settler movement began targeting not only Palestinians but also Israeli leaders who tried to make peace with them. And in Part III, we show how the most established members of Israel’s ultraright, unpunished for their crimes, gained political power in Israel, even as a more radical generation of settlers vowed to eliminate the Israeli state altogether.

Many Israelis who moved to the West Bank did so for reasons other than ideology, and among the settlers, there is a large majority who aren’t involved in violence or other illegal acts against Palestinians. And many within the Israeli government fought to expand the rule of law into the territories, with some success. But they also faced harsh pushback, with sometimes grave personal consequences. Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s efforts in the 1990s, on the heels of the First Intifada, to make peace with Yasir Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, gave rise to a new generation of Jewish terrorists, and they ultimately cost him his life.

The disagreement over how to handle the occupied territories and their residents has bred a complex and sometimes opaque system of law enforcement. At its heart are two separate and unequal systems of justice: one for Jews and another for Palestinians.

The West Bank is under the command of the I.D.F., which means that Palestinians are subject to a military law that gives the I.D.F. and the Shin Bet considerable authority. They can hold suspects for extended periods without trial or access to either a lawyer or the evidence against them. They can wiretap, conduct secret surveillance, hack into databases and gather intelligence on any Arab living in the occupied territory with few restrictions. Palestinians are subject to military — not civilian — courts, which are far more punitive when it comes to accusations of terrorism and less transparent to outside scrutiny. (In a statement, the I.D.F. said, “The use of administrative detention measures is only carried out in situations where the security authorities have reliable and credible information indicating a real danger posed by the detainee to the region’s security, and in the absence of other alternatives to remove the risk.” It declined to respond to multiple specific queries, in some cases saying “the events are too old to address.”)

According to a senior Israeli defense official, since Oct. 7, some 7,000 settler reservists were called back by the I.D.F., put in uniform, armed and ordered to protect the settlements. They were given specific orders: Do not leave the settlements, do not cover your faces, do not initiate unauthorized roadblocks. But in reality many of them have left the settlements in uniform, wearing masks, setting up roadblocks and harassing Palestinians.

All West Bank settlers are in theory subject to the same military law that applies to Palestinian residents. But in practice, they are treated according to the civil law of the State of Israel, which formally applies only to territory within the state’s borders. This means that Shin Bet might probe two similar acts of terrorism in the West Bank — one committed by Jewish settlers and one committed by Palestinians — and use wholly different investigative tools.

In this system, even the question of what behavior is being investigated as an act of terror is different for Jews and Arabs. For a Palestinian, the simple admission of identifying with Hamas counts as an act of terrorism that permits Israeli authorities to use severe interrogation methods and long detention. Moreover, most acts of violence by Arabs against Jews are categorized as a “terror” attack — giving Shin Bet and other services license to use the harshest methods at their disposal.

The job of investigating Jewish terrorism falls to a division of Shin Bet called the Department for Counterintelligence and Prevention of Subversion in the Jewish Sector, known more commonly as the Jewish Department. It is dwarfed both in size and prestige by Shin Bet’s Arab Department, the division charged mostly with combating Palestinian terrorism. And in the event, most incidents of settler violence — torching vehicles, cutting down olive groves — fall under the jurisdiction of the police, who tend to ignore them. When the Jewish Department investigates more serious terrorist threats, it is often stymied from the outset, and even its successes have sometimes been undermined by judges and politicians sympathetic to the settler cause. This system, with its gaps and obstructions, allowed the founders of groups advocating extreme violence during the 1970s and 1980s to act without consequences, and today it has built a protective cocoon around their ideological descendants.

Some of these people now run Israel. In 2022, just 18 months after losing the prime ministership, Benjamin Netanyahu regained power by forming an alliance with ultraright leaders of both the Religious Zionism Party and the Jewish Power party. It was an act of political desperation on Netanyahu’s part, and it ushered into power some truly radical figures, people — like Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir — who had spent decades pledging to wrest the West Bank and Gaza from Arab hands . Just two months earlier, according to news reports at the time, Netanyahu refused to share a stage with Ben-Gvir, who had been convicted multiple times for supporting terrorist organizations and, in front of television cameras in 1995, vaguely threatened the life of Rabin, who was murdered weeks later by an Israeli student named Yigal Amir.

Now Ben-Gvir was Israel’s national security minister and Smotrich was Israel’s finance minister, charged additionally with overseeing much of the Israeli government’s activities in the West Bank. In December 2022, a day before the new government was sworn in, Netanyahu issued a list of goals and priorities for his new cabinet, including a clear statement that the nationalistic ideology of his new allies was now the government’s guiding star. “The Jewish people,” it said, “have an exclusive and inalienable right to all parts of the land of Israel.”

Two months after that, two Israeli settlers were murdered in an attack by Hamas gunmen near Huwara, a village in the West Bank. The widespread calls for revenge, common after Palestinian terror attacks, were now coming from within Netanyahu’s new government. Smotrich declared that “the village of Huwara needs to be wiped out.”

And, he added, “I think the State of Israel needs to do it.”

Birth of a Movement

With its overwhelming victory in the Arab-​Israeli War of 1967, Israel more than doubled the amount of land it controlled, seizing new territory in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem. Now it faced a choice: Would the new land become part of Israel or be bargained away as part of a future Palestinian state? To a cadre of young Israelis imbued with messianic zeal, the answer was obvious. The acquisition of the territories animated a religious political movement — Gush Emunim, or “Bloc of the Faithful” — that was determined to settle the newly conquered lands.

Gush Emunim followers believed that the coming of the messiah would be hastened if, rather than studying holy books from morning to night, Jews settled the newly occupied territories. This was the land of “Greater Israel,” they believed, and there was a pioneer spirit among the early settlers. They saw themselves as direct descendants of the earliest Zionists, who built farms and kibbutzim near Palestinian villages during the first part of the 20th century, when the land was under British control. But while the Zionism of the earlier period was largely secular and socialist, the new settlers believed they were advancing God’s agenda.

The legality of that agenda was an open question. The Geneva Conventions, to which Israel was a signatory, forbade occupying powers to deport or transfer “parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” But the status of the territory was, in the view of many within and outside the Israeli government, more complex. The settlers sought to create what some of them called “facts on the ground.” This put them into conflict with both the Palestinians and, at least putatively, the Israeli authorities responsible for preventing the spread of illegal settlements.

Whether or not the government would prove flexible on these matters became clear in April 1975 at Ein Yabrud, an abandoned Jordanian military base near Ofra, in the West Bank. A group of workers had been making the short commute from Israel most days for months to work on rebuilding the base, and one evening they decided to stay. They were aiming to establish a Jewish foothold in Judea and Samaria, the Israeli designation for the territories that make up the West Bank, and they had found a back door that required only the slightest push. Their leader met that same night with Shimon Peres, then Israel’s defense minister, who told the I.D.F. to stand down. Peres would treat the nascent settlement not as a community but as a “work camp” — and the I.D.F. would do nothing to hinder their work.

Peres’s maneuver was partly a sign of the weakness of Israel’s ruling Labor party, which had dominated Israeli politics since the country’s founding. The residual trauma of the Yom Kippur War in 1973 — when Israel was caught completely by surprise by Egyptian and Syrian forces before eventually beating back the invading armies — had shaken citizens’ belief in their leaders, and movements like Gush Emunim, directly challenging the authority of the Israeli state, had gained momentum amid Labor’s decline. This, in turn, energized Israel’s political right.

