Reflections on a Town Meeting in Gush Katif


Last Monday evening, there was a general meeting of the residents of Neve Dekalim, which lasted until almost midnight. Hundreds of chairs filled the spacious banquet hall, built beneath two of the town's main synagogues, and the crowd filled not only the chairs but standing room in the rear as well. Considering that, exactly two weeks later, on the day after Tisha BeAv, the government plans to arrest and expel us all, the very presence of these throngs, their enthusiasm undimmed, is veritably miraculous. No words can adequately describe it. You gaze into their bright, serenely hopeful eyes, and, if your heart is not of stone, you cannot fail to be awed by their unassuming, unpretentious heroism.

Yet, in a sense, at this point, these people's courage, honed by their perseverance as passive victims of an unrelenting, five-year war of terror, is inevitable. The stress to which the government subjects them constantly, as the day of reckoning approaches, would be deemed, by any other standard, inhumanly unbearable. But these people have already buried, in the young and unnaturally expanded cemetery of Gush Katif, their parents and grandparents and siblings and spouses and children -- victims of Arab terror and government indifference -- and, with them, all their illusions. The government plans to disinter their dead, but their illusions are buried for good. After 6,000 mortar shells and Qassam rockets and dozens of roadside bombs and siper attacks, what could the government possibly do now to frighten them?

Thus, the government's slick, heavily bankrolled propaganda campaign, directed simultaneously at and against the people here, has failed spectacularly. It intended alternately to cajole and browbeat them, to convince or force them to abandon their homes and hopes and submit to the supposedly irrevocable able decree of expulsion from and destruction of Gush Katif. Among its most egregious threats, it warns that anyone remaining after the Tisha BeAv deadline risks abandoning property and belongings and loses a major component of the promised reparations. Nonetheless, the fateful hour is almost upon us, and -- notwithstanding yet another wave of official lies to the contrary -- the people are still here. Specifically, of the 21 towns and villages here, three of the mostly nonreligious ones have indeed reportedly begun to depart for temporary quarters in Nitzan. There, the government claims to have just completed the first 160 of 350 projected ``housing units'' (claiming it will complete the rest by the expulsion date in less than two weeks). The one remaining secular village and the one mixed (religious and nonreligious) village have also made tentative plans to leave. Yet, all the rest, sixteen religious population centers of farmers and working people, comprising the overwhelming majority of the Gush -- including the largest town, the regional center of Neve Dekalim, where we reside -- are firmly in place. All have stalwartly refused to countenance the government's ``offers'' to negotiate the terms for their destruction. Granted, a few families here, after having endured the Arabs' war of terror and the government's campaign of vilification, have tragically succumbed to the overpowering pressure and agreed to negotiate their departure. As was eminently clear at Monday night's meeting, however, the vast majority is here to stay and under no circumstances will even pack, let alone leave voluntarily. If the government persists in its plans, to begin, on the day after Tisha BeAv, exiling the people by force, it will contend not merely with ``stragglers.'' By now, everyone but the most self-absorbed politicians realizes that it will confront towns and villages whose populations -- including nearly all the original residents and thousands of guests like us who have joined them -- are literally bursting. For example, in Neve Dekalim, even the classrooms of the schools are all packed with families here to stay; elsewhere, we see enormous tent neighborhoods, which have sprung up from the sand to accommodate the burgeoning overflow.

