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| Lior and Orit Kalfa, sitting with their children, say they are still optimistic, but complain that the government doesn’t care about the settlers’ ‘day-after.’ “Nothing is ready for us, unless the state plans to erect a refugee camp inside the Green Line. Where will they transfer the cemetery to?” Lior asks. | Shaya Yaron, the owner of a busy garage in Neveh Dekalim, says, “I personally tend to believe that just as the idea of the disengagement was born without any rationale behind it, it will die away and be forgotten.” | Naomi and Martin Granot run a sewing factory at the edge of Rafiah Yam, employing about 40 Palestinians. “I don't believe and I don’t accept that the disengagement will ever happen,” Naomi explains. “I don’t think the disengagement is worth the risk.” |
The entrance to the Gush Katif settlement bloc in the Gaza Strip is thickly strewn with barbed wire, cement blocks and army posts. Crossing the checkpoint you enter a road fenced in from all sides. Every few kilometres a tank stands on a hill with its turret turned toward the Palestinian houses overlooking the route.
Tami Moyal owns a small kiosk at the Kissufim crossing into Gush Katif, and prides herself on being on the front line together with the soldiers she loves so much. “I have seen so many boys going through this crossing and never returning,” Tami tells me while pointing toward the distant coast line where the settlements are.
Until a few months ago, the cement walls, barbed wire fences and tanks were the dividing line between the Palestinians and the Israelis living in the Gaza Strip. But today these fences seem to have taken on a different purpose, and now symbolize the division between Israel and the Gush Katif settlements, all of which are slated for evacuation several months from now.
At the southern end of the Gush Katif bloc, several hundred metres from the Palestinian town of Rafah, is the settlement of Rafiah Yam, where about 25 families live. This tiny community is known as a bastion of secular opposition to the disengagement plan in the Strip. Naomi and Martin Granot run a sewing factory at the edge of Rafiah yam, employing bout 40 Palestinians.
“Business is booming today. We manufacture for companies in Israel and abroad,” Naomi says showing me around the factory.
Naomi and Martin arrived in 1981 from the town of Ashkelon situated to the north of the Gaza Strip. “We were looking for a change and we liked this place. We came for the sea, and to establish ourselves financially,” Naomi says. She looks over the bustling factory floor with a sigh, “This is our life’s work and has taken 20 years to build. When you do something with your own hands it changes everything. Here I learnt to understand the connection between man and land.”
She shrugs her shoulders when asked about the government’s plan to evacuate her home.
“I don't believe and I don’t accept that the disengagement will ever happen,” Naomi explains. “If this sacrifice led to a full and real peace I would be ready to pay the price and leave my home here. Only time will tell if this is what will happen, but I don’t think the disengagement is worth the risk.”
Even the Palestinians aren’t interested in the disengagement, she says with assurance. “The Palestinians come here to earn a living. They won’t have all this when we leave. The corruption in the Palestinian Authority will take everything away from them. How will a Palestinian state help them? They want to bring home a salary at the end of each month. They know the Jews can take care of them,” she says aloud, knowing that her workers can hear her.
She grabs Issam, who is responsible for the workers, by the arm and says proudly, “We have work and personal contact with the Palestinians here. Some I’ve known for 10 years. We talk politics together and I don’t hide anything from them. There is a real feeling of a family. Our workers have twice saved our lives from terrorists.”
When pushed to imagine how she sees the day after the pullout, if it really arrives, Naomi’s face suddenly turns grave and sad. She has no idea what she will do after the disengagement. “I don’t have any profession – so what if I receive compensation – this is a mockery. The most important thing is to earn a living – I can’t imagine myself living without work.”
She says that no official body such as the Disengagement Administration has contacted any of the Rafiah Yam settlers to discuss the details of the evacuation. “Our aim is to move out collectively – we haven’t contacted anyone yet and we certainly won’t. I intend to fight until the last minute for the sake of my three children. This is where my family belongs. We won’t be evacuated easily from here,” she says emphatically.
“But everything will take place within the law,” she quickly adds.
Recent reports in the press have spoken of a large number of die-hard settlers, prepared to use violence against the evacuating forces, but Naomi says she will not be among those, if they even exist. As we speak, the Palestinian workers look curiously at their boss, who by now can’t hide her frustration at the thought of leaving this place.
“I think the state has turned its back on us,” she says angrily after a long silence. “This is a real betrayal. When we got here we rented a restaurant that was burnt down by Palestinian terrorists. We really appreciated Sharon when he came to visit. The Katif bloc supported him, everyone here voted for him. But now he doesn’t dare come to speak to us.”
The arid coastline north of Rafiah Yam is dotted with hothouses filled with fine crops, a source of pride for the settlers. Farmers here don’t know what to do anymore; the state hasn’t told them anything about their future, a farmer from the settlement of Gadid says. “Should we prepare the hothouses for next year? Should we start building new ones outside the Strip?”
