East of the fence, residents contemplate an uncertain future

By Rafael D. Frankel

TEKOA, Israel--From the second-story balcony of her home, Shani Simkovitz gazes at the sweeping Tekoa landscape of pine trees and shrub-covered hills that she has known for 25 years. Although her view eventually gives way to the Judean desert, which stretches to the Dead Sea, Simkovitz hopes for a future in those barren mountains too.

These days, though, the main questions on her mind don't relate to the lives she would like her children to build further into the desert one day, but to her family's future right here in the years, even months, ahead.

"The issue of the fence comes up for me every day," Simkovitz said. "It's strangling us."

Tekoa, which was established 30 years ago, has approximately 1,500 residents. Like five other communities in the Gush Etzion settlement bloc south of Jerusalem, it finds itself outside the proposed route of the security fence that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is building.

While the fence route zigs and zags its way around the West Bank to accommodate many large settlements and some small ones, and thus seemingly protects the residents of those communities from the chopping block of disengagement, the people of Tekoa find themselves in limbo. Having seen one disengagement already, and reading between the lines in the platform recently announced by the Kadima party, they have all but accepted that if the government builds a barrier separating them from the rest of Israel, they will likely meet the same fate as the refugees from Gush Katif.

"I'm not complaining about my life here," Simkovitz said, alluding to the numerous attacks settlers have suffered on the road leading to this hilltop community, which winds through a half-dozen Palestinian villages. (Two 13-year-olds from Tekoa, Koby Mandell and Yosef Ish-Ran, were bludgeoned to death by Palestinian terrorists while hiking near home in May 2001.) "I just hope this life continues. Maybe that is what Greater Israel doesn't understand."

Like many people in Tekoa, Simkovitz not only opposes a fence route that cuts off her community from Israel, she does not want a fence at all.

"I didn't live with a fence for 25 years. What do we need one for now?" she asked.

Though Tekoa residents generally reject the government's view that the fence cuts down on terrorism, and prefer a more aggressive approach, they are taking what they call a pragmatic line in their battle to keep their community.

Different routes for the fence and the roads connecting eastern Gush Etzion directly to Jerusalem are all proposals Gush Etzion Regional Council Deputy Mayor Yair Wolf and a team of colleagues is taking to the army, the government and courts in an effort to save the towns that are part of the regional council, but are situated on the outskirts.

"I'm not dreaming," said Wolf, who also opposes its construction. "Israel will succeed in building the fence."

From his office in the Gush Etzion Regional Council building, the view extends westward to the Palestinian village of Jaba, which, under the current plan, would be perched directly above and on the other side of the fence.

"From one side you can say it's for security, but everyone knows that this is going to be the border," Wolf said.

In that respect, those who may find themselves outside the future border, along with their proponents, are particularly upset at the decision-making process going into the fence route.

"Right now what's happening is that army officers and the courts are drawing the border," Wolf said. "Where are the politicians who are supposed to be making those decisions?"

But as long as the government insists that the fence is not a permanent border, Wolf is not likely to get an answer. In the meantime, Gush Etzion is working to get the most favorable fence routing it can muster.

Since the High Court of Justice - citing excessive diminished quality of life to Palestinians - changed the route of the fence around Gush Etzion from the one originally proposed by the government, Chanania Nachliel has gone over the new route meticulously.

Behind the wheel of his SUV, Nachliel drove on a dirt path skirting the edge of a pine tree-covered cliff. He stopped his car at a point overlooking Bat Ayin to the south, and an uninhabited higher hill to the north.

On his laptop, Nachliel pulled up a picture taken from this spot, overlaid with the route of the fence running just below Bat Ayin. Leaving the high ground to the Palestinians is not an option he wants to explore.

"We're not naive," said the 10-year resident of Gush Etzion. "We understand that in the end, the State of Israel needs a fence. But let's put it in the right place. The way we are doing things now is just treating the symptoms, it's not curing the disease."

As the sun falls below the western hills, the last people come in and out of Tekoa for the evening. The road to the center of Gush Etzion is in danger from attacks and road accidents and it is not advisable to travel at night.

At the bus stop just inside the town's gate, Meir Ben-Hayoun waited for a ride to Jerusalem.

"I could feel the Bible here," Ben-Hayoun said, explaining why he moved to Tekoa in 1991. "So many places in Israel are beautiful, but here I felt a connection."

Contemplating that connection being torn from him is not pleasant, but it is something the Algerian-born oleh does often these days. In this respect he feels like a minority in his town, despite what may be its inevitable severing from the rest of Israel - or even its destruction.