By the late 1970s, the settlers, bolstered in part by growing political support, were expanding in number. Carmi Gillon, who joined Shin Bet in 1972 and rose by the mid-1990s to become its director, recalls the evolving internal debates. Whose responsibility was it to deal with settlers? Should Israel’s vaunted domestic security service enforce the law in the face of clearly illegal acts of settlement? “When we realized that Gush Emunim had the backing of so many politicians, we knew we shouldn’t touch them,” he said in his first interview for this article in 2016.

One leader of the ultraright movement would prove hard to ignore, however. Meir Kahane, an ultraright rabbi from Flatbush, Brooklyn, had founded the militant Jewish Defense League in 1968 in New York. He made no secret of his belief that violence was sometimes necessary to fulfill his dream of Greater Israel, and he even spoke of plans to buy .22 caliber rifles for Jews to defend themselves. “Our campaign motto will be, ‘Every Jew a .22,’” he declared. In 1971, he received a suspended sentence on bomb-making charges, and at the age of 39 he moved to Israel to start a new life. From a hotel on Zion Square in Jerusalem, he started a school and a political party, what would become Kach, and drew followers with his fiery rhetoric.

Kahane said he wanted to rewrite the stereotype of Jews as victims, and he argued, in often vivid terms, that Zionism and democracy are in fundamental tension. “Zionism came into being to create a Jewish state,” Kahane said in an interview with The Times in 1985, five years before he was assassinated by a gunman in New York. “Zionism declares that there is going to be a Jewish state with a majority of Jews, come what may. Democracy says, ‘No, if the Arabs are the majority then they have the right to decide their own fate.’ So Zionism and democracy are at odds. I say clearly that I stand with Zionism.”

A Buried Report

In 1977, the Likud party led a coalition that, for the first time in Israeli history, secured a right-wing majority in the country’s Parliament, the Knesset. The party was headed by Menachem Begin, a veteran of the Irgun, a paramilitary organization that carried out attacks against Arabs and British authorities in Mandatory Palestine, the British colonial entity that preceded the creation of Israel. Likud — Hebrew for “the alliance” — was itself an amalgam of several political parties. Kach itself was still on the outside and would always remain so. But its radical ideas and ambitions were moving closer to the mainstream.

Likud’s victory came 10 years after the war that brought Israel vast amounts of new land, but the issue of what to do with the occupied territories had yet to be resolved. As the new prime minister, Begin knew that addressing that question would mean addressing the settlements. Could there be a legal basis for taking the land? Something that would allow the settlements to expand with the full support of the state?

It was Plia Albeck, then a largely unknown bureaucrat in the Israeli Justice Ministry, who found Begin’s answer. Searching through the regulations of the Ottoman Empire, which ruled Palestine in the years preceding the British Mandate, she lit upon the Ottoman Land Code of 1858, a major effort at land reform. Among other provisions, the law enabled the sultan to seize any land that had not been cultivated by its owners for a number of years and that was not “within shouting distance” of the last house in the village. It did little to address the provisions of the Geneva Convention, but it was, for her department, precedent enough. Soon Albeck was riding in an army helicopter, mapping the West Bank and identifying plots of land that might meet the criteria of the Ottoman law. The Israeli state had replaced the sultan, but the effect was the same. Albeck’s creative legal interpretation led to the creation of more than 100 new Jewish settlements, which she referred to as “my children.”

At the same time, Begin was quietly brokering a peace deal with President Anwar Sadat of Egypt in the United States at Camp David. The pact they eventually negotiated gave the Sinai Peninsula back to Egypt and promised greater autonomy to Palestinians in the occupied territories in return for normalized relations with Israel. It would eventually win the two leaders a joint Nobel Peace Prize. But Gush Emunim and other right-wing groups saw the accords as a shocking reversal. From this well of anger sprang a new campaign of intimidation. Rabbi Moshe Levinger, one of the leaders of Gush Emunim and the founder of the settlement in the heart of Hebron, declared the movement’s purposes on Israeli television. The Arabs, he said, “must not be allowed to raise their heads.”

Leading this effort would be a militarized offshoot of Gush Emunim called the Jewish Underground. The first taste of what was to come arrived on June 2, 1980. Car bombs exploded as part of a complex assassination plot against prominent Palestinian political figures in the West Bank. The attack blew the legs off Bassam Shaka, the mayor of Nablus; Karim Khalaf, the mayor of Ramallah, was forced to have his foot amputated. Kahane, who in the days before the attack said at a news conference that the Israeli government should form a “Jewish terrorist group” that would “throw bombs and grenades to kill Arabs,” applauded the attacks, as did Rabbi Haim Druckman, a leader of Gush Emunim then serving in the Knesset, and many others within and outside the movement. Brig. Gen. Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, then the top I.D.F. commander in the West Bank, noting the injuries suffered by the Palestinian mayors under his watch, said simply, “It’s a shame they didn’t hit them a bit higher.” An investigation began, but it would be years before it achieved any results. Ben-Eliezer went on to become a leader of the Labor party and defense minister.

The threat that the unchecked attacks posed to the institutions and guardrails of Jewish democracy wasn’t lost on some members of the Israeli elite. As the violence spread, a group of professors at Tel Aviv University and Hebrew University in Jerusalem sent a letter to Yitzhak Zamir, Israel’s attorney general. They were concerned, they wrote, that illegal “private policing activity” against the Palestinians living in the occupied territories presented a “threat to the rule of law in the country.” The professors saw possible collusion between the settlers and the authorities. “There is a suspicion that similar crimes are not being handled in the same manner and some criminals are receiving preferential treatment over others,” the signatories to the letter said. “This suspicion requires fundamental examination.”

The letter shook Zamir, who knew some of the professors well. He was also well aware that evidence of selective law enforcement — one law for the Palestinians and another for the settlers — would rebut the Israeli government’s claim that the law was enforced equally and could become both a domestic scandal and an international one. Zamir asked Judith Karp, then Israel’s deputy attorney general for special duties, to lead a committee looking into the issue. Karp was responsible for handling the most delicate issues facing the Justice Ministry, but this would require even greater discretion than usual.

As her team investigated, Karp says, “it very quickly became clear to me that what was described in the letter was nothing compared to the actual reality on the ground.” She and her investigative committee found case after case of trespassing, extortion, assault and murder, even as the military authorities and the police did nothing or performed notional investigations that went nowhere. “The police and the I.D.F. in both action and inaction were really cooperating with the settler vandals,” Karp says. “They operated as if they had no interest in investigating when there were complaints, and generally did everything they could to deter the Palestinians from even submitting them.”

In May 1982, Karp and her committee submitted a 33-page report, determining that dozens of offenses were investigated insufficiently. The committee also noted that, in their research, the police had provided them with information that was incomplete, contradictory and in part false. They concluded that nearly half the investigations opened against settlers were closed without the police conducting even a rudimentary investigation. In the few cases in which they did investigate, the committee found “profound flaws.” In some cases, the police witnessed the crimes and did nothing. In others, soldiers were willing to testify against the settlers, but their testimonies and other evidence were buried.

It soon became clear to Karp that the government was going to bury the report. “We were very naïve,” she now recalls. Zamir had been assured, she says, that the cabinet would discuss the grave findings and had in fact demanded total confidentiality. The minister of the interior at the time, Yosef Burg, invited Karp to his home for what she recalls him describing as “a personal conversation.” Burg, a leader of the pro-settler National Religious Party, had by then served as a government minister in one office or another for more than 30 years. Karp assumed he wanted to learn more about her work, which could in theory have important repercussions for the religious right. “But, to my astonishment,” she says, “he simply began to scold me in harsh language about what we were doing. I understood that he wanted us to drop it.”

