A world that is about to vanish

Kfar Darom

Irit Kadmon holds her infant son Yair close to her while watching her family's new hothouses being constructed. The red-haired baby's small head peeps out from underneath the blanket he is wrapped in. Only three weeks old and he has already been recruited for the battle being waged by his parents and Kfar Darom's other inhabitants against what is defined here as the plan to deport Jews from their land.

Hundreds of relatives and friends attended Yair's brit mila (circumcision ceremony), but the joy surrounding his birth was mixed with the participants' sadness. The human drama unfolding in Gush Katif accompanies every occasion here, whether festive or sad. Many area residents still refuse to believe that within a few months, they will be forced to uproot themselves from Gush Katif's soil. Yair's brit was also utilized to settle accounts with the state - especially with its prime minister. Oz, Yair's father, informed his guests that the infant would grow up in Kfar Darom, as would his descendants. "I am certain we will be here forever," he declared. The audience responded with shouts of joy.

This is Irit and Oz's sixth child; they have been living in Kfar Darom for 14 years, ever since their marriage. It has been a labor of love, but also one of rebellion and protest. Irit says she named her son Yair (literally, "he will illuminate") because he "will light the twisted path ahead."

Over the past two months, 12 infants have been born in Kfar Darom, and another four are due shortly. "What does this mean, you might ask?" Irit asks rhetorically, answering, "I will tell you. When people bring babies into the world, it means they have not lost hope. It means they are optimistic about the future. With God's help, we will bring as many babies into the world as we can, so the Jewish people can see how healthy we are and how strong."

Oz gazes at his wife with unconcealed joy. He likes the way she expresses her views so passionately. From time to time he scolds his other children, telling them not to interrupt their mother's political speech. On Monday he took a furlough from reserve duty to supervise the construction of the two new hothouses where he will grow herbs for export.

The old hothouses are piled up like pieces of junk not far from the new ones - like a monument to the immense destruction that occurred here only a few months earlier. Three armed Palestinians, wearing explosive belts, penetrated the Kadmons' hothouses from Dir al-Balah. A Thai worker who happened to be there was fatally shot in the head. His friends escaped a similar fate by hiding in the hothouse refrigerators. Within minutes, soldiers went into action, pursuing the three infiltrators who had hidden among the plants. Giant bulldozers were used: They charged into the hothouses, crushing everything in their way, including the three Palestinians. The explosives they wore blew up. The scene was horrific. The next day Kadmon returned to work his family's lands as though nothing had happened.

For years, Kfar Darom has been considered one of the most dangerous settlements in Gush Katif. However, its residents have apparently developed emotional immunity to their daily dangers. Only 20 meters separate the Kadmons' hothouses from the homes in Dir al-Balah. The Palestinian neighbors stand at their windows, watching the activity taking place right before their eyes. The settlers ignore the neighbors, as if they were a mirage. Years ago, 10 families lived here. As the dangers increased, the demand to live in Kfar Darom grew. Today there are 70 families.

Rebuilding the hothouses, Kadmon stresses the irony of the deceptive reality in which he is living. One day, Defense Ministry assessors arrived to determine the amount he and his wife would receive to rebuild their hothouses. On another day, Defense Ministry assessors arrived to determine the compensation he and his wife would receive after the hothouses' demolition in the context of the disengagement plan.

"I found this absurd," Kadmon says, gazing at his workers. "The army gives money to rebuild and then will give me money to demolish the hothouses. Can you fathom this nonsense?"

He returned from reserve duty full of optimism. His friends in his Paratroop unit, who know where he lives, thumped him on the shoulder, expressing sympathy for his struggle. Some of them promised him that if called upon to uproot settlers, they would refuse. "Even those who believe in the plan, which you call disengagement and which we call deportation," he added. "They treated me so nicely. Nearly all of them are convinced that, in the end, there will be no deportations."

The Kadmons represent the Gaza Strip settlers' hard core: religious Zionists nourished on a love of the Holy Land together with their mothers' milk, who instinctively developed a rebellious attitude toward authority. When the government sent them to settle the territories, they considered it a 100-percent ally. The moment the government changed direction, it was branded with the mark of Cain and became an uprooter of Jews in their eyes. Irit says there are moments - not few or far between - when she concludes that Kfar Darom is the only place on earth she can call home. She considers the disengagement plan a secularist plot against the religious Jewish community.

"What do the secularists have left?" she asks, drawing her head close to that of Yair. "What do they live for? Nothing. But we have the finest children and the best schools. What do the secularists have left, when all is said and done? Only drugs and a burning desire to sell the country at a dirt-cheap price. I feel I have no country to return to. If, God forbid, I am removed from here, where will I go? I no longer feel that Israel is my country."