Ironically, apart from the unshakable faith of the people in the justice of  their cause, the government has contributed mightily to this phenomenon. First, its brutally antidemocratic and manifestly illegal tactics in quashing any public debate on the so-called ``disengagement'' plan have impacted significantly on public opinion. Once, a majority admittedly favored the plan, opposing only the government's refusal to hold a referendum on an issue of such existential import (considering that it had been elected on an irreconcilably antithetical platform). Today, even left-wing strongholds in Tel Aviv are fuming over the government's flagrant violations of the most fundamental civil liberties and its trampling of all the norms of civility. Most of those who belonged to the silent, ``neutral'' majority -- and even many who had embraced the government's extreme left-wing agenda -- have, in the political vernacular here, ``turned sharply to the right.'' Many have also turned quite literally southward -- to the massive protest in Sederot and Ofakim and the march on besieged Gush Katif. All reliable current polls confirm this dramatic shift. Persistent and proliferating reports that the government's plan is nothing but a scandalous cover-up for corruption at the highest levels, in cahoots with international gambling cartels, obviously exacerbate this dynamism. Any remaining doubters of the extent to which the plan placates the terrorists have also been answered unambiguously by the relentless rocket and artillery barrages; another Qassam rocket was shot at Sederot, in ``little Israel,'' just last Tuesday night. On the contrary, the terrorists who inflicted a five-year war on the civilians here have, predictably, been only emboldened by the prospect of their victims' expulsion. Even so-called ``officials'' of the ``Palestinian Authority'' have emphasized that they will not moderate any demands, including those pertaining to Jerusalem, after the ``disengagement.'' Evidently, their declarations are more trustworthy than those of our government, although hardly anyone believes the latter anymore, anyway. As Abraham Lincoln famously quipped, ``You can't fool all of the people all of the time.''

In addition, as the unfortunate families here who agreed to negotiate their departure have testified, even their willingness to leave the Gush may well be to no avail. Nitzan has already been claimed almost exclusively by nonreligious evacuees. Furthermore, in any case, the most charitable tally of government-provided accommodations -- including in Nitzan -- for those slated for expulsion yields approximately 500 ``housing units'' (mostly prefabricated cubicles, most of which have a total area of 60 square meters -- less than 650 square feet). The total number of families to be expelled from their homes -- many with several young children -- is three and a half times that. Indeed, as you may know, two weeks ago, the Knesset debated several bills that would have postponed the ``disengagement'' on the grounds that no one had provided even minimal living conditions for the intended evacuees. The government successfully orchestrated the motions' defeat on the grounds that those proposing them opposed its plan anyway. (If that ``logic'' baffles you, you are in good company.) It has begun gesticulating furiously that there is room for everyone. Alas, the laws of democracy and decency are easier to defy than those of arithmetic. Even the few families here who were prepared to leave voluntarily have been given nowhere to go. When zoos have been relocated, far more effort was expended to ensure alternative quarters for the animals than the government has invested in consideration for the Jews of Gush Katif.

Will the government nonetheless send its army to drag these men, women, and children from the lands they cultivated and the homes they built with their blood, sweat, and tears and all their life savings -- to dump them in tents in the desert or crowd them into jails? At present, less than two weeks before the edict of expulsion is to take effect, all indications are that the answer is frighteningly affirmative. A terrifying showdown seems all but inevitable. On the one hand, the present government's obstinacy seems boundless. During the standoff in Kefar Maimon, it siphoned so many forces away from the major cities that it knowingly abandoned them to an unprecedented  wave of looting and burglary, in the absence of sufficient police to maintain law and order.  Nothing mattered -- other than preventing the protesters from reaching Gush Katif. Moreover, by now no one doubts that the government will stop at nothing to achieve its goals. There are no depths to which it will not sink, exploiting any available tactic, legitimate or not. On the other hand, the people here will not -- indeed, viscerally cannot -- leave. Most awesome is the children's tenacity. They led their parents last Shabbat in a rousing Se`udah Shelishit and Melaveh Malkah celebration here, in the park adjacent to two of the town's main synagogues, with singing and dancing that penetrated the hearts and cleaved the heavens. Largely thanks to them, our spirits are not flagging.
 

The Question -- the great imponderable -- is: If the government persists in  its collision course with the people, what will happen next? Will the country abide by the government's flagrant disregard for all ethical standards? More pointedly, will soldiers and police officers blindly follow whatever  orders they are given, however criminal -- or follow their consciences, and rise en masse in disobedience? Clearly, the majority have as yet not flouted their orders, let alone joined those opposing the government. But they have also as yet not been forced to perpetrate the unspeakable -- to drive their own people from their homes. At the moment of truth, if the government  attempts to enforce its order of expulsion, no one can anticipate what will happen. As I noted in my last report, indications abound, especially at the roadblocks and in stories from Kefar Maimon, of the soldiers' lack of motivation and commitment to execute the government's decrees. Many who were in Kefar Maimon conceded that they were on the brink of shedding their uniforms and joining the protesters. In approximately a hundred well-publicized cases thus far, soldiers -- including high-ranking officers -- blatantly refused to obey orders and were court-martialed and imprisoned. However, in addition, there have been many documented instances of individuals and even whole companies being quietly transferred away from the Gush by commanders intent on avoiding a public confrontation. I reiterate, as I stressed in my last report, that we, too, do not crave a confrontation, with a consequent breakdown of some of the most fundamental institutions of law and order. Yet, if we have no other choice, we prefer the institutional breakdown to a  breakdown of morality and decency. The alternative -- the inability or unwillingness to draw resolutely an unambiguous ``red line'' that no one may trespass even in the name of the ``law'' -- calls to mind some of the most benighted regimes and darkest periods in human history. Again, as the philosopher Edmund Burke commented, ``Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.''