Karp announced she was quitting the investigative committee. “The situation we discovered was one of complete helplessness,” she says. When the existence of the report (but not its contents) leaked to the public, Burg denied having ever seen such an investigation. When the full contents of the report were finally made public in 1984, a spokesman for the Justice Ministry said only that the committee had been dissolved and that the ministry was no longer monitoring the problem.

A Wave of Violence

On April 11, 1982, a uniformed I.D.F. soldier named Alan Harry Goodman shot his way into the Dome of the Rock mosque in Jerusalem, one of the most sacred sites for Muslims around the world. Carrying an M16 rifle, standard issue in the Israeli Army, he killed two Arabs and wounded many more. When investigators searched Goodman’s apartment, they found fliers for Kach, but a spokesman for the group said that it did not condone the attack. Prime Minister Begin condemned the attack, but he also chastised Islamic leaders calling for a general strike in response, which he saw as an attempt to “exploit the tragedy.”

The next year, masked Jewish Underground terrorists opened fire on students at the Islamic College in Hebron, killing three people and injuring 33 more. Israeli authorities condemned the massacre but were less clear about who would be held to account. Gen. Ori Orr, commander of Israeli forces in the region, said on the radio that all avenues would be pursued. But, he added, “we don’t have any description, and we don’t know who we are looking for.”

The Jewish Department found itself continually behind in its efforts to address the onslaught. In April 1984, it had a major breakthrough: Its agents foiled a Jewish Underground plan to blow up five buses full of Palestinians, and they arrested around two dozen Jewish Underground members who had also played roles in the Islamic College attack and the bombings of the Palestinian mayors in 1980. But only after weeks of interrogating the suspects did Shin Bet learn that the Jewish Underground had been developing a scheme to blow up the Dome of the Rock mosque. The planning involved dozens of intelligence-gathering trips to the Temple Mount and an assessment of the exact amount of explosives that would be needed and where to place them. The goal was nothing less than to drag the entire Middle East into a war, which the Jewish Underground saw as a precondition for the coming of the messiah.

Carmi Gillon, who was head of Shin Bet’s Jewish Department at the time, says the fact that Shin Bet hadn’t learned about a plot involving so many people and such ambitious planning earlier was an “egregious intelligence failure.” And it was not the Shin Bet, he notes, who prevented the plot from coming to fruition. It was the Jewish Underground itself. “Fortunately for all of us, they decided to forgo the plan because they felt the Jewish people were not yet ready.”

“You have to understand why all this is important now,” Ami Ayalon said, leaning in for emphasis. The sun shining into the backyard of the former Shin Bet director was gleaming off his bald scalp, illuminating a face that looked as if it were sculpted by a dull kitchen knife. “We are not discussing Jewish terrorism. We are discussing the failure of Israel.”

Ayalon was protective of his former service, insisting that Shin Bet, despite some failures, usually has the intelligence and resources to deter and prosecute right-wing terrorism in Israel. And, he said, they usually have the will. “The question is why they are not doing anything about it,” he said. “And the answer is very simple. They cannot confront our courts. And the legal community finds it almost impossible to face the political community, which is supported by the street. So everything starts with the street.”

By the early 1980s, the settler movement had begun to gain some traction within the Knesset, but it remained far from the mainstream. When Kahane himself was elected to the Knesset in 1984, the members of the other parties, including Likud, would turn and leave the room when he stood up to deliver speeches. One issue was that the continual expansion of the settlements was becoming an irritant in U.S.-Israel relations. During a 1982 trip by Begin to Washington, the prime minister had a closed-door meeting with the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations to discuss Israel’s invasion of Lebanon that year, an effort to force out the P.L.O. that had been heavy with civilian casualties. According to The Times’s coverage of the session, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, then in his second term, had an angry exchange with Begin about the West Bank, telling him that Israel was losing support in this country because of the settlements policy.

But Israeli officials came to understand that the Americans were generally content to vent their anger about the issue without taking more forceful action — like restricting military aid to Israel, which was then, as now, central to the country’s security arrangements. After the Jewish Underground plotters of the bombings targeting the West Bank mayors and other attacks were finally brought to trial in 1984, they were found guilty and given sentences ranging from a few months to life in prison. The plotters showed little remorse, though, and a public campaign swelled to have them pardoned. Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir also made the case for pardoning them, saying they were “excellent, good people who have erred in their path and actions.” Clemency, Shamir suggested, would prevent a recurrence of Jewish terrorism.

In the end, President Chaim Herzog, against the recommendations of Shin Bet and the Justice Ministry, signed an extraordinary series of pardons and commutations for the plotters. They were released and greeted as heroes by the settler community, and some rose to prominent positions in government and the Israeli media. One of them, Uzi Sharbav, now a leader in the settlement movement, was a speaker at a recent conference promoting the return of settlers to Gaza.

In fact, nearly all the Jews involved in terror attacks against Arabs over the past decades have received substantial reductions in prison time. Gillon, the head of the Jewish Department when some of these people were arrested, recalls the “profound sense of injustice” that he felt when they were released. But even more important, he says, was “the question of what message the pardons convey to the public and to anyone who ever thinks about carrying out acts of terror against Arabs.”

Operational Failures

In 1987, a series of conflicts in Gaza led to a sustained Palestinian uprising throughout the occupied territories and Israel. The First Intifada, as it became known, was driven by anger over the occupation, which was then entering its third decade. It would simmer for the next six years, as Palestinians attacked Israelis with stones and Molotov cocktails and launched a series of strikes and boycotts. Israel deployed thousands of soldiers to quell the uprising.

In the occupied territories, reprisal attacks between settlers and Palestinians were an increasing problem. The Gush Emunim movement had spread and fractured into different groups, making it difficult for Shin Bet to embed enough informants with the settlers. But the service had one key informant — a man given the code name Shaul. He was a trusted figure among the settlers and rose to become a close assistant to Rabbi Moshe Levinger, the Gush Emunim leader who founded the settlement in Hebron.

Levinger had been questioned many times under suspicion of having a role in multiple violent attacks, but Shaul told Shin Bet operatives that they were seeing only a fraction of the whole picture. He told them about raids past and planned; about the settlers tearing through Arab villages, vandalizing homes, burning dozens of cars. The operatives ordered him to participate in these raids to strengthen his cover. One newspaper photographer in Hebron in 1985 captured Shaul smashing the wall of an Arab marketplace with a sledgehammer. As was standard policy, Shin Bet had ordered him to participate in any activity that didn’t involve harm to human life, but figuring out which of the activities wouldn’t cross that line became increasingly difficult. “The majority of the activists were lunatics, riffraff, and it was very difficult to be sure they wouldn’t hurt people and would harm only property,” Shaul said. (Shaul, whose true identity remains secret, provided these quotes in a 2015 interview with Bergman for the Israeli Hebrew-language paper Yedioth Ahronoth. Some of his account is published here for the first time.)

In September 1988, Rabbi Levinger, Shaul’s patron, was driving through Hebron when, he later said in court, Palestinians began throwing stones at his car and surrounding him. Levinger flashed a pistol and began firing wildly at nearby shops. Investigators said he killed a 42-year-old shopkeeper, Khayed Salah, who had been closing the steel shutter of his shoe store, and injured a second man. Levinger claimed self-defense, but he was hardly remorseful. “I know that I am innocent,” he said at the trial, “and that I didn’t have the honor of killing the Arab.”

Prosecutors cut a deal with Levinger. He was convicted of criminally negligent homicide, sentenced to five months in prison and released after only three.

