by Arutz-7's Gush Katif correspondent Hillel Fendel
With the date of the scheduled expulsion of thousands of Jews from northern Shomron and Gush Katif only three months away, the Sharon government still has no concrete housing solutions to offer the residents.
Government officials have been meeting with representatives of the residents, and have presented a proposal to build them four new communities in choice real estate in the Nitzanim area, north of Ashkelon.
Ilan Cohen, Director-General of the Prime Minister’s Bureau, said this morning, “No one in his right mind would try to build four communities for only a few dozen families. If we get 1,000 families from Gush Katif to sign their willingness to live there, then we can do it.”
The residents, on the overwhelming whole, treat such threats with disdain. “For one thing,” one influential resident told me, “we don’t need alternative communities; we already have these beautiful communities that we built up with great dedication and camaraderie, and we have no plans to go anywhere.”
When pressed, however, the speaker - Ami Shaked, the security coordinator for the Gaza Coast Regional Council - is willing to add something else: “The Nitzanim project is one big deception. It sounds great on paper, but for one thing, it’s not in Nitzanim [geographically very similar to the Gush Katif coastline sand dune areas – ed.], but rather in the Mesilah area closer to the highway. But more basically: how do they plan to fit in our 23 communities, each one with its own character and so on, into 4? It just doesn’t work. The time frame, of course, is totally unrealistic. They will place us in caravans for months, years? And then, in a few months from now, who will remember us at all? They’ll put families with 10-12 children into little caravans? What will happen afterwards? It has to be made clear to everyone that if this disengagement goes through, the State of Israel is headed for its worst humanitarian disaster ever.”
I met Avner Shimoni, Mayor of the Gaza Coast Regional Council, at a gathering this morning of hundreds of nursery-age children from all over Gush Katif in N’vei Dekalim, in commemoration of this week’s Independence Day holiday. “Prime Minister Sharon says that If 1,000 families don’t sign, you won’t have a place to live,” I said. “What will you do?”
“Sharon knows the truth,” Shimoni responded. “He knows he has no solutions, and therefore, he’s trying to shift the blame onto us. His plan is simply one of deception. There’s no way they can accomplish this in three months, and so instead of admitting this, he blames us. They have no solution; it’s obvious that we will remain here.”
“You sound even more optimistic than you were a month ago,” I said.
Shimoni: “Quite right. The government is showing that it is confused by our strength, bewildered by the growing rate of opposition to the disengagement plan as shown by public polls, and it simply is not sure what to do. By the way, the city of Ashkelon now has a ‘Red Dawn’ missile alert system just like they do in Sderot, and in addition, the government is beginning to implement a plan to reinforce houses in communities that border on Gaza. Apparently the government is expecting something that it doesn’t want to talk about publicly.”
MK Tzvi Hendel (National Union), a resident of Ganei Tal in Gush Katif, agrees that the government is on the defensive. All talk that the Nitzanim project might not succeed unless people agree now to join it is merely “psychological warfare,” he feels. He wrote as much in a special pre-Sabbath letter to the residents.
There are those who are not as confident, however. Several residents have braved the objections of their friends and neighbors, and in fear for their future, met in recent weeks and days with government officials. “Thanks to the rabbis in Gush Katif,” said one woman, “this has not become a major source of contention. Most of us believe that it is harmful to meet with the government, but many of the rabbis here, such as Rabbi Kaminetzky in N’vei Dekalim and Rabbi Netanel in Atzmona, keep reminding us of our theme, ‘With love, we will win.’ These people are merely showing weakness, nothing more, and therefore we must embrace them. Without their guidance, the atmosphere really might not have been as positive as it is.”
“By the way,” she added, “note that even those so-called ‘realistic’ ones who say that we have to plan for our future, etc. – they’re still here. By any standard, it is inconceivable that none of us have left, given the threat hanging over our heads. The same happened with the mortar shells – people said we should leave, but no one did. There is a fundamental truth that is keeping us all here, connected to our land and people.”