All this leaves us, especially here in Gush Katif, without illusions but also without despair. We remain determined and still cautiously hopeful. We believe that everyone -- politician and pauper, soldier and civilian -- is endowed with free moral choice. To that extent, all that is certain here is that nothing is certain. Yet, simultaneously, to the extent that one's choices impact on society at large, they are also subsumed in the vast, inscrutable divine plan unfolding in the world. As expressed by Rabbi Akiva, while ``license is given,'' ``all is foreseen'' (Avot 3:15). Ultimately, as Proverbs observes, ``From G-d are man's goings; how can a person understand his way?'' (20:24). Even more so, ``Like water courses is a king's heart in G-d's hand; wherever He wishes, He directs it'' (21:1). On the most elemental level, then, everything is subsumed in that inscrutable plan; there are no foregone conclusions. Furthermore, Jewish history testifies to the words of Jonathan, son of King Saul, ``There is no restraint upon G-d to save by many or by few'' (Samuel I 14:6). As I noted in my last report, we repeatedly invoke the Talmudic dictum, ``Even if a sharp sword is put to a person's throat, he should not withhold himself from [beseeching G-d for] mercy'' (Berachot 10a). In Rabbi Yehudah Avida's famous formulation, ``G-d's salvation is in the twinkling of an eye'' (Minchah LiYehudah, pp. 27-8). The people  here feel that they have been sustained providentially, incessantly, by miracles, during the long terror war that they have endured. As speaker after  speaker reiterated at Monday night's general meeting, we have learned by experience to believe earnestly in miracles -- even as we acknowledge that we have no guarantee of yet another one now.

The main question, as always, is not ``What will be?'' but ``What will we do?'' In practical terms, it is, painfully, a moral imperative today to do anything you can, both in Israel and abroad, to embarrass, discredit, and delegitimize this government. It was elected on false pretenses, it no longer represents the will of its citizens, and it has no right to rule over them by brute force. In addition, it is incumbent upon everyone with a clear sense of right and wrong to reach out to our confused brothers and sisters, especially in the army and police. We must help them realize the enormity of the government's plot and the moral implications of even indirect, tacit complicity with such evil. More generally, whatever you do to support the people of Gush Katif and northern Samaria -- and the tens of thousands of protesters in Sederot, Ofakim, and elsewhere -- obviously strengthens their hands and weakens those who oppose them. If you can, by all means join them. Hundreds continue to pour into the Gush daily, from throughout Israel and the Diaspora, often with the tacit assistance of supportive soldiers. Above all -- although not at the exclusion of tangible efforts -- pray for us. Recite one more psalm, study another page of Torah, and do an extra good deed, on behalf of the beleaguered defenders of Gush Katif, the people of Israel, and the forces of justice and decency in the world. MOST OF ALL, DO SOME THING NOW! The decisive moment of reckoning is at hand. Reiterating Burke, ``All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing .'' Only by our doing everything incumbent upon each of us, we may hope to merit the divine blessings that will crown all our efforts, individually and collectively, with success.
 

For almost a quarter century, the author has taught at various yeshivot in Israel and lectured extensively on Jewish thought and Jewish philosophy throughout Israel and the US. As founding editor of the OU journal Jewish Thought, he also wrote and edited numerous essays in these fields. He currently teaches at the Seymour J. Abrams Orthodox Union Jerusalem World Center and in the Torah Lecture Corps of the IDF Rabbinate (res.). When he is not living in Gush Katif, he lives in Jerusalem with his wife and three sons.