OPERATION  DIGNITY  DILEMMA
                  
When does dignity begin and when does it take second place to need? Who are the people in need? Are they the shouters, the whiners, the shirkers, or are they the quiet people often too proud to ask for help? These are the problems I ponder as I am suddenly pressed for cash gifts.

When we were at the hotel stage following our expulsion from Gush Katif people were in desperate straits. Having left the Gush with only the most basic needs in their luggage they were also stranded without cash to purchase simple items. So the people of Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria came with toothbrushes, pajamas, shoes and socks, and for the first Shabbat white shirts for our men. And so Operation Band Aid came into being. People brought and sent cash and we gave out the money as quickly as possible. There was no question of need. The money was handed out equally. The Band Aid Fund became OPERATION DIGNITY, a non-profit organization with new needs to fill. As families left the hotels and came to live in the ‘caravillas’ of Nitzan and Yad Binyamin an envelope containing NIS 1000 was given to each family – to help the folks get started in their new environment. We are so grateful that you, the people out there, sent us your gifts of money.

Now OPERATION DIGNITY is experiencing a dilemma. The fund has been given a new task. This task is whether to respond to a request for money from those families that had voluntarily left Gush Katif before the actual expulsion. They, too, want the NIS 1000. They feel it is their right, as residents of Neve Dekalim, to receive this cash gift. They claim they are just as deserving a those who were forcibly evicted. Is this a case of deserving or a case of need? Do people who deliberately signed away their homes to the government and moved away without so much as a token fight deserve the aid of OPERATION DIGNITY? There are two Nitzans, those who left under their own volition with their belongings intact and sums of money from the government in the bank, and those who were physically ejected with their belongings locked in containers and their pockets empty. We call the first group the ‘vatikim’, the old-timers, a euphemism for those who physically left early, and the ‘hadashim’, the new-comers, those who stayed until the end.

I’ve learned since coming here that the ‘vatikim’ have been left with their own scars and a deep sense of betrayal. There are different people. Some simply wanted out; take the money, take the caravilla, and ideology be damned. Some did not wish to expose their children to the horror of soldiers and police dragging them and their parents from their home. Some left as a majority of their farm community had decided as a group to leave together. Others just gave up. In Neve Dekalim, the largest of the communities, the vast majority remained until the end ignoring all government offers and threats. Out of 550 families, 40 left. Today the problem of those who left early remains with us. Many of those who left found themselves cheated by the government. Many did not receive fair compensation or employment. The first caravillas were shoddily made. Water seeped out of shower stalls, toilets overflowed, roofs leaked, mud surrounded each home, hot water and electricity were sporadic. A food outlet was non-existent. Families with four children were closeted into 60 meter caravillas. Today each family receives a 90 meter caravilla, with 120 meters for larger families. But worse is their own sense of shame. We hear over and over again, “What are we? Second-class citizens?” The government not only betrayed them but has robbed them of their dignity and self-worth. Their children are often ashamed of them. They suffer deeply.

OPERATION DIGNITY responded with gifts of NIS 1000 to all. Those who did not ask for help received their gift first. Many were in desperate need but did not ask. The
shouters received their money last.  Passover, the holiday of freedom, is upon us. The families of Gush Katif – the ‘vatikim’ and the ‘hadashim’ – are in need. The special foods for Passover are expensive. OPERATION DIGNITY, along with other funds, is determined to give all the families NIS 500 for Passover needs. NIS 500 is US$110. The mitzvah of kimche d’paschah, money for Passover, is required of us all. All the Gush Katif funds are banding together to help each family.

Please send your kimche d’paschah as quickly as possible. Earmark checks “Operation Dignity – Passover Fund”. May we all have a kosher and peaceful Passover.  

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GUSH KATIF IS A GHETTO! 

The noose is tightening around the people of Gush Katif. A month before the it scheduled expulsion the army and the police have been given the go-ahead  to put Gush Katif under closed military rule. The area must be 'sterilized', kept clean of visitors so that it will be easier to go from house to house cleansing the area of Jews.

"I'm filled with shame," L wept. "They are humiliating me. My country is doing this to me. I no longer live in Israel. I need a magnetic card to get in and out of my home. I'm examined and questioned at three different checkpoints. The cars are backed up. Tour buses are turned away. Buses filled with elderly women are told they cannot visit Gush Katif for the day. We have to call a special number to ask permission for a family member to visit. And it takes twelve hours until we get that precious permission. "Restrictions, red tape, begging, pleading with the army. The police beat our children. What country is this? Do you know, Rachel, that a policeman gets a bonus of 18,000 shekels for working on the 'disengagement'? Imagine, "chai" shekels to destroy the lives of decent people. What kind of Jewish policeman would take this money?"  I met C at the health clinic. Her shoulder was broken. "I can't get out. The roads are blocked and I need to get to the hospital. How can Israel do this to me? I come from France. Sharon tells the Jews of France to come live in Israel so they will be safe from attack. And now I am treated like a criminal. Chirac is not expelling his Jews but Sharon is expelling fifty French families from Gush Katif." One of our bus drivers walked in to the health clinic, fuming. "I drove my bus to one checkpoint. I was checked, as were all of my passengers. Same thing at the second checkpoint. By the time we got to the third checkpoint I became enraged. I parked in the middle of the road, took my bags and walked off the bus leaving the passengers behind. The soldiers ran after me. I told them I refuse to continue playing their game. 'Okay', they said, 'take your bus and go.' So I did." "Is this how Jews in Europe felt when restriction after restriction was placed on them? When their enemies attacked them at will and the authorities did nothing? Now I understand what is meant by 'a ghetto'." A few nights ago at our Town Hall meeting we were told about the three-day march scheduled to begin Monday, July 18th. Thousands will start the trek from the southern city of Netivot to Gush Katif.  The Sharon government is terrified that these thousands will enter the Gush and remain, making the planned expulsion of Jews from Gush Katif that much harder - thus the early closure of the roads. May the Almighty empower the Good with the strength to overcome the massed  forces of Evil.

