On Sunday in Gush Katif, the religious Jews will fast, refrain from laughter and sex and avoid banal conversations to mark Tisha B’Av, the day of mourning for the fall of the Jewish temples in 586BC and AD70 and the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492.
The symbolism of Tisha B’Av falling on the eve of the evacuation of 25 Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank is not lost on the mostly orthodox settlers. Then, the villains were the Babylonians, the Romans and the Inquisition.
Today, the settlers blame the Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, and the Israeli left for what they see as the criminal forsaking of Jewish land rather than the legal policy of a democratic government.
For months, the rhetoric of the opposition to Sharon’s disengagement has verged on the violent, but now most settlers admit the battle is lost. All that remains is a symbolic show of resistance and last-minute haggling over compensation and resettlement.
On Sunday at midnight, the settlements will be declared a closed military zone. Settlers will have 48 hours to move out. From Wednesday, the army says that it will forcibly remove anyone who remains.
In fact, the withdrawal has been under way for weeks. The settlements of Ganim and Kadim, in the West Bank, and Rafiach Yam and Peat Sadeh, in the Gush Katif area of the southern Gaza Strip, are all but deserted. Many more are scheduled to leave on Monday and Tuesday.
In Neve Dekalim, the neighbours of Celia and Michael Goldstein are already packing up. In contrast, the Goldstein home has no signs of upheaval. Michael Goldstein (55) is a local doctor and his wife, Celia (44), is a nurse. The couple, both originally from London, moved to Gush Katif from Buckie in Banffshire, Scotland.
”People need their medicines. If they don’t know where they are going or they are going to be under siege, they need to be prepared,” says Celia.
The Goldsteins, who have eight children aged six to 21, have scarcely packed anything, partly as a political protest and partly for pragmatic reasons.
”We will stay to the end because we need to be here to treat people. We can’t desert our patients. We are still not ready to leave. We are still in a state of disbelief,” she says.
But for all the outward signs of hesitation, it is clear that representatives for the community are negotiating with the government over compensation and resettlement. Even the Goldsteins have at least packed valuables and photograph albums.
”Everybody would like to just wake up and it would be over because it is a nightmare. The children are confused, their friends are leaving. We are tying up loose ends. We need to make sure the computer is safe so we look after patients’ records. We need to collect money that is owed,” she says.
Celia has no doubt that her 13-year residence in Gush Katif is coming to an end.
”We only came here for practical reasons. We needed somewhere that needed a doctor and a nurse. But, as time went by, we became ideological,” she says.
And living in Gush Katif was never safe even before the major escalation of violence in 2000.
”The night we arrived, a friend was stabbed and killed. It’s never been quiet, but it’s only in the last five years that the terrorism came to our back yard.”
Mounted on a plinth is a Palestinian rocket, its body intact and the tail fins held together with springs from clothes pegs. It hit the family home last year, blowing out windows and doors. The only injury it caused was a slight cut to their daughter.
”The morale of the community has got stronger. Because you are in the back of beyond, you have to rely on your friends. That is why we are insisting on staying together if we have to leave,” Celia says.
It was not supposed to be like this. The formation of strong Jewish communities was not envisaged in the 1970s by the Labour Party’s architects of the settlement of Gaza.
Then, the settlements were seen as important strategic outposts to strengthen defence against Israel’s external enemies and control what had become its internal enemies, the Palestinians, in the land conquered by Israel in the Six-Day War in 1967.
The first settlement was actually in 1946, when a kibbutz was set up at Kefar Darom, before being overrun by the Egyptian army in 1948.
Kefar Darom was re-established in 1970 and the rest of the 21 settlements were gradually added, placing Gaza’s Palestinians in a five-fingered grasp. One of those fingers, the Yamit settlements in the Sinai peninsula, was amputated in 1982 when Israel made peace with Egypt. At the time, there was fierce opposition to the evacuation and many of the settlers moved to the Gaza Strip.
It was only later, says Shmuel Sandler, professor of political science at Bar Ilan University, Tel Aviv, that the Labour Party’s policy was hijacked by the national religious movement, which saw it as a religious duty to populate Gaza.
”The initial idea was to create separation between Gaza and Egypt in much the same way as the Jordan valley settlements were intended to separate the West Bank from Jordan.”
But the strategic importance of the Gaza settlements was reduced as Israel made peace, first with Egypt and then Jordan. Then, the nature of the Gaza settlements was transformed.
”The mistake of Menachem Begin [the Likud prime minister of Israel in 1979] when he negotiated the Camp David accords with Egypt,” says Sandler, ”was that he did not hand over Gaza along with the Sinai peninsula. Begin allowed his judgement to be tainted by ideological sentiments and a desire to have the borders of the British mandate of Palestine.”
Travel to the soon-to-be abandoned settlement of Netzarim is by armoured bus. Drivers in private cars don helmets and body armour before making the 10-minute journey to the border with Israel.
The community comprises 50 families in houses around a large domed synagogue. But in Netzarim last week there was no evidence of packing. On the contrary, a group of men was building a house and the grass was being mowed.
However, this is not evidence of a community refusing to deal with reality. Noam Editzur, a teacher of religion, says the community’s care of the land is part of its farewell.
”If your wife is dying and you have a limited time left with her, you don’t neglect her and leave her. In the same way we are giving tender farewell kisses to the land and ask its forgiveness for what our brothers are doing and to say we will be back.”