"People here are in denial," Ben-Hayoun said. "It seems obvious that they will evacuate us, but no one here talks about what we will do when that day comes."

Instead, the father of two young daughters said, home construction in Tekoa continues and "the people go on acting like we will be here forever."

©2005 The Jerusalem Post

Israeli-Palestinian skirmishes take to the air

Israel is enacting a 'no-go' zone to prevent Palestinian militants in northern Gaza from firing rockets

By Rafael D. Frankel | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

JERUSALEM - More than three months after the last Israeli soldiers left the Gaza Strip and sealed the fence behind them, the daily violence that many hoped would end there has returned as the two sides have taken their battle to the air.

Over the past weeks, Palestinian militants in former Jewish settlements have launched rockets from northern Gaza with increasing frequency into southern Israel, hitting Sderot and Ashkelon.

As a result, Israel moved Wednesday to begin enforcing a "no-go zone," an approximately two-by-six-mile area that was home to three Jewish settlements before Israel withdrew from Gaza earlier this year. Anyone who enters the area runs the risk of being fired on.

"[Militants] are firing freely every night, so we are drawing a red line," Israel spokesman Raanan Gissin said. "Anyone who crosses into that area once the program is implemented is fair game."

In preparation for enforcing the no-go zone, the Israeli Air Force began dropping leaflets in Gaza Tuesday night, warning residents to stay out of the area.

Palestinian militants hit Sderot with regularity before Israel's pullout from Gaza. But it wasn't until the withdrawal that they could get close enough to strike Ashkelon. Militant groups have also claimed they boosted the range of their projectiles.

Initially, the Israeli response was targeted killings of militants from the two groups believed to be responsible for the attacks - Islamic Jihad and the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. However, the army recently changed tactics to fire artillery into Gaza, while Air Force helicopters shot missiles at roads, bridges, and buildings used by the groups.

Seeking to calm the situation, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas traveled to Gaza Tuesday to urge the militants to cease their rocket sorties.

"We demand everyone be committed to the truce," says Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian chief negotiator who often acts as a Palestinian Authority (PA) spokesman. "We consider the truce a matter of high national interest."

Mr. Abbas was rebuffed, however, by at least Islamic Jihad, the group responsible for the majority of the strikes. "I think the continuation of resistance is what's better for the Palestinian people," the Associated Press reported Islamic Jihad Spokesman Khaled Batch saying in Gaza.

How effective the no-go zone will prove in halting the attacks remains to be seen. Calling the no-go zone "a stop-gap measure," Michael Orin, a senior fellow at the Shalem Center, an academic research institute here, says preventing rocket attacks is nearly impossible.

"We know from our experience in Lebanon that it's very difficult to sanitize an entire area of activity," Mr. Orin says. "It's probably important for [Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon politically because he doesn't want to go into Gaza before" Israeli elections in March.

According to Orin, Israel's response is limited because sentiment among the international community, as well as within Israel society, prevents its military from returning fire into densely populated areas. "Ultimately, the only surefire answer is if the Palestinians themselves decide to crack down on this, and right now you have a Palestinian leadership that is either unwilling or incapable of doing that," he says.

While acknowledging that it is the PA's responsibility to stop the rocket attacks, Erekat says that the no-go zone will only complicate matters and is "tantamount to reoccupying Gaza. It will just add to the violence and problems that we have."

Instead, Erekat says, Israel should help the PA rebuild the capacity of its security forces, providing them with equipment and ammunition so that they may police Gaza effectively. "We are trying our best but we are unable to stop [the militants]. If the Israelis could help, then we could solve the problem."

Meanwhile, a barrage of Katyusha rockets launched from Lebanon hit the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shemona Tuesday night, sending residents into bomb shelters. Israel responded by bombing a training base south of Beirut used by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (General Command), a small group Israel says is backed by Syria.

©2005 The Christian Science Monitor

Mossad chief: Iran only months away from nuclear capability

By Rafael D. Frankel and Oren Klass

Iran is but six months away from achieving technological independence in its quest to develop a nuclear bomb, Mossad Chief Meir Dagan told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee during his yearly briefing to the body Tuesday.

Though he refused to lay out a specific time line for when Iran could complete work on a nuclear weapon, Dagan appeared to accelerate the most recent prediction made by Israeli intelligence. On December 13, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz said Iran could begin enriching uranium by March 2006 but would not be able to develop a bomb until 2008.

The Islamic State has made a "strategic decision to reach nuclear independence," Dagan said, and once it reached that goal it would then be only a matter of "a few months" before it was able to finish building a nuclear bomb.

