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Wednesday, June 29, 2005

My Memories of Gush Katif

Very moving article in today's JPost remembering Yamit, and comparing Israel's withdrawal from it to the disengagement in Gaza. I remember visiting Gush Katif as a teenager on a summer tour of Israel, and being taken by our tour guide to "kir Yamit", the wall that memorializes the pullout from the community. As he described the evacuation of Yamit, and the dramatic events that unfolded there, it never would have occured to any of us listening that years later, we would be discussing the neighborhoods, beaches and greenhouses we had just visited in the same vein.
I remember the Gush Katif leg of the tour as one of the highlights of our trip that summer. The greenhouses were fascinating. The science junkie in me was interested by the hydroponic techniques, the aesthete in me was amazed by the neatly planted rows of plants and vegetables. The beach was beautiful. I can still remember how the temperature of the water was almost as warm as the air, and how gentle the surf was against the whitest sand this New Yorker had ever seen. The white houses with the red roofs and the gardens were immaculate, many having gone up recently, with bikes and toys on the front lawns, as little children roamed from house to house with no need for supervision. It truly seemed an idyllic existence for the settlers who built their lives there.
Now, as I read the articles like yesterday's, about the lack of adequate housing for the displaced, and today's, which describes the first settler to dismantle his greenhouses in preparation for the disengagement, I feel for these people who thought that they were home for good.

May God grant them a smooth and safe journey.

13 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is a beautiful account. Does this to be taken as an anti-disengagement stance?

10:06 AM  
Blogger Air Time said...

I think based on her past posts, she accepts the disengagement as a necessary evil, but is more upset about what is happening to the people who lived there.

10:38 AM  
Blogger orthomom said...

Thanks Air. You are correct.

11:01 AM  
Blogger Air Time said...

just holding down the fort for you now that I have disengaged my blog

11:16 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

"May God grant them a smooth and safe journey." You could be midayek in her lashon that she supports disengagement.

12:26 PM  
Blogger DovBear said...

Let it happen smoothly and swiftly, and let it be for the good.

Because it's inevitable, that's the correct stance. Well done.

1:36 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Very nice. I guess it takes a mom to inject the sympathy for the settlers that has been sorely missed in this dialogue. Yasher koach. Keep up the good work.

2:09 PM  
Blogger Air Time said...

Here is the part I don't get from disengagement.

Disengagement is a PR disaster. I think everyone from both sides can agree with that.

My understanding is that the Israeli government is leaving a vacuum for the Palestinian Authority to fill.

Why bother moving the jews who are there? Why not give them the option to stay.

If I was the Israeli government, I would tell everyone that they can stay at their own risk. It might not be the safest neighborhood, but if the Palestinian state is a free democracy, let the Jews stay. We certainly haven't kicked the arabs out of Israel; why force people to move who are clearly attached to the land that they built.

Personally, I think it would be a bloodbath, but A) It would reiterate to a world that doesn;t give a damn that these are more monster than human and B) It would keep those awful pictures of Israeli on Israeli violence from filling the newscasts every night.

2:15 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks for this account. It's hard to think aboiut the lives of the settlers from here.

3:10 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"May God grant them a smooth and safe journey"

Amein.

7:14 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

In response to AT, I know that some residents of a settlement in Shomron that is also slated for evacuation have petitioned Abbas for the right to stay. I don't believe they've gotten a response.

I suspect that the first issue in such a scenario would be whether or not the PA recognizes the settlers' "title" to their homes and the land underneath them.

2:38 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Great post, thanks!

10:33 AM  
Blogger Jameel @ The Muqata said...

May God grant them a smooth and safe journey...as they get brutally kicked out of their houses?

Reminds me of the yiddish aphorism:

May your enemies get a hernia, from dancing on your grave.

(The above in not to be intended towards orthomom, and I wish her to live to 120...after all in Israel, if you say the wrong thing, you go to jail...say the right thing you go to jail...etc.)

8:27 AM  

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