Shin Bet faced the classic intelligence agency’s dilemma: how and when to let its informants participate in the very violent acts the service was supposed to be stopping. There was some logic in Shin Bet’s approach with Shaul, but it certainly didn’t help deter acts of terror in the West Bank, especially with little police presence in the occupied territories and a powerful interest group ensuring that whoever was charged for the violence was released with a light sentence.

Over his many years as a Shin Bet mole, Shaul said, he saw numerous intelligence and operational failures by the agency. One of the worst, he said, was the December 1993 murder of three Palestinians in an act of vengeance after the murder of a settler leader and his son. Driving home from a day of work in Israel, the three Palestinians, who had no connection to the deaths of the settlers, were pulled from their car and killed near the West Bank town Tarqumiyah.

Shaul recalled how one settler activist proudly told him that he and two friends committed the murders. He contacted his Shin Bet handlers to tell them what he had heard. “And suddenly I saw they were losing interest,” Shaul said. It was only later that he learned why: Two of the shooters were Shin Bet informants. The service didn’t want to blow their cover, or worse, to suffer the scandal that two of its operatives were involved in a murder and a cover-up.

In a statement, Shin Bet said that Shaul’s version of events is “rife with incorrect details” but refused to specify which details were incorrect. Neither the state prosecutor nor the attorney general responded to requests for comment, which included Shaul’s full version of events and additional evidence gathered over the years.

Shaul said he also gave numerous reports to his handlers about the activities of yet another Brooklyn-born follower of Meir Kahane and the Jewish Defense League: Dr. Baruch Goldstein. He earned his medical degree at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx and in 1983 immigrated to Israel, where he worked first as a physician in the I.D.F., then as an emergency doctor at Kiryat Arba, a settlement near Hebron.

In the years that passed, he gained the attention of Shin Bet with his eliminationist views, calling Arabs “latter-day Nazis” and making a point to visit the Jewish terrorist Ami Popper in prison, where he was serving a sentence for the 1990 murder of seven Palestinians in the Tel Aviv suburb Rishon LeZion. Shaul said he regarded Goldstein at the time as a “charismatic and highly dangerous figure” and repeatedly urged the Shin Bet to monitor him. “They told me it was none of my business,” he said.

‘Clean Hands’

On Feb. 24, 1994, Goldstein abruptly fired his personal driver. According to Shaul, Goldstein told the driver that he knew he was a Shin Bet informer. Terrified at having been found out, the driver fled the West Bank immediately. Now Goldstein was moving unobserved.

That evening marked the beginning of Purim, the festive commemoration of the victory of the Jews over Haman the Agagite, a court official in the Persian Empire and the nemesis of the Jews in the Old Testament’s Book of Esther. Right-wing Israelis have often drawn parallels between Haman and Arabs — enemies who seek the annihilation of Jews. Goldstein woke early the next day and put on his I.D.F. uniform, and at 5:20 a.m. he entered the Cave of the Patriarchs, an ancient complex in Hebron that serves as a place of worship for both Jews and Muslims. Goldstein carried with him his I.D.F.-issued Galil rifle. It was also the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, and on that morning hundreds of Muslims crowded the hall in prayer. Goldstein faced the worshipers and began shooting , firing 108 rounds before he was dragged down and beaten to death. The massacre killed 29 Muslim worshipers and injured more than 100.

The killings shocked Israel, and the government responded with a crackdown on extremism. Kach and Kahane Chai, the two political organizations most closely affiliated with the Kahanist movement, were outlawed and labeled terrorist groups, as was any other party that called for “the establishment of a theocracy in the biblical Land of Israel and the violent expulsion of Arabs from that land.” Rabin, in an address to the Knesset, spoke directly to the followers of Goldstein and Kahane, who he said were the product of a malicious foreign influence on Israel. “You are not part of the community of Israel,” he said. “You are not partners in the Zionist enterprise. You are a foreign implant. You are an errant weed. Sensible Judaism spits you out. You placed yourself outside the wall of Jewish law.”

Following the massacre, a state commission of inquiry was appointed, headed by Judge Meir Shamgar, the president of the Supreme Court. The commission’s report, made public in June 1994, strongly criticized the security arrangements at the Cave of the Patriarchs and examined law-enforcement practices regarding settlers and the extreme right in general. A secret appendix to the report, containing material deemed too sensitive for public consumption, included a December 1992 letter from the Israeli commissioner of police, essentially admitting that the police could not enforce the law. “The situation in the districts is extremely bleak,” he wrote, using the administrative nomenclature for the occupied territories. “The ability of the police to function is far from the required minimum. This is as a result of the lack of essential resources.”

In its conclusions, the commission, tracing the lines of the previous decade’s Karp report, confirmed claims that human rights organizations had made for years but that had been ignored by the Israeli establishment. The commission found that Israeli law enforcement was “ineffective in handling complaints,” that it delayed the filing of indictments and that restraining orders against “chronic” criminals among the “hard core” of the settlers were rarely issued.

The I.D.F. refused to allow Goldstein to be buried in the Jewish cemetery in Hebron. He was buried instead in the Kiryat Arba settlement, in a park named for Meir Kahane, and his gravesite has become an enduring place of pilgrimage for Jews who wanted to celebrate, as his epitaph reads, the “saint” who died for Israel with “clean hands and a pure heart.”

A Curse of Death

One ultranationalist settler who went regularly to Goldstein’s grave was a teenage radical named Itamar Ben-Gvir, who would sometimes gather other followers there on Purim to celebrate the slain killer. Purim revelers often dress in costume, and on one such occasion, caught on video, Ben-Gvir even wore a Goldstein costume, complete with a fake beard and a stethoscope. By then, Ben-Gvir had already come to the attention of the Jewish Department, and investigators interrogated him several times. The military declined to enlist him into the service expected of most Israeli citizens.

After the massacre at the Cave of the Patriarchs, a new generation of Kahanists directed their anger squarely at Rabin for his signing of the Oslo agreement and for depriving them, in their view, of their birthright. “From my standpoint, Goldstein’s action was a wake-up call,” says Hezi Kalo, a longtime senior Shin Bet official who oversaw the division that included the Jewish Department at that time. “I realized that this was going to be a very big story, that the diplomatic moves by the Rabin government would simply not pass by without the shedding of blood.”

The government of Israel was finally paying attention to the threat, and parts of the government acted to deal with it. Shin Bet increased the size of the Jewish Department, and it began to issue a new kind of warning: Jewish terrorists no longer threatened only Arabs. They threatened Jews.

The warnings noted that rabbis in West Bank settlements, along with some politicians on the right, were now openly advocating violence against Israeli public officials, especially Rabin. Extremist rabbis issued rulings of Jewish law against Rabin — imposing a curse of death, a Pulsa Dinura , and providing justification for killing him, a din rodef .

Carmi Gillon by then had moved on from running the Jewish Department and now had the top job at Shin Bet. “Discussing and acknowledging such halakhic laws was tantamount to a license to kill,” he says now, looking back. He was particularly concerned about Benjamin Netanyahu and Ariel Sharon, who were stoking the fury of the right-wing rabbis and settler leaders in their battles with Rabin.

Shin Bet wanted to prosecute rabbis who approved the religiously motivated death sentences against Rabin, but the state attorney’s office refused. “They didn’t give enough importance back then to the link between incitement and legitimacy for terrorism,” says one former prosecutor who worked in the state attorney’s office in the mid-1990s.

Shin Bet issued warning after warning in 1995. “This was no longer a matter of mere incitement, but rather concrete information on the intention to kill top political figures, including Rabin,” Kalo now recalls. In October of that year, Ben-Gvir spoke to Israeli television cameras holding up a Cadillac hood ornament, which he boasted he had broken off the prime minister’s official car during chaotic anti-Oslo demonstrations in front of the Knesset. “We got to his car,” he said, “and we’ll get to him, too.” The following month, Rabin was dead.