Dagan further warned that Iran would not be content with just one nuclear weapon. "If they continue undisturbed, and they succeed in developing fissile material, they won't be content in the amount needed for just one bomb, they will try to make more," the Mossad chief warned. "You don't need a lot of fissile material, you just need it to be enriched."

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called for Israel to "be wiped off the map."

Iran has already produced 40 tones of UF6, a compound used in the uranium enrichment process that produces fuel for nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons. That amount of UF6 could produce 40 kilograms of fissile material, Dagan said. Iran is also continuing to "build and enhance" centrifuges, which are part of its nuclear program.

Despite the mounting threat Iran's nuclear weapons program posses, Dagan implied there is still time for a peaceful solution to the dispute if the international community is willing to take action soon.

Economic sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council "would be very effective," Dagan said. Since Iran imported 40 percent of its refined fuel, and also relied heavily on imported spare parts for its vehicles, it was highly susceptible to coordinated and targeted sanctions from the international community, he said.

"The chances of this going to the Security Council are higher than they were in the past," he said.

The Mossad chief was careful in his presentation to the Knesset committee not to use the words "point of no return" in describing when, in his estimate, Iran would be able to complete its nuclear ambitions without any outside help. Rather, he used the phrase "technical independence." The difference could imply that even once Iran was able to make a nuclear weapon, it may still be persuaded not to by outside forces or agreements.

Dagan's briefing to the Knesset committee comes on the heels of a Saturday report by German newspaper Der Spiegel that the Mossad had marked six Iranian nuclear facilities the IAF would hit in a pre-emptive strike. Additionally, a Tuesday Ma'ariv report said Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was coordinating intelligence on Iran with the United States.

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday that Israel had modified American-made Harpoon cruise missiles in order to launch them from submarines as a means to further dissuade Iran from becoming a nuclear power itself.

Efforts by the United Kingdom, France, and Germany to convince Iran to give up its nuclear program have so far proven fruitless while a recent offer from Russia to Iran to enrich uranium in Russia for a peaceful Iranian nuclear power program has gone unanswered.

Nevertheless, the United States and other countries have said they will give Iran until March to comply with international demands for it to halt its nuclear program before referring the Islamic State to the Security Council for possible sanctions.

In his briefing to the committee, Dagan also touched on the "global jihad" being waged by Muslim militants, saying that Israelis and Jews remain prime targets around the world.

The goal, he said, of the global jihad is to establish a "pan-Islamic entity" similar to the Caliphate which once spanned huge parts of Asia, Africa, and southern Europe. "They have independent infrastructures all over the world, there is no one central headquarters," Dagan said, describing the command structure of the global jihad.

Despite ideology which sometimes overlapped, Hamas and Islamic Jihad have, for the most part, remained outside the global jihad network due to their more focused goal of establishing a Palestinian state, Dagan said.

With assistance from Egypt and Jordan in the global war on terror, and the threat to Israel from Syria and Lebanon severely diminished, Israel's main threat following Iran was now veterans of the Iraq War, Dagan said.

Foreign fighters who have undergone training and cut their teeth in Iraq were now returning home and "setting up their own infrastructures there," he said. "The absurd thing is that the more success the United States has in Iraq, the more dangerous it will be for Israel."

Despite reports to the contrary, Dagan also said there are "no signs at all" that there is a discernable movement to overthrow Bashar Assad in Syria. "There is unity around Assad, and he controls the old guard. He has the last word on all matters," the Mossad chief said.

©2005 The Jerusalem Post

Peretz continues to shirk security issues as poll numbers sag

By Rafael D. Frankel

With his poll numbers shrinking precipitously and division in the ranks of his party, Labor Chairman Amir Peretz declined to change tacks in his campaign Monday, sticking to the socio-economic agenda he has carved out over the last months.

Members of Peretz’s party have been increasingly vocal—albeit anonymously—about the need to discuss security issues in the campaign as Labor has seen its projected mandates fall from 28 to a recently released figure of 15.

Following the legally required monthly meeting between the opposition leader and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Peretz told reporters there was broad “consensus” within Israel at the moment on how to conduct the war on terrorism and also that Israelis realized a Palestinian state was in Israel’s best interest.

“The real argument is the way Israel reacts to economic issues,” he said. “There is one nation [within Israel] which is enjoying the economy very much, but the majority of the country is paying the price of budget cuts and are not enjoying the fruits of the new economy.”

