Years ago, I was talking to a left-leaning friend and was taken aback by something he said.

"I have nothing in common with them," he said, and to make sure I understood, he named the types of people he

I saw destruction; he saw salvation.

was talking about. He meant the ones who live in "Beit Haggai, Otniel...."

"But you speak the same language, live in the same country, have the same religion," I protested. "How could you not have so many things in common with any Jew, every Jew, anywhere?"

"We use the same words, but don't speak the same language, definitely don't live in the same country and don't share religion either."

We talked a bit, but nothing I said could change his mind; nothing he said convinced me he was right either.

"But I'm one of 'them' too," I said, desperate to explain. It wasn't possible. I had moved to Israel, grown up with the belief that there is this unseen connection, felt to the depths of my soul. We are all responsible, one for the other. We are one people. I am those very people he despised, I thought to myself.

"No, you aren't."

"Yes, I am," I finished the discussion with sadness, "I am no different from them and if you have nothing in common with them, you have nothing in common with me - and we both know that isn't true."

I was saddened by the discussion, but let it go. What more could I say to prove my point... and hadn't he said enough already?

A few years passed and the Israeli government announced it would unilaterally remove the Jews from Gaza and sections of northern Shomron (Samaria). I was against the decision on many levels, all levels. My friend was as strongly in favor as I was against. We talked, we debated, we discussed, we never agreed.

I didn't believe the day would come, I prayed that it wouldn't. He anticipated it, relished the idea of it coming. I saw destruction; he saw salvation. I sat and watched as my country, my army did the unthinkable. It made a mockery of our political system, a joke out of our army. It brought, as I expected it would, rocket attacks, more deaths, and war. Ashkelon will burn, we warned our fellow Israelis, I warned my friend.

"But then we can do what normal countries do. We can flatten them."

"We won't," I countered, already feeling the frustration and helplessness. The same weakness that leads us to expel our own people will cripple the government and prevent us from stopping the rockets that will surely hit Ashkelon - and even Ashdod.

"One rocket," my friend said. "One rocket after we pull out and they're finished."

"We've had rockets and we didn't finish them," I told him. "The world won't allow us to do anything."

"They will when we are out of Gaza," he said, though I knew he was wrong.

We pulled out of Gaza and destroyed some of the most beautiful and productive communities in our land. I dreaded going to see my friend. I couldn't stand to see him gloat at his victory and Israel's loss. Finally, I had no choice and, with great reluctance, I went.

"So," he began.

"So," I answered, wondering if after so many years our friendship would end.

"I took vacation to watch," he said, "I took three days off work and just watched."

I took a deep breath. I too had watched. Hours and hours and tears and tears had been spent. I cried till I could not cry any more and then, amazingly enough, I cried more. I went to the Western Wall to watch as the communities arrived and were welcomed. I cried there and felt shame.

Maybe I hadn't done enough. Maybe we never really deserved those communities we had built and the amazing people who had lived there. They sang, they showed strength, while I felt defeated. I didn't want to hear, couldn't listen to what I knew my friend was going to say. I remember breathing in deeply, trying to decide if it was better to finally let myself explode or to keep silent.

"And I cried," he said. "I cried when I watched the dignity of the people and what we did."

I released the breath I had taken and held. He had cried. Cried when people with whom he supposedly had nothing in common were pulled from their homes; cried when he saw how we had broken them. People who had turned sand into unimaginable beauty. He had cried.

I looked at him and I remembered his words from so many years before. A thought I had found so foreign, so incomprehensible at the time came to me and settled in my heart. For the first time in my life, I knew that he'd been right, or at least partially.

"Do you remember when you told me you had nothing in common with those Jews who lived in Beit Haggai and Otniel?" I asked him.

"Yes," he answered.

"I didn't think it was possible at the time, but now I agree. I have nothing, nothing, nothing in common with a Jew who could have watched the expulsion of the Jews from Gaza and not cried."

You didn't have to agree or disagree with it, I decided, but no matter what you felt, you had to cry.

Just recently, a terrorist attempted to murder Jews in Beit Haggai. He entered the small village with a knife, as another terrorist entered the small village of Bat Ayin before that. That time, the brave terrorist attacked two

The Jews of Beit Haggai and Otniel live in the land we all love, speak the language we all share.

children, murdering a boy of only 13 and seriously wounding a seven-year-old before a Jewish father ran and confronted the terrorist, who fled - typical of the coward he was.

In Beit Haggai, a person was lightly wounded before the terrorist there was eliminated. We were given the miracle we were denied last time in Bat Ayin. This time, thankfully, it was the terrorist that lay dead and not a Jewish child.

"You 'Orange People' were right," my friend told me a few months ago. No, he still believed that the expulsion was correct, but that it was done at the wrong time, in the wrong way. It brought us nothing, gave us nothing. The rockets fell, as we said they would. The cities burned, as we knew they could, and the government did little. We didn't flatten Gaza, even during this past war. The world didn't understand, as he thought they would.

The Jews of Beit Haggai and Otniel live in the land we all love, speak the language we all share. Whether you agree or disagree with them, we all have this commonality. Today, we are all Jews from Beit Haggai.