Do you remember the countdowns? Remember the countdowns to the end of the school year, to your birthday, to Pesach seder, to the last hour of a fast day?



Here, in Gush Katif, we live with another countdown ? a countdown repeated day after day in the assured voice of the television and radio newscasters ? the countdown to Disengagement. Each day, we receive the message of total hopelessness. We hear the number of days left for the people of Gush Katif to live in their homes. Two months left until every man, woman and child will be evicted.



On the day of the eviction, every single person, no exceptions, will be left without a home, a bed, a kitchen table, a refrigerator ? all the mundane items that we take for granted when we get up in the morning in our home.



With utter disregard for the emotions of innocent people, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke of whether the Jewish homes are simply to be given to the Arabs or to be destroyed completely. She spoke, with her endlessly charming smile intact, about the one place where a child wakes up and knows his room, the way to the bathroom, the smell of home cooking. The place where he curls up and watches TV, the drawers that hold the spoons and forks, the cupboard where the drinking glasses are so he can pour a glass of milk.



Home is where your slippers are next to your bed and when you open your closet you see your sweaters and shirts lined up or askew on the hangars. Home is where the ordinary is, and will always be, when you get up in the morning, or seen before you turn off the light at night.



Home is where your neighbors live next door and you know all of their kids. Home is your synagogue and the person who sits next to you when your pray.



The State of Israel should not be making the People of Israel homeless.



We, the people of Gush Katif, call on the communities of the world to come to Israel and join the Human Wall. Stop this expulsion of Jews with your bodies. It is not a done deal, despite the pronouncements of the heads of state. You can make a difference. Each of you. Say "No!" How often have you said, "I wish I had done something" to stop an evil from happening? You cannot, must not, sit in the comfort of your home, watch CNN or BBC report on the expulsion of Jews, your brothers and sisters, and say, "Isn't it terrible...."



You cannot walk to your refrigerator, turn on the air-conditioning, drink another cup of coffee, while aware that these simple pleasures are being denied the people of Gush Katif.



Hop on a plane to Israel. Can't? Go to the Israeli consulate. Write to the US president. In short say, "No! No! No!" Do not be the Jews of Silence, the Christians of Silence, a Person of Silence.



You fought for a cleaner environment. You fought to save the whales. You picketed to free the Jews of Russia. Now you must fight for the Jews of Gush Katif. The Sharon Plan must be stopped, and it can be stopped.



Let's stop the countdown.