Anita Tucker immigrated to Israel from the U.S. over 30 years ago to help found her hometown of Netzer Hazani - the first Gush Katif community - and her children and grandchildren now live in the area. Her response to Sharon's plans to destroy the Jewish presence in Gaza: "My great-grandparents were thrown out of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, my grandparents were forced out of Poland, my parents were kicked out of Germany, and now some Jew comes along and wants to throw us out of our home here in Israel just because we're Jewish."
Leah Ideles of the Gush Katif community of Morag has undergone evacuation before. She moved with her husband from Kiryat Arba to Atzmonah, in the Sinai, during the Camp David agreements of 1978, and was evacuated by the government in 1982 - first to Morag, and then to the current incarnation of Atzmonah in Gush Katif. "We later decided that we wanted to move to Morag [to help strengthen it - ed. note] for a short while, and meanwhile it has been ten years, and we love it here." Asked how she relates to the latest news, Mrs. Ideles said,
"It's actually our younger children, the ones who did not go through the previous evacuation, who are very angry at Sharon and cannot understand how he can talk about expelling Jews. We ourselves are very angry - even more than before: How is it possible that we can make the same mistakes that we made once before? Twenty years ago, we thought that it was a moment of weakness and that there was no choice. But to do it again?! Once again to perpetrate this self-destruction and cut into live flesh? It's very difficult." She said that there is another difference between now and last time: "Then, we didn't believe it could happen. But now we know that Sharon is technically and physically capable of doing it, just as he did it to us once before. I don't think it will happen again, but we cannot deny that he is capable of doing it."
Arutz-7's Ariel Kahane: "Mitzna said here before that Sharon, as architect of the settlement enterprise in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, owes you an apology for first bringing you there and now taking you away. What do you think?"
Leah Ideles: "I don't understand. He of course owes us an apology for what he's doing now, but not for anything else. Whoever 'brought us here' knew what he was doing. He has to apologize not to us personally, but to the entire country for all his talk about withdrawals - talk that merely weakens us. I believe that the whole country already knows that there is no ideology behind these ideas. Just running away from our problems, like we did from Lebanon, is not a way to run a country. We must stay here in Gush Katif, and remain strong. Gaza is the center of many terrorist organizations, and if Heaven forbid, we are evacuated from here, many more terrorists will come here, and the rest of Israel will be flooded with rockets with a range of dozens of kilometers into Israel. We are most definitely the front line protecting the rest of Israel." She concluded by saying that the government of Israel must "be strong, must show Jewish strength, and stand up to the world's demands. There is no reason why we must cringe before the terrorists and run away and live behind barbed wire. We should live here proudly!"
Leah Ideles of the Gush Katif community of Morag has undergone evacuation before. She moved with her husband from Kiryat Arba to Atzmonah, in the Sinai, during the Camp David agreements of 1978, and was evacuated by the government in 1982 - first to Morag, and then to the current incarnation of Atzmonah in Gush Katif. "We later decided that we wanted to move to Morag [to help strengthen it - ed. note] for a short while, and meanwhile it has been ten years, and we love it here." Asked how she relates to the latest news, Mrs. Ideles said,
"It's actually our younger children, the ones who did not go through the previous evacuation, who are very angry at Sharon and cannot understand how he can talk about expelling Jews. We ourselves are very angry - even more than before: How is it possible that we can make the same mistakes that we made once before? Twenty years ago, we thought that it was a moment of weakness and that there was no choice. But to do it again?! Once again to perpetrate this self-destruction and cut into live flesh? It's very difficult." She said that there is another difference between now and last time: "Then, we didn't believe it could happen. But now we know that Sharon is technically and physically capable of doing it, just as he did it to us once before. I don't think it will happen again, but we cannot deny that he is capable of doing it."
Arutz-7's Ariel Kahane: "Mitzna said here before that Sharon, as architect of the settlement enterprise in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, owes you an apology for first bringing you there and now taking you away. What do you think?"
Leah Ideles: "I don't understand. He of course owes us an apology for what he's doing now, but not for anything else. Whoever 'brought us here' knew what he was doing. He has to apologize not to us personally, but to the entire country for all his talk about withdrawals - talk that merely weakens us. I believe that the whole country already knows that there is no ideology behind these ideas. Just running away from our problems, like we did from Lebanon, is not a way to run a country. We must stay here in Gush Katif, and remain strong. Gaza is the center of many terrorist organizations, and if Heaven forbid, we are evacuated from here, many more terrorists will come here, and the rest of Israel will be flooded with rockets with a range of dozens of kilometers into Israel. We are most definitely the front line protecting the rest of Israel." She concluded by saying that the government of Israel must "be strong, must show Jewish strength, and stand up to the world's demands. There is no reason why we must cringe before the terrorists and run away and live behind barbed wire. We should live here proudly!"