Peretz’s reluctance to speak about security issues has worried many in the Labor party who fear that, even while Israelis may agree with his economic platform, they will be unwilling to elect a leader who does not make national security his primary focus.

“There is a need to talk more about what we are suggesting in security and state issues,” said Gilad Heymann, the spokesman for former Labor Minister Ofer Paz-Pines. “There is a big difference between us and Sharon.”

What that difference is remains unclear. While Labor Party rank and file talk about negotiating in good faith with the Palestinians and strengthening the more moderate elements of Palestinian leadership, Peretz himself has said very little.

On Monday, the Labor leader said he agrees with the manner in which the government is handling the security front, and that he did not think it was necessary for the prime minister to call every shot of the army but rather to make sure the IDF has the tools it needs to provide for Israel’s security.

Despite the calls from within Labor to hammer out a distinctive position on the peace process and security matters, Peretz Spokesman Tom Wagner said the labor chairman has no plans to change the theme of his campaign.

“He won’t be talking according to what others want to hear,” Wagner said. “He will focus on his agenda, mostly socio-economic issues.

“[Peretz] does not believe the prime minister should decide which cannon and which unit to use in every case, that’s what we have a defense minister for,” Wagner said.

Indeed, Peretz sought to draw a large distinction between Labor and Kadima, repeatedly calling the latter a “one man party” while saying Labor was replete with competent personnel who could run the country.

He also touted Labor’s democratic credentials. “There is a major difference because, after the primaries, the Labor party will have undergone a thorough democratic process,” Peretz said.

Seeking to deflect the internal criticism flung his way in the wake of Labor’s decreased poll standing, Peretz also said that he inherited a party in disarray. “We can’t ignore the fact that the former chairman of the party left to join Sharon, but on voting day Israelis will choose the people of Labor,” he said. “And when the time comes, traditional Labor voters will stick with the party.”

During the meeting with Sharon, Peretz said he was briefed on a number of security and foreign affairs issues. He said he agreed with the principle of non-interference in Palestinian internal affairs—a reference to Hamas’s standing in the Palestinian elections—and that he assumed some solution would be found for Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem who want to vote.

Peretz also said that he told the prime minister that Israel should carry out the recommendations of the Sasson Report and evacuate illegal outposts in the West Bank without delay.

“It is of the utmost importance for this to be handled,” he said. “In every place Israel has law authorities to uphold the law, the law must be upheld—fully upheld.”

Peretz also said the he requested to be briefed by the prime minister at their next meeting on economic affairs, calling Israel’s current economic standing “a strategic threat” to the nation.

©2005 The Jerusalem Post and Rafael D. Frankel

Bethlehem residents see gloomy Christmas while tourists bask in the glow

Five years after the outbreak of the intifada, Bethlehem residents do not share the holiday joy of their few visitors

By Rafael D. Frankel

BETHLEHEM—Even the Arabic rendition of Jingle Bells being blasted from loud speakers throughout Manjor Square failed to shake the generally gloomy mood in this Christian holy city on a damp Christmas Eve.

Though a scout and marching band parade, along with bustling streets, brought to mind Christmases past here before the rain set in in the early afternoon, most of the assembled crowds were locals and the absence of large tourist and pilgrim groups weighed heavily on the residents of Bethlehem whose town has been hit with an economic depression over the last five years.

“We heard there were 18,000 tourists coming, but we don’t see anyone” said Twafiq Handal, 43, who owns a toy and knick-knack store just off of Manjor Square.

Before the second intifada, around one million tourists and pilgrims came to Bethlehem every year, said Majed Ishaq, who directs the marketing of Bethlehem for the Palestinian Authority. But following the take-over of the Church of the Nativity by Palestinian fighters in April 2002, that number dropped to a low of 8,000.

Though Ishaq said Bethlehem would register around 300,000 visitors this year, with 30,000 coming during the Christmas season, those estimates seemed lost on the merchants and tour guides here.

Inside Handal’s Store, amongst helium balloons of Santa Clause floating at the ceiling, locals finished their Christmas shopping, mostly purchasing small-ticket items such as dolls, stuffed animals, and purses. With Handal’s 12-year-old son, Anton, dressing up as Santa Clause and greeting visitors as the door, the hope was that foreigners who once spent American and European currency freely here would return to the store after a five-year absence. It was to no avail.

“All the people in here are from Bethlehem,” Handal said, stuffing the payment for a miniature pool table into his coat pocket—his store does not have cash register. “Even the Palestinians from Jerusalem and Ramallah aren’t coming.

“Christmas is not special for me this year. Before there was trouble with bombs and shootings but we had work. Now there is no trouble but no one has work,” he said.