Abandoned by the state In Neveh Dekalim, the biggest settlement in the Strip where some 500 families live, the orange anti-disengagement banners now hang loosely off the signposts and walls of the settlement’s commercial centre, which seems deserted. The feeling is that most people here have resigned themselves to their fate and sadly accept the fact they will have to leave their homes.
Lior and Orit Kalfa are still optimistic, but complain that the government doesn’t care about the settlers’ ‘day-after.’
“Nothing is ready for us, unless the state plans to erect a refugee camp inside the Green Line. Where will they transfer the cemetery to?” Lior asks.
Oriel, Lior’s five-year-old son, sits on his lap, wearing an orange T-shirt with a slogan against the pullout on it. Their five young children, like everyone in Neveh Dekalim, are also harnessed to the struggle, Orit tells me. “The kids know what will happen; they join demonstrations with enthusiasm, wear orange clothes,” she says.
The Kalfas arrived here eight years ago from the nearby town of Sderot after Lior received a job with the local council. He is responsible for the community’s high-school, and now helps youngsters understand what is going to happen during and after the disengagement. “We try to explain to our youth that there is a leader, the God almighty, who could wish such a thing. Our youth is torn – it is very hard to explain that the prime minister that always used to come and inaugurate buildings in our community, has now made a 180-degree turn against us.”
“There is no empathy or sympathy from the government toward us. They just don't care about us,” Orit says looking at her children sitting with us. She admits she has a lot of anger toward the state.
“[Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon doesn’t dare speak to our public; he knows he’s done wrong, and the fact is that he hasn’t visited us even once since he decided on the disengagement,” Lior says. "Despair has penetrated our nation. The leadership, instead of pulling the nation out of its despair, has joined in and I am scared.”
How will you react when you are asked to leave?
“God forbid, we will wait until the last day, we will fight and won’t leave our house willingly, but we will not raise our hands against the troops.”
Their red-roofed house, like many others in the bloc, has been hit by one of the numerous Qassam rockets fired by Palestinians during more than four years of conflict. Inside, the rented house is bare, with just a few necessary pieces of furniture. Lior tells me they had to put the building of their permanent house in Neveh Dekalim on hold.
“But not because of the disengagement,” Lior assures me with a smile. “It’s because we don’t have enough money to finish the project.”
Lior and Orit insist that the moment they find the money, they will resume building, which shouldn’t take more than two months to complete. “So come back in a few months for the house warming,” they say.
The heart of the Jewish world
A huge cement wall towers over the Neveh Dekalim industrial zone, blocking any view of the adjacent Palestinian town of Khan Yunis. Shaya Yaron, in his 50s, is the owner of a busy garage here. He warmly invites me into his office.
He’s lived in Neveh Dekalim for 18 years together with his wife and four children. His oldest daughter is now married and lives in Petah Tikva, near Tel Aviv, far away from the eye of the storm, he says.
“We didn’t come here for any ideological reason. But with time you learn to identify with the place,” he says.
Shaya doesn’t waste any time and bluntly declares, “I personally tend to believe that just as the idea of the disengagement was born without any rationale behind it, it will die away and be forgotten.
“But whatever the outcome of the disengagement, if it happens, it will only be for the best. Whether it is done democratically or not, with or without a referendum, the result will be excellent,” he says with satisfaction.
“We [the Gush Katif settlers] were chosen to be the pawn in the struggle for Israel. Even if we are forced to leave, it’s only for the best, because then every Jew will have to make his own personal reckoning.”
Shaya keeps a very stern appearance and does not give away any sign of doubt in his words.
“There is something unique in Israel and the Jewish Nation and Gush Katif is here to underscore this point. Without all the settlements we wouldn't have been here,” he says when one of his Palestinian workers enters his office to tell him he won’t be coming to work tomorrow. “No problem,” Shaya replies.
“The impact of the disengagement will influence Jews all over the world,” Shaya continues. “The settlers are the core that changes the perception of all the Jews in the world.
“From the bad, we learn to see the good. A strong man will know how to extract the good from this situation,” he says.
He takes me outside the garage and shows me with unconcealed joy his 1960-era Volvo he had lovingly restored himself. The workers are now closing and getting ready to return to their homes in Khan Yunis, on the other side of the cement wall.
What will you tell your family and children when the order to evict arrives? “I will accept the state’s decision and I will do whatever it tells me quietly,” he says.
And how will you see Israel after the disengagement?
“The question is not how I will see the state after such a thing, but how I will see you,” he says pointing at me. “I need to do a lot of thinking to teach Israelis and Jews what is the value of Eretz Israel. This is a national task.
“I was destined for Eretz Israel. I was born here and I will die here. When we die we take nothing with us – the question is what we leave behind for the generations that follow,” he concludes. We are now standing in the centre of the empty garage, and the prayers of the Muezzin from a nearby mosque can be heard.
At the gate to Neveh Dekalim I meet a young man waiting for a ride. Grabbing his skullcap that’s flying in the wind, he asks, “Are you going outside?”
“Yes – outside,” I say, ‘outside’ to the other side of the barbed wire fences that separate Gush Katif from the rest of the world.
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