Conspiracies

Yigal Amir, the man who shot and killed Rabin in Tel Aviv after a rally in support of the Oslo Accords on Nov. 4, 1995, was not unknown to the Jewish Department. A 25-year-old studying law, computer science and the Torah at Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv, he had been radicalized by Rabin’s efforts to make peace with Palestinian leaders and had connections to Avishai Raviv, the leader of Eyal, a new far-right group loosely affiliated with the Kach movement. In fact, Raviv was a Shin Bet informant, code-named Champagne. He had heard Amir talking about the justice of the din rodef judgments, but he did not identify him to his handlers as an immediate danger. “No one took Yigal seriously,” he said later in a court proceeding. “It’s common in our circles to talk about attacking public figures.”

Lior Akerman was the first Shin Bet investigator to interrogate Amir at the detention center where he was being held after the assassination. There was of course no question about his guilt. But there was the broader question of conspiracy. Did Amir have accomplices? Did they have further plans? Akerman now recalls asking Amir how he could reconcile his belief in God with his decision to murder the prime minister of Israel. Amir, he says, told him that rabbis had justified harming the prime minister in order to protect Israel.

Amir was smug, Akerman recalls, and he did not respond directly to the question of accomplices. “‘Listen,” he said, according to Akerman, “I succeeded . I was able to do something that many people wanted but no one dared to do. I fired a gun that many Jews held, but I squeezed the trigger because no one else had the courage to do it.”

The Shin Bet investigators demanded to know the identities of the rabbis. Amir was coy at first, but eventually the interrogators drew enough out of him to identify at least two of them. Kalo, the head of the division that oversaw the Jewish Department, went to the attorney general to argue that the rabbis should be detained immediately and prosecuted for incitement to murder. But the attorney general disagreed, saying the rabbis’ encouragement was protected speech and couldn’t be directly linked to the murder. No rabbis were arrested.

Days later, however, the police brought Raviv — the Shin Bet operative known as Champagne — into custody in a Tel Aviv Magistrate Court, on charges that he had conspired to kill Rabin, but he was released shortly after. Raviv’s role as an informant later came to light, and in 1999, he was arrested for his failure to act on previous knowledge of the assassination. He was acquitted on all charges, but he has since become a fixture of extremist conspiracy theories that pose his failure to ring the alarm as evidence that the murder of the prime minister was due not to the violent rhetoric of the settler right, or the death sentences from the rabbis, or the incitement by the leaders of the opposition, but to the all-too-successful efforts of a Shin Bet agent provocateur. A more complicated and insidious conspiracy theory, but no less false, was that it was Shin Bet itself that assassinated Rabin or allowed the assassination to happen.

Gillon, the head of the service at the time, resigned, and ongoing inquiries, charges and countercharges would continue for years. Until Oct. 7, 2023, the killing of the prime minister was considered the greatest failure in the history of Shin Bet. Kalo tried to sum up what went wrong with Israeli security. “The only answer my friends and I could give for the failure was complacency,” he wrote in his 2021 memoir. “They simply couldn’t believe that such a thing could happen, definitely not at the hands of another Jew.”

The Sasson Report

In 2001, as the Second Intifada unleashed a wave of Palestinian suicide bombings against Israeli civilians, Ariel Sharon took office as prime minister. The struggling peace process had come to a complete halt amid the violence, and Sharon’s rise at first appeared to mark another victory for the settlers. But in 2003, in one of the more surprising reversals in Israeli political history, Sharon announced what he called Israel’s “disengagement” from Gaza, with a plan to remove settlers — forcibly if necessary — over the next two years.

The motivations were complex and the subject of considerable debate. For Sharon, at least, it appeared to be a tactical move. “The significance of the disengagement plan is the freezing of the peace process,” his senior adviser Dov Weisglass told Haaretz at the time. “And when you freeze that process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.” But Sharon was also facing considerable pressure from President George W. Bush to do something about the ever-expanding illegal settlements in the West Bank, which were a growing impediment to any regional security deals. In July 2004, he asked Talia Sasson, who had recently retired as the head of the special tasks division in the state attorney’s office, to draw up a legal opinion on the subject of “unauthorized outposts” in the West Bank. His instructions were clear: Investigate which Israeli government agencies and authorities were secretly involved in building the outposts. “Sharon never interfered in my work, and neither was he surprised by the conclusions,” Sasson said in an interview two decades later. “After all, he knew better than anyone what the situation was on the ground, and he was expecting only grave conclusions.”

It was a simple enough question: Just how had it happened that hundreds of outposts had been built in the decade since Yitzhak Rabin ordered a halt in most new settlements? But Sasson’s effort to find an answer was met with delays, avoidance and outright lies. Her final report used careful but pointed language: “Not everyone I turned to agreed to talk with me. One claimed he was too busy to meet, while another came to the meeting but refused to meaningfully engage with most of my questions.”

Sasson found that between January 2000 and June 2003, a division of Israel’s Construction and Housing Ministry issued 77 contracts for the establishment of 33 sites in the West Bank, all of which were illegal. In some cases, the ministry even paid for the paving of roads and the construction of buildings at settlements for which the Defense Ministry had issued demolition orders.

Several government ministries concealed the fact that funds were being diverted to the West Bank, reporting them under budgetary clauses such as “miscellaneous general development.” Just as in the case of the Karp Report two decades earlier, Sasson and her Justice Ministry colleagues discovered that the West Bank was being administered under completely separate laws, and those laws, she says, “appeared to me utterly insane.”

Sasson’s report took special note of Avi Maoz, who ran the Construction and Housing Ministry during most of this period. A political activist who early in his career spoke openly of pushing all Arabs out of the West Bank, Maoz helped found a settlement south of Jerusalem during the 1990s and began building a professional alliance with Benjamin Netanyahu, who was then the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations and would soon go on to his first term as prime minister. Years later, Maoz would be instrumental in ensuring Netanyahu’s political survival.

“The picture that emerges in the eye of the beholder is severe,” Sasson wrote in her report. “Instead of the government of Israel deciding on the establishment of settlements in the territories of Judea and Samaria, its place has been taken, from the mid-1990s and onward, by others.” The settlers, she wrote, were “the moving force,” but they could not have succeeded without the assistance of “various ministers of construction and housing in the relevant periods, some of them with a blind eye, and some of them with support and encouragement.”

This clandestine network was operating, Sasson wrote, “with massive funding from the State of Israel, without appropriate public transparency, without obligatory criteria. The erection of the unauthorized outposts is being done with violation of the proper procedures and general administrative rules, and in particular, flagrant and ongoing violation of the law.” These violations, Sasson warned, were coming from the government: “It was state and public agencies that broke the law, the rules, the procedures that the state itself had determined.” It was a conflict, she argued, that effectively neutered Israel’s internal checks and balances and posed a grave threat to the nation’s integrity. “The law-enforcement agencies are unable to act against government departments that are themselves breaking the law.”

But, in an echo of Judith Karp’s secret report decades earlier, the Sasson Report, made publicly available in March 2005, had almost no impact. Because she had a mandate directly from the prime minister, Sasson could have believed that her investigation might lead to the dismantling of the illegal outposts that had metastasized throughout the Palestinian territories. But even Sharon, with his high office, found himself powerless against the machine now in place to protect and expand the settlements in the West Bank — the very machine he had helped to build.