That sentiment was echoed by tour guide Adnam Ayesh, 44, who said that most people in Bethlehem are still struggling from a lack of employment. “Almost every day we go up to the market and sit and smoke,” he said. “The people of Bethlehem depend on tourism and we are really suffering.”

Inside his private meeting room, with the lights of a one-meter-tall Christmas tree flickering on and off behind him, Bethlehem Mayor Dr. Victor Bataresh sought to put a brave face on the situation, saying his city was “better, quieter, and safer” than in years past.

However even he sounded bleak when asked about what the future holds for Bethlehem. “I always have to be optimistic,” Bataresh said, sighing and shaking his hands with his palms up. “But it’s hard to be optimistic with the checkpoints and the fence cutting us off.”

Indeed, the wall which now separates Bethlehem from Jerusalem weighed heavy on all the residents interviewed here by The Jerusalem Post.

“Compared to [pre-intifada] years, there are not that many people,” said one resident who works for the United Nations and asked not to be named. “The city is closed and people are afraid to come. I think the future is even more black than this.”

Inside a not-quite-empty but far-from-full Church of the Nativity, where Christians believe Jesus Christ was born, a few dozen foreigners who braved their fears and the cold rain took pictures and said prayers. In years past, one-hour long lines would have preceded entrance to the Church’s 1,500-year-old stone halls, held up by the original Roman columns. In 2005, the only delay in entering was a local man selling one shekel cups of coffee at the door.

For those tourists that came, they said the separation wall and the checkpoint did not deter them from visiting Bethlehem. But they added that general fears over the security situation here and, to a lesser extent, the process of going through a checkpoint influenced others they knew who decided against making the trip.

“Unfortunately, security measures scare people a bit to come here, but on the other hand the bombs and terror attacks scare them as well,” said Carlos Bertens, a Chilean diplomat. “Our friends in Tel Aviv decided not to come because they heard rumors that there could be some attack today.”

Carin Berg, a Swede who is studying Arabic at Hebrew University, said the same rumors convinced her roommates not to come. Saying she was “not afraid of the checkpoint,” Berg ventured to Bethlehem because she does not have family here with her. “Bethlehem seemed like the place to go since I still wanted to celebrate Christmas.”

In contrast with the locals, the spiritual significance of being in Bethlehem on Christmas Eve, and not the surrounding political and economic situation, was what tourists spoke of.

“It’s very special for us to be able to be here, in the most important place in the world on this day,” said Bertens, who is Catholic.

For German Miriam Butt, 23, who described herself as “not particularly religious,” there was still a special feeling about being here. “I feel the presence of God,” she said, after watching a procession of monks, priests, and ministers make their way through the church singing Christmas hymns.

At midnight, the main Christmas Mass in the church—beamed out to the world via television—was expected to draw more than 1,500 people, including PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

“Our message this year is not to be afraid and to have love in our hearts for all people,” said Father Amjad Sabbara, who will assist the Jerusalem patriarch in leading the service. “The last five years have brought desperation, but all together we can make a better future.”

©2005 Rafael D. Frankel and The Jerusalem Post

W(h)ither the seeds of peace?

Three months after the Gaza disengagement, Palestinians export their first crops from the territory, while Gaza's former Jewish farmers have mixed fates

By Rafael D. Frankel, with reporting by Y. Berman

Over three months after the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, good news emanating from that coastal strip of land is still hard to come by. In a sea of 1.3 million people, vying groups of militias deal in their own form of justice. Rocket attacks on Israel spawn deadly reprisals on a regular basis. The construction of new homes and infrastructure expected in the wake of Israel's retreat has stalled so badly that the rubble from the dismantled Jewish towns has yet to be cleared.

So when the first shipment of vegetables grown in former Jewish greenhouses left Gaza for Israel last week with little fanfare, it marked a rare but significant success story of Gazans taking advantage of their newfound opportunities.

"It's a message of hope," said Bassil Jabir, CEO of the Palestinian Economic Development Company (PEDC), a firm owned by the Palestinian Authority which is in charge of the greenhouse operation. "We've been able to make it work with all the difficulties that we've faced."

For years, the Gaza greenhouses were both the pride and the main source of income for the 8,500 Jews who lived in Gaza. In the lead-up to Israel's withdrawal from the territory, Palestinians hoped they could inherit the greenhouses and their benefits along with the land.

Just days before Israel began forcibly removing its citizens from Gaza, a deal was struck whereby a group of American philanthropists - among them many Jews and Quartet Middle East Envoy James Wolfensohn - put up a total of $14 million to buy the greenhouses from the departing Israelis as a gift to the Palestinians.