As if to reinforce her words, Oz asks Alex, a Russian immigrant who lives in Ofakim and works for him, to hold up the new protest signs. They bear the slogan, "Kfar Darom shall not fall again." He had intended to set them up on Gush Katif's main highway, but the army intervened, arguing that the Masada-like message was too extreme. The army's veto has not discouraged him, just as the approaching disengagement is not dampening his spirits.

Oz Kadmon is optimistic because he knows that, at the last moment, a miracle will occur - just as miracles have always occurred since the dawn of history whenever Jews have been in mortal danger. "Look at what happened to the villain Haman," he added. "He was hanged on the very tree he had prepared for Mordechai. The left will also be hanged on the very tree it is preparing for the right."

Kfar Yam

Today Kfar Yam is in a festive mood. It is celebrating the 23rd anniversary of its founding. This microscopic settlement of only two families, located on Gaza's coast, plans to expand. A giant crane gingerly lowers a prefabricated structure onto the ground as if it has just been taken out of a carton. An additional family from the central part of Israel is utilizing Gush Katif's twilight hour to flex its muscles and settle in this community. Palestinian schoolchildren making their way from school to their homes in nearby villages gaze in astonishment at the house being lowered from a great height. Only Sahar Hazani's two pitbull terriers are indifferent to what is going on around them.

Sahar, 28, says he has given his dogs a gentle, calm upbringing, which suits the area's pastoral atmosphere. These dogs have a built-in violent streak, he points out; however, the paradise where they live has neutralized their wild nature. In his eyes and those of his wife Vered's, this is a tiny bit of paradise, despite all the neglect and the atmosphere of abandonment.

"Pitbull terriers are like humans," he explains, suddenly adopting a serious tone. "The way you raise them, that is the way they will behave. I taught them how to relax, thanks to the sounds of the sea. It soothes them. And me."

Sahar and Vered married a few months ago and moved into one of Kfar Yam's two homes. He grew up in Netzer Hazani, she grew up in Bedolah. Their families, waiting for zero-hour, still live in those communities. Nothing could have been more natural for the couple than to continue residing in Gush Katif. Looking for a small, relatively uninhabited place, they landed at Kfar Yam. A few dozen meters away on this beachfront are the prefabs of Shirat Hayam, a four-year-old settlement. It has 17 families.

At high tide, the Mediterranean's waves lap their bedroom window. What a pleasure to awaken to the sound of whispering water. "Where in Israel will we ever find something like this?" Sahar asks. "How can anyone order us to leave such a place? It's beyond my comprehension."

Like most Gush Katif settlers, Sahar and Vered have already accepted the bitter decree as a fact of life. They are currently exploring the possibility of immigrating to Australia or somewhere else that offers solitude and a beachfront - their own private sea, which is what they now have at Kfar Yam. A place where you can get up in the morning, walk 50 meters and wade in the water.

"No compensation payment could ever give us this atmosphere of freedom," says Sahar, sighing. "How could I ever live in an ordinary apartment? Where would I keep my dogs?"

Vered also has worries - but different ones. A disagreement has recently emerged among Gush Katif residents regarding what should be done with those buried in the local cemetery. Some argue that it is forbidden to leave land where Jews are buried, while others maintain that the eternal rest of Jews buried in the cemetery should not be disturbed even if Gush Katif residents are ultimately evacuated.

"My father is buried here, in Gush Katif," Vered explains, whispering. "What will we do with him? We are certainly not going to leave him here with the Arabs. Our family has decided to remove him from here and bury him where his parents are buried - in Rosh Ha'ayin. I am convinced that we will not leave him all alone."

Even the signs that seem to be about to fall to the ground are proof that the residents' struggle against the disengagement plan has lost some of its momentum. The dozens of demonstrations, rallies, human chains, marches and other forms of protest have not stopped the disengagement plan from moving forward. "I feel uncomfortable admitting this," comments Sahar, referring to the Palestinians, "but they have beaten us. They have beaten Sharon and they have beaten the Jewish people. `Disengagement' is the term the media uses. Actually, this is a defeat that will be followed by a withdrawal."

Neveh Dekalim

The protest signs sway in the desert breeze. The strong winds at night have torn off the posters with their messages of protest and rebellion. One gets the impression that the residents' sense of mission has weakened. They apparently acknowledge that Ariel Sharon has defeated them. The extremist, messianic voices cannot conceal the fact that most Gush Katif residents are preparing themselves for "the day after." The compensation payments, the departure, the building of a new life elsewhere.

The feeling that the end is drawing near has brought many visitors to Gush Katif. Some want to express their solidarity with the residents, while a small percentage are simply curious: They want to see what a world that is about to vanish looks like. Gush Katif is a piece of history or a brief adventure that will soon end after more than three decades - after having cost thousands of human lives among Israelis and Palestinians, and tens of billions of dollars.

