Word: gaza
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...devoted few, including Gaza residents like the Hilburgs, the abandonment of the settlements represents a shameful, even sinful betrayal of the ideological foundations of the Jewish state. As the date for the pullout has neared, activists from outside the strip have blocked highways, spread nails on roads and sought to crowd into the settlements to thwart the evacuation with their bodies. Israeli police estimate that more than 2,500 have smuggled themselves into Gush Katif; some plan to test Sharon's vow to use the army to remove any who try to resist the evacuation, pressing their slogan, "Jews...
...center of the rancor are families like the Hilburgs, who believed they were doing their part to advance the Jewish enterprise by settling in territory they regard as part of Eretz Yisrael. Like a surprising number of other Gaza settlers, the Hilburgs are Americans who followed their ideals to Israel, giving up a comfortable future in the U.S. for the rigors of pioneer life. Now they are being ordered to abandon that life by the same Israeli leaders who had made settling the occupied territories an article of faith. For those like the Hilburgs, it's not just about policy...
...Americans in Gush Katif, the disengagement marks the bitter climax of an odyssey that spans a generation, one that has taken people like the Hilburgs from the streets of Brooklyn to the dusty farmland of the Gaza Strip. I spent a week with the Hilburgs and other U.S.-born settlers in the enclaves of Gush Katif as they prepared to uproot again. Their saga provides a glimpse of the honest dreams that inspired the struggle to realize the Zionist vision of Israel--and why even harder changes are required if that vision is to survive...
Logic suggests that for Jews, choosing to live in fortress colonies on captured land packed with 1.3 million Palestinians was always folly. But if you look at Gush Katif through the Hilburgs' eyes, it wasn't like that. When Bryna and Sammy first saw their future home in Gaza, there was nothing there but sand. "Sand, sand, more sand," says Bryna. "I loved it," says Sammy. "I thought he was nuts," she says. "But we needed to eat, to buy shoes for the kids, so I said, O.K., we'll look." As new immigrants in 1972 who wanted to live...
Back then, the dunes staked out in Gaza for settlement were an empty tract. There were no Arab houses within view, no fences, no military bases, no sign the Jews were entering enemy territory. The 33 families who arrived in Netzer Hazani to occupy 33 small bungalows and work in 33 hothouses newly plunked down on the sand saw themselves as welcome pioneers who would make the desert bloom. They went to shop in Arab Khan Yunis, got haircuts from Palestinian barbers, drank coffee in Palestinian cafés, danced at Palestinian weddings. Although Sammy's view is harsher...