However, in the aftermath of the Israeli army pullout, prior Israeli damage and days of Palestinian looting left many of the greenhouses in disrepair. By the time the Palestinian Authority assigned its security forces to guard the greenhouses, more than half, covering 3,200 dunams (800 acres), were without their most valuable equipment, such as the electronically regulated water pumps, metal support beams, and irrigation hoses.

The failure of the P.A. to guard the valuable structures, and the willingness of the Palestinians to loot what was to be a main source of revenue for their own people cast doubt on whether the Palestinians were both capable and responsible enough to grow food on the Gaza sand dunes as the Israelis had done.

But on December 6, 10 tonnes of strawberries and cherry tomatoes made their way through Karni - a goods-only crossing - into Israel. The day after, 15 tonnes went through, and even more the day after that. By the end of the harvest season, Jabir said, Palestinians are hoping to export 30,000 tonnes of produce from Gaza, which would bring in "a very good sum of money."

The quick turnaround from the looted greenhouses to fully functioning ones did not come cheaply. According to Jabir, the Palestinian Authority spent $14 million on their rehabilitation and other start-up costs. But if estimates on revenue per ton of produce harvested prove correct, the greenhouses could produce revenue of around $50 million a year if the operation reaches its potential.

They are already employing, directly and indirectly, around 6,500 Palestinians - nearly 4,000 more than the 2,800 who were previously working in the greenhouses under the Israelis. At wages of $13 a day, they are earning well above the $2 a day that the average Gazan lives off.

At least those are the official figures. However, one Palestinian worker told The Media Line he is sorry the Israelis are no longer his employers. ‘Sabri A-Sdoudi worked in the greenhouse at Peat Sadeh for one Ya’akov Aberjil. “Since the withdrawal I’ve stopped working in the greenhouses,” he said, adding that he sought a job with the new owners. These days A-Sdoudi is employed in Israel, earning $26 a day.

Sdoudi used to earn $13, which he said was sufficient to make a living. These days, he said, the greenhouse workers earn the same $13, but while he was paid weekly, they receive their cash at the end of the month. It is not just a problem for those Palestinians working in the greenhouses, he mused. It is like that across Gaza. “The situation has really changed a lot,” he said. “Today the economy is in decline.”

The PEDC is shooting for 20,000 tonnes of sales within Israel and the Palestinian territories, though it is cautious about advertising that fact. When asked who his clients were in the Israeli domestic market, Jabir refused to name them, saying, "There is a lot of hostility regarding our products," within Israel.

The PEDC is also attempting to pick up where the Israelis left off by exporting their produce to the United States, Europe, and Russia. With the previous firm which exported Gaza produce, Alei Katif, refusing to do business with the Palestinians, they have turned to Adafresh, another Israeli firm with strong sales in those international markets.

"We're still at the beginning," Jabir said of the Palestinians' relationship with Adafresh, "but we are working together as partners."

Adafresh Managing Director Avi Kadan echoed those sentiments, saying that the two sides are using the first year as just a small start to what he is hoping will be a "long-term, profitable" enterprise. "I'm a businessman, not a politician," Kadan said. "We want a long-term, real business partnership. I'm looking at [the PEDC] as a partner to develop the Palestinian market from Gaza and maybe the other territories, and to build together a strong business and a business relationship."

So far, the politics have caused the partnership to be slowgoing. Though Jabir and Kadan met recently in Jerusalem, travel restrictions from Israel, and possibly the P.A. as well, prohibit Kadan from entering Gaza to survey the greenhouses with his team's hi-tech equipment to gauge both how productive the land can be and what quality produce the Palestinians are growing. "This is the biggest problem so far," Kadan said.

Before the Israeli withdrawal, the produce grown by Gaza's Jews was known around the world for its extremely high quality. In order to maintain that reputation, Adafresh is testing the initial shipments it is receiving from Gaza in its Israeli-based laboratories before shipping the produce overseas.

With the initial crops of strawberries and cherry tomatoes passing the test, Kadan said the first shipment of five tonnes of Palestinian produce from Gaza left Israel last Thursday and arrived in Europe on Monday, in time for Christmas.

How much more Adafresh can ship, and how soon, depends on a host of factors. At a recent meeting, Kadan gained assurances from Israeli officials at the Karni crossing that shipments of produce coming out of Gaza and meant for Adafresh would not be delayed, as are many goods which leave Gaza due to security concerns. So far, that deal has held up despite a total closure on the movement of Palestinians out of Gaza enacted by the Israeli army after the latest rounds of rockets launched from inside the territory struck two southern Israeli cities.