All of this was against the backdrop of the Gaza pullout. Sharon, who began overseeing the removal of settlements from Gaza in August 2005, was the third Israeli prime minister to threaten the settler dream of a Greater Israel, and the effort drew bitter opposition not only from the settlers but also from a growing part of the political establishment. Netanyahu, who had served his first term as prime minister from 1996 to 1999, and who previously voted in favor of a pullout, resigned his position as finance minister in Sharon’s cabinet in protest — and in anticipation of another run for the top job.

The settlers themselves took more active measures. In 2005, the Jewish Department of Shin Bet received intelligence about a plot to slow the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza by using 700 liters of gasoline to blow up vehicles on a major highway. Acting on the tip, officers arrested six men in central Israel. One of them was Bezalel Smotrich, the future minister overseeing civilian affairs in the West Bank.

Smotrich, then 25, was detained and questioned for weeks. Yitzhak Ilan, one of the Shin Bet officers present at the interrogation, says he remained “silent as a fish” throughout — “like an experienced criminal.” He was released without charges, Ilan says, in part because Shin Bet knew putting him on trial might expose the service’s agents inside Jewish extremist groups, and in part because they believed Smotrich was likely to receive little punishment in any case. Shin Bet was very comfortable with the courts when we fought Palestinian terrorism and we got the heavy punishments we wanted, he says. With the Jewish terrorists it was exactly the opposite.

When Netanyahu made his triumphant return as prime minister in 2009, he set out to undermine Talia Sasson’s report, which he and his allies saw as an obstacle to accelerating the settlement campaign. He appointed his own investigative committee, led by Judge Edmond Levy of the Supreme Court, who was known to support the settler cause. But the Levy report, completed in 2012, did not undermine the findings in the Sasson Report — in some ways, it reinforced them. Senior Israeli officials, the committee found, were fully aware of what was happening in the territories, and they were simply denying it for the sake of political expediency. The behavior, they wrote, was not befitting of “a country that has proclaimed the rule of law as a goal.” Netanyahu moved on.

A NEW GENERATION

The ascent of a far-right prime minister did little to prevent the virulent, anti-government strain inside the settler movement from spreading. A new generation of Kahanists was taking an even more radical turn, not only against Israeli politicians who might oppose or insufficiently abet them but against the very notion of a democratic Israeli state. A group calling itself Hilltop Youth advocated for the total destruction of the Zionist state. Meir Ettinger, named for his grandfather Meir Kahane, was one of the Hilltop Youth leaders, and he made his grandfather’s views seem moderate.

Their objective was to tear down Israel’s institutions and to establish “Jewish rule”: anointing a king, building a temple in place of the Jerusalem mosques sacred to Muslims worldwide, imposing a religious regime on all Jews. Ehud Olmert, who served as Israeli prime minister from 2006 to 2009, said in an interview that Hilltop Youth “genuinely, deeply, emotionally believe that this is the right thing to do for Israel. This is a salvation. This is the guarantee for Israel’s future.”

A former member of Hilltop Youth, who has asked to remain anonymous because she fears speaking out could endanger her, recalls how she and her friends used an illegal outpost on a hilltop in the West Bank as a base to lob stones at Palestinian cars. “The Palestinians would call the police, and we would know that we have at least 30 minutes before they arrive, if they arrive. And if they do arrive, they won’t arrest anyone. We did this tens of times.” The West Bank police, she says, couldn’t have been less interested in investigating the violence. “When I was young, I thought that I was outsmarting the police because I was clever. Later, I found out that they are either not trying or very stupid.”

The former Hilltop Youth member says she began pulling away from the group as their tactics became more extreme and once Ettinger began speaking openly about murdering Palestinians. She offered to become a police informant, and during a meeting with police intelligence officers in 2015, she described the group’s plans to commit murder — and to harm any Jews that stood in their way. By her account, she told the police about efforts to scout the homes of Palestinians before settling on a target. The police could have begun an investigation, she says, but they weren’t even curious enough to ask her the names of the people plotting the attack.

In 2013, Ettinger and other members of Hilltop Youth formed a secret cell calling itself the Revolt, designed to instigate an insurrection against a government that “prevents us from building the temple, which blocks our way to true and complete redemption.”

During a search of one of the group’s safe houses, Shin Bet investigators discovered the Revolt’s founding documents. “The State of Israel has no right to exist, and therefore we are not bound by the rules of the game,” one declared. The documents called for an end to the State of Israel and made it clear that in the new state that would rise in its place, there would be absolutely no room for non-Jews and for Arabs in particular: “If those non-Jews don’t leave, it will be permissible to kill them, without distinguishing between women, men and children.”

This wasn’t just idle talk. Ettinger and his comrades organized a plan that included timetables and steps to be taken at each stage. One member even composed a training manual with instructions on how to form terror cells and burn down houses. “In order to prevent the residents from escaping,” the manual advised, “you can leave burning tires in the entrance to the house.”

The Revolt carried out an early attack in February 2014, firebombing an uninhabited home in a small Arab village in the West Bank called Silwad, and followed with more arson attacks, the uprooting of olive groves and the destruction of Palestinian granaries. Members of the group torched mosques, monasteries and churches, including the Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes on the banks of the Sea of Galilee. A police officer spotted Ettinger himself attacking a herd of sheep belonging to an Arab shepherd. He stoned a sheep and then slaughtered it in front of the shepherd, the officer later testified. “It was shocking,” he said. “There was a sort of insanity in it.”

Shin Bet defined the Revolt as an organization that aimed “to undermine the stability of the State of Israel through terror and violence, including bodily harm and bloodshed,” according to an internal Shin Bet memo, and sought to place several of its members, including Ettinger, under administrative detention — a measure applied frequently against Arabs.

The state attorney, however, did not approve the request. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) documented 323 incidents of violence by settlers against Palestinians in 2014; Palestinians were injured in 107 of these incidents. By the following year, the Revolt escalated the violence by openly advocating the murder of Arabs.

The Shin Bet and the police identified one of the prominent members of the Revolt, Amiram Ben-Uliel, making him a target of surveillance. But the service failed to prevent the wave of violence that he unleashed. On the night of July 31, 2015, Ben-Uliel set out on a killing spree in a central West Bank village called Duma. Ben-Uliel prepared a bag with two bottles of incendiary liquid, rags, a lighter, a box of matches, gloves and black spray paint. According to the indictment against him, Ben-Uliel sought a home with clear signs of life to ensure that the house he torched was not abandoned. He eventually found the home of Reham and Sa’ad Dawabsheh, a young mother and father. He opened a window and threw a Molotov cocktail into the home. He fled, and in the blaze that followed, the parents suffered injuries that eventually killed them. Their older son, Ahmad, survived the attack, but their 18-month-old toddler, Ali, was burned to death.

It was always clear, says Akerman, the former Shin Bet official, “that those wild groups would move from bullying Arabs to damaging property and trees and eventually would murder people.” He is still furious about how the service has handled Jewish terrorism. “Shin Bet knows how to deal with such groups, using emergency orders, administrative detention and special methods in interrogation until they break,” he says. But although it was perfectly willing to apply those methods to investigating Arab terrorism, the service was more restrained when it came to Jews. “It allowed them to incite, and then they moved on to the next stage and began to torch mosques and churches. Still undeterred, they entered Duma and burned a family.”

Shin Bet at first claimed to have difficulty locating the killers, even though they were all supposed to be under constant surveillance. When Ben-Uliel and other perpetrators were finally arrested, right-wing politicians gave fiery speeches against Shin Bet and met with the families of the perpetrators to show their support. Ben-Uliel was sentenced to life in prison, and Ettinger was finally put in administrative detention, but a fracture was spreading. In December 2015, Hilltop Youth members circulated a video clip showing members of the Revolt ecstatically dancing with rifles and pistols, belting out songs of hatred for Arabs, with one of them stabbing and burning a photograph of the murdered toddler, Ali Dawabsheh. Netanyahu, for his part, denounced the video, which, he said, exposed “the real face of a group that poses danger to Israeli society and security.”

