Acting Out of Faith

[Journalist Micah Halpern participated in the Israel Resource News Agency press seminar which toured the Jewish community of Katif in Gaza in early April. Here are his thoughts -db]

Unrealistic.

How can I best describe the Jewish residents of Gaza? As unrealistic.

Believers.

How do the Jewish residents of Gaza describe themselves? As believers.

The Jewish community in Gaza today is still living an unrealistic dream. For the most part, they are unprepared to leave. They believe in their mission. They believe that, somehow, a miracle will occur and save them from the evil that everyone else predicts will befall them. They actually pray that God save their country from its leaders.

I’ve been to Jewish Gaza many times. I was there before it was a flourishing series of communities. I was there when Bill Clinton came to visit. I was there during troubled times and I’ve been there to vacation on the beach.

What I experienced just a few days before Passover on what will probably, necessarily, realistically, be my last trip to Jewish Gaza was different from all other visits. Each visit is like a slap in the face. Those people who have chosen to live in Gaza have done so because of their faith, because of their commitment, because they believe in their mission of settling the land. I have always found these pioneers to be truly inspiring.

This time, when all their hope should be lost but isn’t, rather than inspire me, the Jewish residents of Gaza saddened me.

Their mission is now futile. They are doing way too little and doing it way too late. The die has already been cast. The meetings in Washington and Jerusalem have been concluded. They will be leaving their homes. Ready of not, reality is coming.

Had the men and women now clinging to their homes, their land, their businesses, the graves of their loved ones been more realistic they might have been able to mount a serious campaign. Had they been more realistic, they might have been able to open the eyes of many Israelis to their pioneering mission. But they didn’t. And now, despite the millions of donor dollars, mainly US dollars, flowing in to support their right to continue living in their homes they will not to continue to live there.

Pe’at Sadeh is the exception to the Gaza rule. The residents of this community have agreed, with one voice, to evacuate and receive a relocation settlement. Do they want to leave? No, they do not. But if they must, they will. And they will be properly compensated for their loss. In the words of one Pe’at Sadeh resident, the settlement is the life insurance policy they are leaving for their children.

Iris Hamo, a 40 year-old mother of four showed tremendous maturity and heroism by taking this deal. She is not only leaving the home she has built for her children, she is leaving the original burial plot of a fifth child child, a four year-old killed in a car accident. Her baby will be re-intered in Israel proper after the redeployment. Preparing to forcibly leave your home is heart breaking, exhuming the grave of your child is soul wrenching.

The rest of the Gaza settlers see the Hamo family and their Pe’at Sadeh neighbors as traitors to the cause. Everyone else believes that Pe’at Sadeh has negotiated a deal with the devil, with the government that is deporting these families from their homes. Note the use of the word “deporting”, it is not lightly chosen. It is precisely and deliberately used to invoke historical memories of Germany.

I’m always aware of security and possible terror. It’s my job. And on this, my last trip to Jewish Gaza before the redeployment begins, all the proper safety precautions were in place for me and for my travel companions. An illusion of security was created for us by David Bedein and by his organization, Israel Media Resource Center.

But I know the truth. And any visitor to Jewish Gaza can see the tanks and armored personnel carriers planted on corners. So was I surprised when one very vocal resident proclaimed that Palestinian terror was not her inconvenience, but having to wait for secure army escorts in order to enter or leave her community was what inconvenienced her? No, I wasn’t. This women is and will continue to be convinced or her right to live in Jewish Gaza.

She has faith in God. I found that to be very striking.

Each community representative I met with vowed not to resist or fight the army. Each representative also made it clear that they really did not think they would be relocated. Like Hannah and her father Hannan who was evacuated from the Jewish Sinai settlement of Yamit in the 1980’s, they each refused even to confront the possibility that they were going to be forced to leave their homes in the name of an international treaty.

But they will.

Uprooting people from their homes in the hope of peace pulls at your heartstrings. Uprooting them without a peace agreement is an act of faith. It is an act of faith that the government of Israel has agreed on. It is an act of faith that the majority of Israel supports.

This piece ran on www.micahhalpern.com on April 25th, 2005