Kadan is also anxious to test the other crops Gaza is producing: sweet and hot peppers, cucumbers, herbs and beans. "There are always problems at the beginning," Kadan said. Still, he hopes to be able to ship around 8,000 tonnes of Gazan produce to Europe in the coming year. That would bring in revenue of around $24 million, 40 percent of which - the share he gives all his clients - would go to the Palestinians. If all goes well, he would begin shipping to the U.S. and Russia the next year.

Since the PEDC is owned by the P.A., for the time being revenues generated by the greenhouses would be returned to that body. However there are plans to privatize the company once its actual and potential revenue streams and costs are better understood.

Building a successful business, Jabir said, could prove to be a model and motivation for all Gazans who want to see their economic prosperity increase just as their freedom has following the Israeli withdrawal. "If we managed through all these hardships to make this business work, it shows the possibility for other businesses to work as long as we have the means and the access to international markets," he said.

While the Palestinians left in Gaza are beginning to benefit from the greenhouses left to them, the fate of the Jewish farmers who were forced to abandon them is mixed.

One group of farmers who owned greenhouses around what was the Jewish town of Kfar Darom in Gaza, has already built greenhouses and begun to harvest their crops in Kfar Maimon and Sderot, Israeli cities just east of Gaza.

Alei Katif, which also handles its own exporting to Europe, the U.S., and Russia, says that its produce production is already at 70-80 percent of what it was when it had greenhouses in Gaza, and that its exporting business is at 90 percent of pre-withdrawal levels.

"Except for one week at the very beginning after the expulsion we continue to supply all our customers," said Roni Ben-Efraim, the foreign business manager for Alei Katif. Despite the fact that "the majority" of its production came from within Gaza, Ben-Efraim said Alei Katif managed to keep all its international contracts and will probably be at 100 percent production levels by the next harvesting season.

When asked if Alei Katif - which unlike most Jewish farms in Gaza did not use Palestinian labor in the greenhouses - would consider exporting produce grown by Palestinians in Gaza, Managing Director Amir Dror said, "Heaven forbid."

However that mentality is not typical among the Jewish ex-farmers of Gaza, many of whom have maintained contacts with the Palestinians who worked in their greenhouses.

Yichiam Sharabi now lives with his family in a small, prefabricated home in the quickly built "town" of Nitzan, about 15 miles north of Gaza. In his late fifties, he says he is "too old to start building greenhouses again" and is working in construction instead, which he did in his younger days.

Despite his forced removal from Gaza, Sharabi said he is in touch "from time to time" with the Palestinians who worked for him there and that he will always think of them as friends and "wish them well."

"Family" is what Ya'akov Aberjil called the Palestinians who worked in his greenhouses in the former Jewish town Peat Sadeh. In the aftermath of the Israeli pullout, when the greenhouses were damaged and the income of his former workers was non-existent, he continued paying them for weeks so that they could feed their families.

Like Sharabi, Aberjil went from farming his own land and living in a large villa to being unemployed and living in a prefabricated home. And like many of his neighbors in the town of Mafki'im, so close to Gaza one can see the lights from Gaza City along the Mediterranean Sea at nighttime, he has not yet obtained land to resume his farming.

©2005 The Media Line, www.themedialine.org

Israel on tenterhooks awaiting word on Sharon

By Rafael D. Frankel

JERUSALEM - Anxious Israelis were glued to their televisions last night for updates on the condition of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Perhaps no figure alive today represents the State of Israel more than Sharon, a legendary war hero who won countless battles and later led the country as prime minister through the hell of the second Palestinian intifadeh.

The hospital caring for him was inundated with goodwill messages from around Israel and the world.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas wished Sharon a speedy recovery. So did the White House, which conveyed get-well wishes through U.S. Ambassador Elliott Abrams.

But in the Gaza Strip, some Palestinians fired rifles in the air and handed out candy in celebration, shouting, "Death to Sharon." Some ultrarightist Jews, who feel Sharon betrayed the settlement cause by pulling Israelis from Gaza, also prayed that he would die.

Sharon's health will likely become an issue as he fights to keep his job.

"Whether Sharon's aides like it or not, the health of the prime minister has just become the primary issue of this election and the greatest threat to Sharon's continued reign," Jerusalem Post columnist Gil Hoffman wrote today.

Born in pre-state Palestine to poor Polish immigrants in 1928, Sharon ascended the ranks of the army and politics by preaching force and showing strength, earning him his nickname “the bulldozer.”