American Friends

The expansion of the settlements had long been an irritant in Israel’s relationship with the United States, with American officials spending years dutifully warning Netanyahu both in public and in private meetings about his support for the enterprise. But the election of Donald Trump in 2016 ended all that. His new administration’s Israel policy was led mostly by his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who had a long personal relationship with Netanyahu, a friend of his father’s who had stayed at their family home in New Jersey. Trump, in a broader regional agenda that lined up perfectly with Netanyahu’s own plans, also hoped to scuttle the nuclear deal with Iran that Barack Obama had negotiated and broker diplomatic pacts between Israel and Arab nations that left the matter of a Palestinian state unresolved and off the table.

If there were any questions about the new administration’s position on settlements, they were answered once Trump picked his ambassador to Israel. His choice, David Friedman, was a bankruptcy lawyer who for years had helped run an American nonprofit that raised millions of dollars for Beit El, one of the early Gush Emunim settlements in the West Bank and the place where Bezalel Smotrich was raised and educated. The organization, which was also supported by the Trump family, had helped fund schools and other institutions inside Beit El. On the heels of the Trump transition, Friedman referred to Israel’s “alleged occupation” of Palestinian territories and broke with longstanding U.S. policy by saying “the settlements are part of Israel.”

This didn’t make Friedman a particularly friendly recipient of the warnings regularly delivered by Lt. Gen. Mark Schwartz, the three-star general who in 2019 arrived at the embassy in Jerusalem to coordinate security between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority. A career Green Beret who had combat deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq and served as deputy commander of the Joint Special Operations Command, the military task force with authority over U.S. counterterrorism special missions units, Schwartz wasn’t short on Middle East experience.

But he was immediately shocked by the landscape of the West Bank: settlers acting with impunity, a police force that was essentially nonexistent outside the settlements and the Israeli Army fanning the tensions with its own operations. Schwartz recalls how angry he was about what he called the army’s “collective punishment” tactics, including the razing of Palestinian homes, which he viewed as gratuitous and counterproductive. “I said, ‘Guys, this isn’t how professional militaries act.’” As Schwartz saw it, the West Bank was in some ways the American South of the 1960s. But at any moment the situation could become even more volatile, resulting in the next intifada.

Schwartz is diplomatic when recalling his interactions with Friedman, his former boss. He was a “good listener,” Schwartz says, but when he raised concerns about the settlements, Friedman would often deflect by noting “the lack of appreciation by the Palestinian people about what the Americans are doing for them.” Schwartz also discussed his concerns about settler violence directly with Shin Bet and I.D.F. officials, he says, but as far as he could tell, Friedman didn’t follow up with the political leadership. “I never got the sense he went to Netanyahu to discuss it.”

Friedman sees things differently. “I think I had a far broader perspective on acts of violence in Judea and Samaria” than Schwartz, he says now. “And it was clear that the violence coming from Palestinians against Israelis overwhelmingly was more prevalent.” He says he “wasn’t concerned about ‘appreciation’ from the Palestinians; I was concerned by their leadership’s embrace of terror and unwillingness to control violence.” He declined to discuss any conversations he had with Israeli officials.

Weeks after Trump lost the 2020 election, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo traveled to Israel for a trip that delivered a number of gifts to Netanyahu and the settler cause. He announced new guidelines requiring that goods imported to the United States from parts of the West Bank be labeled “Made in Israel.” And he flew by helicopter to Psagot, a winery in the West Bank, making him the first American secretary of state to visit a settlement. One of the winery’s large shareholders, the Florida-based Falic family, have donated millions to various projects in the settlements.

During his lunchtime visit, Pompeo paused to write a note in the winery’s guest book. “May I not be the last secretary of state to visit this beautiful land,” he wrote.

A Settler Coalition

Benjamin Netanyahu’s determination to become prime minister for an unprecedented sixth term came with a price: an alliance with a movement that he once shunned, but that had been brought into the political mainstream by Israel’s steady drift to the right. Netanyahu, who is now on trial for bribery and other corruption charges, repeatedly failed in his attempts to form a coalition after most of the parties announced that they were no longer willing to join him. He personally involved himself in negotiations to ally Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Jewish Power party and Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism Party, making them kingmakers for anyone trying to form a coalition government. In November 2022, the bet paid off: With the now-critical support of the extreme right, Netanyahu returned to office.

The two men ushered into power by this arrangement were some of the most extreme figures ever to hold such high positions in an Israeli cabinet. Shin Bet had monitored Ben-Gvir in the years after Yitzhak Rabin’s murder, and he was arrested on multiple charges including inciting racism and supporting a terrorist organization. He won acquittals or dismissals in some of the cases, but he was also convicted several times and served time in prison. During the Second Intifada, he led protests calling for extreme measures against Arabs and harassed Israeli politicians he believed were insufficiently hawkish.

Then Ben-Gvir made a radical change: He went to law school. He also took a job as an aide to Michael Ben-Ari, a Knesset member from the National Union party, which had picked up many followers of the Kach movement. In 2011, after considerable legal wrangling around his criminal record, he was admitted to the bar. He changed his hairstyle and clothing to appear more mainstream and began working from the inside, once saying he represented the “soldiers and civilians who find themselves in legal entanglements due to the security situation in Israel.” Netanyahu made him minister of national security, with authority over the police.

Smotrich also moved into public life after his 2005 arrest by Shin Bet for plotting road blockages to halt the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. He made Shin Bet’s Jewish Department a frequent target of criticism, complaining that it was wasting time and money investigating crimes carried out by Jews, when the real terrorists were Palestinians. His ultraright allies sometimes referred to the Jewish Department as Hamakhlaka Hayehudit — the Hebrew phrase for the Gestapo unit that executed Hitler’s Final Solution.

In 2015, while campaigning for a seat in the Knesset, Smotrich said that “every shekel invested in this department is one less shekel invested in real terrorism and saving lives.” Seven years later, Netanyahu made him both minister of finance and a minister in the Ministry of Defense, in charge of overseeing civilian affairs in the West Bank, and he has steadily pushed to seize authority over the territory from the military. As part of the coalition deal with Netanyahu, Smotrich now has the authority to appoint one of the senior administrative figures in the West Bank, who helps oversee the building of roads and the enforcement of construction laws. The 2022 election also brought Avi Maoz to the Knesset — the former housing-ministry official whom Talia Sasson once marked as a hidden hand of Israeli government support for illegal settlements. Since then, Maoz had joined the far-right Noam party, using it as a platform to advance racist and homophobic policies. And he never forgot, or forgave, Sasson. On “International Anti-Corruption Day” in 2022, Maoz took to the lectern of the Knesset and denounced Sasson’s report of nearly two decades earlier, saying it was written “with a hatred of the settlements and a desire to harm them.” This, he said, was “public corruption of the highest order, for which people like Talia Sasson should be prosecuted.”

Days after assuming his own new position, Ben-Gvir ordered the police to remove Palestinian flags from public spaces in Israel, saying they “incite and encourage terrorism.” Smotrich, for his part, ordered drastic cuts in payments to the Palestinian Authority — a move that led the Shin Bet and the I.D.F. intelligence division to raise concerns that the cuts would interfere with the Palestinian Authority’s own efforts to police and prevent Palestinian terrorism.