Here and there one can still signs of a refusal to abandon the fight. Such as the erection of a synagogue, Tiferet Israel, on the sand dunes opposite the settlement of Neveh Dekalim. Like everything in the area, the synagogue was built to perpetuate the memory of Jews killed here by Palestinians. Tiferet Tratner died when a mortar shell hit her home on Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) eve, and Israel Lutati was killed when Palestinians launched a surprise attack on the fortification adjacent to the settlement of Morag.

On weekdays, there are not enough worshipers in this wooden synagogue to constitute a minyan (prayer quorum of 10 men). Only on the Sabbath are there enough. Raziel and Moshe, who attend the Torat Haim Yeshiva in Neveh Dekalim, have arrived this morning to demonstrate solidarity. Raziel is 21 and Moshe is 20. So young, yet they are already disillusioned with Israeli society, the same flawed society that gave Sharon a green light for the disengagement. Their language shows a strong biblical influence and their perception of the world is rooted in classic Jewish sources, which are also expressed in the hope these young people share that Israel will soon be a theocracy. They are praying for the messiah's arrival and for the kind of miracle God always sends in moments of distress. That is what happened in the Six-Day War of June 1967, when the Arab states were about to annihilate Israel and divine intervention brought about the Arab armies' defeat - just as God has always intervened since the world's creation.

"I want to tell you that the miracle of the Six-Day War will be nothing compared to the miracle that is about to happen here," Moshe adds.

"There will be no withdrawal because God will not permit it," states Raziel. "Tell all the secularists and leftists that the redemption will be as immense as the Jewish people's current distress. Ultimately, the redemption will come and the Jewish people will live everywhere in Eretz Yisrael. As the Torah tells us about the redemption, `I the Lord will hasten it in his time [Isaiah 60:22]."

Like nearly all Gush Katif's residents, the two completely rule out the possibility that, should the disengagement plan be implemented, the homes will be left intact. The very thought that Palestinians will occupy the former homes of Gush Katif's Jewish residents turns their stomach. Raziel, a puzzled look on his face, quotes from the Bible (1 Kings 21:19): "Hast thou killed, and also taken possession?'" and his friend Moshe joins in: "It's like giving Yitzhak Rabin's home to Yigal Amir, his assassin."

Gan Or

Debby Rosen, a Gaza Coast Regional Council worker, talks about a message she received on her answering machine. The person asked her to return his call urgently. "You can do me a big favor," he told her when she called him. "I have a two-story home in Afula that would be ideal for a settler slated to be evacuated who wants to leave Gush Katif now. If that is not suitable, I have a beautiful eight-room home in Kiryat Motzkin - with its own elevator."

"How much?" Rosen asked.

"$600,000."

"But that is what three families together will receive in compensation payments!"

"That's okay. Three families could live in that house."

Rosen says that ever since Sharon publicized the disengagement plan, Gush Katif residents have received hundreds of proposals, mainly from real estate agents. Most of the residents have not yet decided where they want to move. Negotiations are still under way concerning compensation and timing. Because of the embarrassment, many people prefer to keep their plans confidential.

Efrat Vanhotzker from Gan Or says her hardest moment was when her 8-year-old daughter, in a voice choked with tears, asked her whether she could take along her little toy monkey and doll.

"I told her, `Of course, you can,'" relates Efrat, who came to Gush Katif immediately following her marriage, at age 20. "I asked her why she was crying and she replied that Sharon wanted her to leave her toys for the Arabs who will come and live here. She also fears that, if evacuated, we will have to sleep outdoors, on the grass."

Efrat is not prepared to disclose where she will live after saying good-bye to her spacious villa. The only thing that really matters to her is that no Palestinian will set foot in her home. She could not care less if bulldozers raze her home. The important thing is that "no Fatma," as she puts it, will sleep in her bedroom and that her home will not be turned into a mosque with a crescent on the roof. "Isn't it enough that I am being deported? Do I also have to see Arabs living in this home?" She then adds: "Although it is very painful for me to say this, if we have to be deported, then all our homes should be demolished."

Like her neighbors in Gan Or and the surrounding area, Efrat is still hoping for a miracle that will prevent the disengagement from going through.

"At this point, only a miracle can save us," says Naftali Yona, Morag's secretary, echoing this sentiment. Immediately following the government's decision to evacuate the settlements, he called a meeting of the stunned residents, informing them that the die had been cast. "My friends," he told them, "we have nothing more to lose. Whoever wants can pray for a miracle."

	In Kfar Yam, a new home is lowered into place for a third family that will settle here on the eve of the disengagement.
	Photo by: Alex Levac