The reality is that the builders were rushing to finish the house in order to claim compensation from the government, although they would not speak about it.
Editzur, who moved to Netzarim from Gush Katif one year ago, is stoical about leaving the settlement.
”I am very happy that I have come here, even if it was only for one year. It has been the most important year of my life. My love for Israel and its people has developed so much. In the last two weeks, we have been going to see people in the secular kibbutzes nearby. For years we have been neighbours but have never spoken, but we have really bonded amid everything that is going on.”
At times, however, he is struck by anger.
”The idea that this week they will destroy the synagogue and remove bodies from graves — even the Germans did not do that. This process has brought many people to a low, low place. I have seen policemen beating a woman.”
Editzur can rationalise the changes he, his wife and seven children will undergo by placing it in the context of Jewish history; the expulsion of the Jews from Palestine by the Romans and their return in the 20th century.
”For 2 000 years, wherever we were, three times a day we worked out the direction to Jerusalem and Israel and prayed towards it. When your policy [the disengagement plan] is directed by a desire to be close to the United States, rather than the Bible, bad things will come of it,” he said.
”God takes us step by step. A hundred-and-twenty years ago, there were 60 000 Jews here. In 1948, there were 600 000. Now there are six million. I don’t know where we will be next week, but I know ultimately we will be back.”
In 2002, the future of Netzarim seemed secure. Sharon told a committee of the Knesset that he had no intention of dismantling any settlements, even isolated ones such as Netzarim. Then, in October 2003, a Palestinian gunman infiltrated the settlement and killed two female soldiers as they slept. He then killed another male soldier before he was killed.
It was this incident that convinced Sharon of the foolhardiness of wasting resources on guarding settlements amid large populations of Palestinians.
In December 2003, he formally declared his intention to implement a unilateral disengagement plan. At the time, he did not stipulate which settlements he would evacuate. But it rapidly became clear that the Gaza settlements and Ganim, Kadim, Sa-Nur and Homesh, in the northern West Bank, would be dismantled.
While most of the world focuses on the Gaza settlements, many of the secular settlers in the northern West Bank have left to be replaced by right-wing protesters determined to resist evacuation. In Homesh last week, new residents were busy preparing fortifications for their last stand.
Eyal, a student from Jerusalem, was building a barricade.
”Even if you give 5km of this land, it’s a big deal,” he said. ”There is not much land here anywhere and the government is really making a disaster for Israel. This is suicidal and will only encourage the Palestinians. We are obliged to do what we can to stop this.”
Menorah Hazani, who moved here with her husband from another West Bank settlement, said they have a secret plan to frustrate about 40 000 police and soldiers tasked with the disengagement.
”We are stockpiling food and other necessities, but I cannot tell you more than that. There are some people in charge of these plans, but these plans are secret, very secret. All will be revealed on the day.”
Eyal was more realistic and insisted their resistance is geared to preventing future evacuations.
”We may not stop the government this time but by being here, resisting to the end, we are making a strong statement about defending the other settlements. The government should watch out. Here we are drawing a line,” he said.
The opposition was not unexpected.
”It was clear to me that the initiative would not be accepted easily,” said Sharon in an interview last week. ”But the presence in Gaza with everything it entails, the price we are paying, had to end.”
And so it will.
Key questions for the future
Will there be violence during the withdrawal?
Just more than half the settlers have applied for government compensation, a sign that many could go quietly. The mainstream settler movement has said resistance will not be violent, but security services are worried that some radicals could try to use attacks to stir up conflict with the Palestinians.
Palestinian militant groups pledged to keep ”calm” at the behest of President Mahmoud Abbas. Israel sees a high risk of attacks on departing settlers and soldiers, given the militants’ keenness to claim victory and the weakness of Abbas’s security forces. Vowing not to pull out under fire, Israel has put armoured forces on standby to seize Palestinian cities temporarily if exchanges of fire resume. That could cause heavy conflict.
Does this mean peace at last for Gaza?
Egyptian security officers are training a special, 5 000-strong Palestinian force to impose order and prevent looting in abandoned settlements and army bases. Abbas has begun revamping a Palestinian security apparatus that is plagued by corruption, poor motivation and factional gangs.
Can Gaza’s economy get off the ground?
Not unless Israel eases its grip on land, sea and air approaches to Gaza. The Jewish state says such steps could happen, but it wants better security assurances. Palestinians say that isolation has caused economic meltdown and bred violence in Gaza. There are talks on a road or rail corridor between Gaza and the West Bank. Israel says Gaza can plan a seaport. But it balks at allowing Gaza to reopen its only airport.
Will the pull-out lead to a Palestinian state?
Unlikely in the short term. Israel rules out the US-sponsored ”road map” talks on Palestinian statehood without dissolution of militant groups. Palestinian officials agree bloodshed should stop, but not to disarmament without assurances of a viable state through talks. They fear such prospects are fading as Israel keeps expanding larger West Bank settlements.
Diplomatic deadlock after the pull-out could rekindle Palestinian revolt. Sharon may count on isolating fresh conflict by keeping Palestinians inside Gaza and behind a barrier being built in the West Bank. Tough US intervention might produce compromise on a basis for talks, but a final peace deal still looks far off. — Guardian Unlimited Â