To him, the building's demise is a symbol of an Israeli settlement encroaching on Palestinian land.

The village of Bank seems to begin in the 16th century, as a settlement encroaching on the Forest.

Unseen to the east lay the Bene Sherk, a scattering of new settlements encroaching upon the open bled.

Joseph Dudley had in 1713 negotiated an end to hostilities with the tribes in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, but the written form of the Treaty of Portsmouth differed in content from the orally negotiated agreements, and its terms were being violated by British settlements encroaching on Abenaki lands on Maine's coasts and rivers.