Weeks after the new cabinet was sworn in, the Judea and Samaria division of the I.D.F. distributed an instructional video to the soldiers of a ground unit about to be deployed in the West Bank. Titled “Operational Challenge: The Farms,” the video depicts settlers as peaceful farmers living pastoral lives, feeding goats and herding sheep and cows, in dangerous circumstances. The illegal outposts multiplying around the West Bank are “small and isolated places of settlement, each with a handful of residents, a few of them — or none at all — bearing arms, the means of defense meager or nonexistent.”

It is the settlers, according to the video, who are under constant threat of attack, whether it be “penetration of the farm by a terrorist, an attack against a shepherd in the pastures, arson” or “destruction of property” — threats from which the soldiers of the I.D.F. must protect them. The commander of each army company guarding each farm must, the video says, “link up with the person in charge of security and to maintain communications”; soldiers and officers are encouraged to cultivate a close and intimate relationship with the settlers. “The informal,” viewers are told, “is much more important than the formal.”

The video addresses many matters of security, but it never addresses the question of law. When we asked the commander of the division that produced the video, Brig. Gen. Avi Bluth, why the I.D.F. was promoting the military support of settlements that are illegal under Israeli law, he directly asserted that the farms were indeed legal and offered to arrange for us to tour some of them. Later, a spokesman for the army apologized for the general’s remarks, acknowledged that the farms were illegal and announced that the I.D.F. would no longer be promoting the video. This May, Bluth was nonetheless subsequently promoted to head Israel’s Central Command, responsible for all Israeli troops in central Israel and the West Bank.

In August, Bluth will replace Maj. Gen. Yehuda Fox, who during his final months in charge of the West Bank has seen a near-total breakdown of law enforcement in his area of command. In late October, Fox wrote a letter to his boss, the chief of Israel’s military staff, saying that the surge of Jewish terrorism carried out in revenge for the Oct. 7 attacks “could set the West Bank on fire.” The I.D.F. is the highest security authority in the West Bank, but the military’s top commander put the blame squarely on the police — who ultimately answer to Ben-Gvir. Fox said he had established a special task force to deal with Jewish terrorism, but investigating and arresting the perpetrators is “entirely in the hands of the Israeli police.”

And, he wrote, they aren’t doing their jobs.

‘Only One Way Forward’

When the day came early this January for the Supreme Court to hear the case brought by the people of Khirbet Zanuta, the displaced villagers arrived an hour late. They had received entry permits from the District Coordination Office to attend the hearing but were delayed by security forces before reaching the checkpoint separating Israel from the West Bank. Their lawyer, Quamar Mishirqi-Assad, noting that their struggle to attend their own hearing spoke to the essence of their petition, insisted that the hearing couldn’t proceed without them. The judges agreed to wait.

The villagers finally were led into the courtroom, and Mishirqi-Assad began presenting the case. The proceedings were in Hebrew, so most of the villagers were unable to follow the arguments that described the daily terrors inflicted by settlers and the glaring absence of any law-enforcement efforts to stop them.

The lawyers representing the military and the police denied the claims of abuse and failure to enforce the law. When a judge asked what operational steps would be in place if villagers wanted to return, one of the lawyers for the state said they could already — there was no order preventing them from doing so.

The next to speak was Col. Roi Zweig-Lavi, the Central Command’s Operations Directorate officer. He said that many of these incidents involved false claims. In fact, he said, some of the villagers had probably destroyed their own homes, because of an “internal issue.” Now they were blaming the settlers to escape the consequences of their own actions.

Colonel Zweig-Lavi’s own views about the settlements, and his role in protecting them, were well known. In a 2022 speech, he told a group of yeshiva students in the West Bank that “the army and the settlements are one and the same.”

In early May, the court ordered the state to explain why the police failed to stop the attacks and declared that the villagers have a right to return to their homes. The court also ordered the state to provide details for how they would ensure the safe return of the villagers. It is now the state’s turn to decide how it will comply. Or if it will comply.

By the time the Supreme Court issued its rulings, the United States had finally taken action to directly pressure the Netanyahu government about the violent settlers. On Feb. 1, the White House issued an executive order imposing sanctions on four settlers for “engaging in terrorist activity,” among other things, in the West Bank. One of the four was Yinon Levi, the owner of Meitarim Farm near Hebron and the man American and Israeli officials believe orchestrated the campaign of violence and intimidation against the villagers of Khirbet Zanuta. The British government issued its own sanctions shortly after, saying in a statement that Israel’s government had created “an environment of near-total impunity for settler extremists in the West Bank.”

The White House’s move against individual settlers, a first by an American administration, was met with a combination of anger and ridicule by ministers in Netanyahu’s government. Smotrich called the Biden administration’s allegations against Levi and others “utterly specious” and said he would work with Israeli banks to resist complying with the sanctions. One message that circulated in an open Hilltop Youth WhatsApp channel said that Levi and his family would not be abandoned. “The people of Israel are mobilizing for them,” it said.

American officials bristle when confronted with the question of whether the government’s actions are just token measures taken by an embattled American president hemorrhaging support at home for his Israel policy. They won’t end the violence, they say, but they are a signal to the Netanyahu government about the position of the United States: that the West Bank could boil over, and it could soon be the latest front of an expanding regional Middle East war since Oct. 7.

But war might just be the goal. Ehud Olmert, the former Israeli prime minister, said he believes that many members of the ultraright in Israel “want war.” They “want intifada,” he says, “because it is the ultimate proof that there is no way of making peace with the Palestinians and there is only one way forward — to destroy them.”

Additional reporting by Natan Odenheimer.

Top photograph: A member of a group known as Hilltop Youth, which seeks to tear down Israel’s institutions and establish ‘‘Jewish rule.’’ Photograph by Peter van Agtmael/Magnum, for The New York Times.

Read by Jonathan Davis

Narration produced by Anna Diamond

Engineered by David Mason

Peter van Agtmael is a Magnum photographer who has been covering Israel and Palestinian territories since 2012. He is a mentor in the Arab Documentary Photography Program.

Ronen Bergman is a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, based in Tel Aviv. His latest book is “Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations,” published by Random House. More about Ronen Bergman

Mark Mazzetti is an investigative reporter based in Washington, D.C., focusing on national security, intelligence, and foreign affairs. He has written a book about the C.I.A. More about Mark Mazzetti

Our Coverage of the Israel-Hamas War

News and Analysis

The United Nations’ top court is scheduled to hear arguments from South Africa  after the country recently requested that the court issue further constraints on Israel, saying “the very survival” of Palestinians in Gaza was under threat.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that recent gains in getting desperately needed humanitarian aid  to people in the Gaza Strip risked being undone by the fighting in southern Gaza.

The Biden administration has told Congress that it intends to move forward with a plan for the United States to sell more than $1 billion in new weapons to Israel .

PEN America’s Boiling Point: As it cancels events amid criticism of its response to the Israel-Hamas war, PEN America faces questions  about when an organization devoted to free speech for all should take sides.

A Key Weapon: When President Biden threatened to pause some weapons shipments to Israel if it invaded Rafah, the devastating effects of the 2,000-pound Mark 84 bomb  were of particular concern to him.

A Presidential Move: Ronald Reagan also used the power of American arms to influence  Israeli war policy. The comparison underscores how much the politics of Israel have changed in the United States since the 1980s.

Netanyahu’s Concerns: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, under pressure from all sides, is trying to reassure his many domestic, military and diplomatic critics. Here’s a look at what he is confronting .

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    By Ronen Bergman and Mark Mazzetti. May 16, 2024. This story is told in three parts. The first documents the unequal system of justice that grew around Jewish settlements in Gaza and the West Bank ...