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THE  ADL:  LEGAL  VS.  MORAL

I received an article by Mr. Abraham Foxman that appeared in the Haaretz newspaper. Mr. Foxman is the National Director of the Anti-Defamation League. The ADL-The Anti Defamation League, was established to seek out all forms of anti-Semitism and bring them to light.  In short, to fight for the rights of Jews throughout the world. But there is one place the ADL has declared off limits — Israel,  and especially the systematic home by home expulsion of innocent Jews in Gush

Katif.  Mr. Foxman finds the expulsion edict passes the test of democracy and legality.  He writes that it is “a fulfilling of the Zionist dream of Jewish sovereignty through its institutions of democratic government.” Apparently Mr. Foxman has forgotten that our prime minister hires and fires cabinet ministers by whim, bribes political parties and brought his defeated political opponents into a government that would vote for Jewish ouster. Yes, it may be legal. But is legal the equivalent of moral? Historically the Jews of the world were expelled by legal decrees. But the edicts were morally wrong. Is it moral to watch, as I do, the tears of adult males as they weep over trees they planted or the farm they had tended until the crops began to grow? Is it moral to ask mothers to disinter the corpses of their beloved sons and daughters? Is it moral to pull mezuzot from doorposts, bulldoze synagogues and destroy yeshiva buildings? Would ADL allow this to happen in any other part of the world without a storm of protest? Mr. Foxman, the Anti-Defamation League endorsed the ‘disengagement’ plan. Will you be drinking your second cup of coffee as you sit in front of your tv watching CNN report on the destruction, one by one, of Jewish communities? Will the ADL receive an “Organization of the Year” award while Jewish parents grasping infants are pushed onto waiting buses?

 Were ADL employees putting stamps on envelopes filled with requests for funds while you endorsed the edict of Jewish expulsion? Excuse me if I ask these questions. I am just a grandmother. And no one gives me awards for living under incessant bombardment. I see my husband holding on, grasping at straws of hope with his remaining three fingers. He gave his right arm in the Yom Kippur War and two of his remaining fingers as a victim of Arab terror.  We are the symbolic Jew. The Jew who left America to come home to live as a free people in our land of Israel. A Jew ready to sacrifice for Israel’s existence. A Jew who went to settle the Biblical homeland of Israel. I see the pain in my people – my people of Gush Katif and my people of Israel. The sovereign state of Israel should not be rewarding their brave Jews with expulsion. Come to Gush Katif, Abraham Foxman. Come to where your father Abraham walked and dug his wells. Meet the people whose expulsion you endorsed and then speak about the word legal.  Indeed, legal is not moral.

STANDOFF  AT  KFAR  MAIMON

Thousands of police and soldiers stood in the hot sun, arms linked. They formed a human barrier caging in the tens of thousands of brave Jews who had gathered in the small northern Negev town of Kfar Maimon, the staging ground on the trek to Gush Katif. The Jews of Israel – secular and religious, young and old, singles and families – had come from every part of Israel to protest the expulsion of the people of Gush Katif. The government had given orders to pull bus drivers from the buses ferrying the protestors to the town of Netivot for the opening rally. And the protestors became angry and the anger turned into rage. The rights of a citizen to travel from place to place had been trampled upon. Democracy in Israel had failed its people. So they took their cars and many took to their feet. And they marched step by step to the Negev. Dr. Arye Eldad, a member of the Knesset, exhorted the people: “If you have  no bus, come by car, by foot, by rail. But come!” And they did. Despite the physical barriers put up by the army and the endless checkposts  put up by the police, the people came and came and came. Struggling with backpacks, baby carriages and strollers, children on their  shoulders, a sea of people swept into Netivot and then trudged to Kfar Maim on for the night.

Day 2, Tuesday, July 19: The villagers of Kfar Maimon welcomed the people into their homes to rest and shower and use their facilities and eat cooked food. Many residents drove up and back between their village and Netivot, giving lifts to the weary. The protestors sang, danced, held Torah lessons and rested under the trees. Police and soldiers could only stand arms linked and stare at the joy around them. They could not rest, they could not learn Torah. They could only do the cruel job they had been assigned. The misery on their faces reflected far more than their discomfort at the heat.

Day 3, Wednesday, July 20: To move forward? To stay in Kfar Maimon? To go home? The masses were told by the Yesha leaders to go onto waiting buses and return home. Many decided otherwise. At midnight the young men of Yeshivat Merkaz Harav in Jerusalem began a twelve hour march to Gush Katif. Their mobile phones were turned off and wire cutters were used to open paths through barbed wire. Twelve hours of walking in silence, forward, forward to Gush Katif. And they walked into a trap. The police were waiting for them.  Exhausted, told by the police they were being returned to Kfar Maimon, the boys climbed onto waiting buses. Only to be driven to the police station in Beersheba where they were arrested and charged with attempting to enter a closed military area. But others, singles and families, managed to slip into Gush Katif where every tent and building is filled.The standoff at Kfar Maimon will be added to the lore of Eretz Yisrael. The Jews were not intimidated. They did not cower before the authority of the  state. They did not accept the edict of expulsion!