More broadly, the article makes new theoretical claims about broader processes of immigration to Israel/Palestine, arguing that the phenomenon of Jewish-American aliya to Israel and the occupied territories should be reconsidered through the comparative theoretical framework of ethnic return migration. In particular, the case-study explored here suggests that
Jewish-American immigration to the occupied territories serves as an important example of how governments across the world incentivize the return of their ethnic migrants. This example will also help expand these theories beyond the traditional discussion of economic benefits to illustrate how states also derive psychic prosperity from strengthening critical discourses surrounding state-building and territorial claims in assisting these populations. Taken as a whole, this article aims to provide both an analytic narrative and a theoretical argument about the program described here.