Israel Speaks
On the Southern part of the coast of Israel there is Gaza Strip.
In the center of it there is Gaza City home to 1,5 million Palestinians.
Starting from the 1970's 21 Jewish agricultural settlements
were built in the area.
This settlement bloc was called Gush Katif.
In August 2005 the Israeli government decided to demolish these settlements
and evacuate all of the 8000 residents.
Most of them were placed in temporary settlements
to wait for the building of new homes.
The biggest of these settlements is Nitzan which was established
on the Mediterranean coast around 20 km North of the Gaza Strip.
One of Nitzan's residents is Kobi Burstein who was evacuated here
with his family.
We moved to Gush Katif with 3 children
and there we had 3 more children.
In the beginning it was a very big change for us, -
because we moved from the green Galilee
to the sand dunes close to the coast.
We fell in love with the place, the people, -
the simplicity as well as the good neighbor relations that people had.
Gush Katif had a very peaceful atmosphere and life moved slowly.
The sea in the background calmed us all the time.
In the midst of this, we had to cope with the increasing
terror attacks. During those years we faced terror against civilians.
You could get ambushed and shot while driving on the street.
Our friends and our children's friends died.
Later on mortar shells were shot at our houses.
There was no peaceful moment, because we lived under
continuous threat.
My wife is a social worker and I was volunteering in an
organization supporting the families in crises.
After every attack we helped the families of the victims; -
no one had to cope with it alone.
During all those years of terror me and my wife were very involved
in helping the community.
We raised our children in the midst of it.
We saw them playing on the grass and hoped that everything will be fine.
We believed that God would protect us. When we do our part, -
He will do His.
Therefore, the residents of Gush Katif felt that they were in the
hands of God.
God is the only one who protects us.
Sometimes we can forget it and think that money, the government
or the army can help us. Nothing helped me here.
I had to do what God wanted me to do and pray for protection.
I will do my part and let God do what He wants.
This is how we grew up in Gush Katif.
It developed strength in us, because we had to cope with
and overcome our fears.
All daily tasks required a lot of faith and making choices.
Nothing is given.
I don't fear terrorism and I won't let terrorists take over me.
Every choice is ideological. I choo- se to live the way I believe is right.
This choice guides me every moment - while driving on the road or
in every activity that I do.
Yigal Kaminetsky worked as the rab- bi of Gush Katif for over 20 years.
Being a rabbi of a small settlement means taking care of the problems
of private people from morning till night.
24 hours, 7 days a week. This is what being a rabbi is.
There are private, relational, family and community problems.
A person falls or he has difficulties. Everything is brought to the rabbi.
Particularly, when we were a war zone for 20 years.
We buried half a per cent of the population.
You can compare that to other regions.
We had to live in this reality.
Nonetheless, no family left because of security reasons.
My job was to tell the families of the victims, which was not
easy at all. I was with the widows and orphans.
In this reality people had to gather strength for living.
Of course, when they started talking about dismantling the settlement, -
the people became stressed.
There was a war going on in the front and in the back.
The terror didn't cease even for a moment and there was the danger
of giving up.
Sending the children off to school in the morning was unthinkable, -
but life had to go on normally.
Despite the difficult circumstances, the people survived with honor.
When the state of Israel decided to evacuate
the residents of Gush Qatif, we had to decide how we will cope with it.
Again we decided to do what God wants us to do.
We resisted as much as we could, however, without separating ourselves
from the nation of Israel.
We have a nation that God chose and brought to the land of Israel.
It was prophecied that the nation of Israel will return home.
It's not about private people's homes, but because it's good for
Israel and the entire world that the nation of Israel lives
in the land of Israel.
I cannot fight against my own people.
I can shout: Open your eyes, it's dangerous, it's not what God wants.
We did what we could, up until that limit.
Unfortunately, something else happened. God chose something else
and with great sadness we had to leave our homes.
We didn't know at all what was waiting for us.
We said: God, we are doing our part, what will happen, let it be.
We lived in a contradiction.
On the one hand, we continued living as if there would be no evacuation.
On the other hand, we understood that it could be possible.
We continued our lives, continued building and developing.
On the other hand, we fought.
The battle was balancing between the will to resist and fight
and, on the other hand, the danger of civil war.
We as leaders of Gush Katif were not responsible only for Gush Katif
but also for maintaining the unity of the people.
If I look back, I don't see any other way of how we could've acted.
What else could we have done?
