It falls under the jurisdiction of the Har Hevron Regional Council and associates ideologically with the Amana settlement movement.

[2] It is also close to the village of Umm al-Kheir settled by Palestinian Bedouins, which has drawn criticism of Israel due to the difference in living conditions under Israeli occupation of the West Bank.

[7] Carmel was initially founded in 1980, next to the land on which the Hadaleen Bedouin tribe live, as a Nahal military-establishment through a "military seizure order".

"[3] In a 2014 New York Times editorial, American journalist Nicholas Kristof described the Israeli occupation of the West Bank as "morally repugnant", comparing the living conditions of Carmel to those in Umm al-Kheir.

Kristof wrote that Palestinians were barred from accessing electricity and lived in tents and huts as the Israeli army demolished any permanent structure they erected.