With the date of the scheduled expulsion of thousands of Jews from northern Shomron and Gush Katif only three months away, the Sharon government still has no concrete housing solutions to offer the residents.
Government officials have been meeting with representatives of the residents, and have presented a proposal to build them four new communities in choice real estate in the Nitzanim area, north of Ashkelon.
Ilan Cohen, Director-General of the Prime Minister’s Bureau, said this morning, “No one in his right mind would try to build four communities for only a few dozen families. If we get 1,000 families from Gush Katif to sign their willingness to live there, then we can do it.”
The residents, on the overwhelming whole, treat such threats with disdain. “For one thing,” one influential resident told me, “we don’t need alternative communities; we already have these beautiful communities that we built up with great dedication and camaraderie, and we have no plans to go anywhere.”
When pressed, however, the speaker - Ami Shaked, the security coordinator for the Gaza Coast Regional Council - is willing to add something else: “The Nitzanim project is one big deception. It sounds great on paper, but for one thing, it’s not in Nitzanim [geographically very similar to the Gush Katif coastline sand dune areas – ed.], but rather in the Mesilah area closer to the highway. But more basically: how do they plan to fit in our 23 communities, each one with its own character and so on, into 4? It just doesn’t work. The time frame, of course, is totally unrealistic. They will place us in caravans for months, years? And then, in a few months from now, who will remember us at all? They’ll put families with 10-12 children into little caravans? What will happen afterwards? It has to be made clear to everyone that if this disengagement goes through, the State of Israel is headed for its worst humanitarian disaster ever.”
I met Avner Shimoni, Mayor of the Gaza Coast Regional Council, at a gathering this morning of hundreds of nursery-age children from all over Gush Katif in N’vei Dekalim, in commemoration of this week’s Independence Day holiday. “Prime Minister Sharon says that If 1,000 families don’t sign, you won’t have a place to live,” I said. “What will you do?”
“Sharon knows the truth,” Shimoni responded. “He knows he has no solutions, and therefore, he’s trying to shift the blame onto us. His plan is simply one of deception. There’s no way they can accomplish this in three months, and so instead of admitting this, he blames us. They have no solution; it’s obvious that we will remain here.”
“You sound even more optimistic than you were a month ago,” I said.
Shimoni: “Quite right. The government is showing that it is confused by our strength, bewildered by the growing rate of opposition to the disengagement plan as shown by public polls, and it simply is not sure what to do. By the way, the city of Ashkelon now has a ‘Red Dawn’ missile alert system just like they do in Sderot, and in addition, the government is beginning to implement a plan to reinforce houses in communities that border on Gaza. Apparently the government is expecting something that it doesn’t want to talk about publicly.”
MK Tzvi Hendel (National Union), a resident of Ganei Tal in Gush Katif, agrees that the government is on the defensive. All talk that the Nitzanim project might not succeed unless people agree now to join it is merely “psychological warfare,” he feels. He wrote as much in a special pre-Sabbath letter to the residents.
There are those who are not as confident, however. Several residents have braved the objections of their friends and neighbors, and in fear for their future, met in recent weeks and days with government officials. “Thanks to the rabbis in Gush Katif,” said one woman, “this has not become a major source of contention. Most of us believe that it is harmful to meet with the government, but many of the rabbis here, such as Rabbi Kaminetzky in N’vei Dekalim and Rabbi Netanel in Atzmona, keep reminding us of our theme, ‘With love, we will win.’ These people are merely showing weakness, nothing more, and therefore we must embrace them. Without their guidance, the atmosphere really might not have been as positive as it is.”
“By the way,” she added, “note that even those so-called ‘realistic’ ones who say that we have to plan for our future, etc. – they’re still here. By any standard, it is inconceivable that none of us have left, given the threat hanging over our heads. The same happened with the mortar shells – people said we should leave, but no one did. There is a fundamental truth that is keeping us all here, connected to our land and people.”