The pain comes with us.
Something here goes against the nature.
The nation of Israel returned home, why should it be uprooted again?
It hurts when you stand against your soldiers.
You are also a soldier in the reserve.
You want your son to respect the army, but suddenly you are against
your soldiers. In stead of embracing each other, you fight each other.
It hurts, because this is your land and you are rooted in it.
It hurts to see what happens to your children, your family and friends.
This is the most bitter pain I've ever felt.
The government of Israel establis- hed Nitzan in order to settle there
part of the families evacuated from Gush Katif.
Hundreds of temporary barracks were set up in the Eastern part of the
settlement. In the Western part permanent houses were being built
for the families.
We had a few options, but eventually we decided to move as a community.
It was important for us and for our children.
Only by helping each other, could we move forward.
For a community of our size the state managed to find this place.
That's how we decided to come here.
The place also reminds a little bit of Gush Katif, because behind the hill
you can see the sea and sand dunes.
It gives me a little bit of the feeling of home.
It was important for me that I can see the sea from my roof.
Because of delays due to different reasons most of the families
still live in temporary houses 5 years after the evacuation.
Laurence Beziz and her family lived in their farm in Gush Katif for 19 years
before being evacuated to Nitzan.
We thought about how to plant trees. Is it my land or not?
I decided to plant them in a big jar; they are on the ground but movable.
They are landless, just like me, until we are on our own land.
I hope this time will pass by fast.
Today, thank God, we can see light in the end of the tunnel.
We needed a lot of strength from God to be able to do all this.
As a family, father, parents and as a community we have walked
a very long road for these 5 difficult years.
We decided we will not leave anyone behind.
The whole community has to come here, even if it's hard.
We thought it would take 2 years.
The state committed to making this an agricultural area in 2 years.
It has been 5 years.
Every day we have to be strengthened and pray to God for more strength.
I'm happy that even though we are so tired, we always pray God
to give us more strength, and we will have a prosperous community.
An information center about the Jewish settlements of Gush Katif
has been opened in Nitzan.
Although the Gaza Strip moved to the hands of the Palestinians, -
many of the Jewish evacuees believe they will one day return there.
All Israelis live in places surrounded by Arabs.
But God promised this land to us.
It is the most natural, rightful place for the Jewish people.
In Gush Katif we can see it very clearly.
There is a promise in the Torah that the land of Israel
will bring fruit only when the people of Israel will be in the land.
When the nation of Israel is here, the land flourishes.
During the thousands of years that we weren't here, the land was
deserted, but when we came back it bore fruit.
Gush Katif was an area of sand dunes, there was no farming or settlements.
When we came, suddenly the land started bringing forth fruit.
The vegetables and fruits of Gush Katif were of high quality.
They were exported to the entire world.
The land of Israel embraced us.
The Arabs who came there cannot succeed in cultivating the land.
This is written in our books and it's happening before our eyes.
The land is waiting for us. This is our land.
Everything starts from the right of the people of Israel to this land.
God said to Abraham: Leave and go to the land that I will show you.
This is our land, the promised land and the right to exist from God.
It's about the right, not about borders or necessity.
It's not essential whether we have a choice or not.
According to the promise, the nation of Israel belongs
to the land of Israel.
We have believed and prayed, had to leave and come back.
We were gone for 2000 years, but re- turned by the power of God's promise.
Gush Katif is a part of Israel and its promised borders.
We will return, whatever the government decides.
We need patience.
The nation of Israel has already gone through all the persecutions, -
the Holocaust and the reigns of different nations.
Where are all the empires and where is the nation of Israel?
Where is ancient Egypt and Assyria, where are Babylonia and Rome?
I don't want to mention the British Empire, the Soviet Union or the USA.
Our nation has survived against all odds and the laws of history.
There are 3 conditions for a nation's survival: country, common culture
and language.
Without any of these the nation of Israel managed to return to the
land of Israel.
Only a blind person cannot see this.
No one can stop it.
We will return to Gush Katif. We, our children or our grandchildren.
This has been promised to us.
I will make them and the places around My hill a blessing and I will cause
showers to come down in their season; they will be showers of blessing.
Also the tree of the field will yield its fruit and the earth will yield
its increase, and they will be secure on their land. Then they will know that
I am the LORD, when I have broken the bars of their yoke and have delivered
them from the hand of those who enslaved them. -Ez. 34:26-27
Translation: Sonja Mattayev