Sharon led troops in every one of Israel’s wars. In his most daring and famous military maneuver, the major-general led the Israeli charge across the Suez Canal which shattered the Egyptian army and brought the 1973 War to an end.

His most controversial moment came when he was forced to resign as defense minister in 1983 after an internal Israeli investigation found him indirectly responsible for the massacre of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Palestinians at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon.

Sharon spent the next two decades in the Likud party which he helped to form, all the while pushing the construction of Jewish settlements in territory Palestinians claim as theirs.

Elected as prime minister in Feb. 2001 after the outbreak of the second intifada months earlier, Sharon brought his hard-line tactics to bear on Palestinian terror groups and former Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat. He is widely credited in Israel with drastically reducing the suicide bombings and other attacks by Palestinian terrorists which killed over 1,000 Israelis since 2000.

Lately though, the 77-year-old Sharon changed course by removing Jewish settlers from the Gaza strip and forming a new centrist political party while expressing the desire to reach a final peace agreement with the Palestinians.

©2005 The New York Daily News and Rafael D. Frankel

Bronx hosp to perform free heart ops for Iraqi kids

'It's above our imagination what people are doing to help us'

BY RAFAEL D. FRANKEL in Amman, Jordan
and PAUL H.B. SHIN in New York
DAILY NEWS WRITERS

A group of desperately ill Iraqi children who won't make it to adulthood without heart surgeries are en route to New York today for the lifesaving operations.

Their remarkable journey from despair to hope will take the children from a war-torn country in dire need of expert medical care to the charitable hands of surgeons at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx.

"It's above our imagination what people are doing to help us," said Saleh Abed, father of 14-year-old Assad, whose congenital heart defect has so stunted his growth that even at 14, his legs dangle from his chair.

"We can't believe people like this exist," Assad's father said yesterday after he and four other kids and their dads made the treacherous crossing to Amman, Jordan, where they are to get a flight to Kennedy Airport. They will arrive in New York tomorrow.

Assad was honest about his trepidations. "I can say I'm brave, but when it comes to surgery I'm a coward," said the boy who has lived with war for the past three years.

The operations for the five kids, four boys and one girl ages 7 to 14, was sponsored by the Gift of Life, a Long Island-based charity.

Unfortunately, two of the children may have to stay behind, one due to problems obtaining a visa and another because he may be too frail for the long flight, officials said.

The kids' fathers expressed overwhelming gratitude to the charity, as well as U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Marikay Satryano and Iraqi businesswoman May Hashim, who helped arrange the trip.

Despite their gratitude, all but one of the dads kept the trip to the U.S. a secret from everyone except their immediate families and ordered them to keep quiet about it.

"We're afraid to be targeted" by anti-American insurgents, said Abed, a policeman in the Sadr City slum of Baghdad.

Ali Abed-Ali, 14, suffers from a heart defect that no doctor in Iraq could treat, and last summer, his father, Hussein, had become desperate.

"I couldn't find help anywhere," he said, glancing at his son. "Even our family said it was pointless to keep on searching and spending money."

But then they got a phone call from the Iraqi Assistance Center, an American-government sponsored organization based in Baghdad, telling him Ali was among a pool of 200 children being considered for fully funded heart surgery at Montefiore.

After two medical screenings, Abed-Ali said the desperation had turned into a belief that the dream of his son growing up "could come true."

Abed-Ali was still waiting for a U.S. travel visa yesterday.

"I believe none of the children would live into adulthood without repair," said Dr. Samuel Weinstein, the pediatric cardio-thoracic surgeon who will be operating on the kids next week.

"Technically, I'm very confident that our team here will be able to take care of everything that they're confronted with," Weinstein said. But the fact that the children have lived with these conditions untreated for so long could complicate things.

"We just want to give these kids the opportunity of life that they otherwise would not have," said Bill Currie, a board member at the Gift of Life, which has saved about 8,000 sick children in 30 years.

©2005 The New York Daily News

Israel to launch offensive against Islamic Jihad following bombing

By Rafael D. Frankel

TEL AVIV—The Israeli Army readied itself for an offensive and imposed a near total closure of the West Bank and Gaza strip Tuesday in response to Monday’s suicide bombing by Islamic Jihad that killed five people in the seaside city of Netanya.

Palestinians were barred entrance into Israel for nearly all reasons and the only crossing which remained open was the goods-only terminal at Karni, between Israel and the Gaza Strip.

After a late Monday night security cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the army also arrested the father and three brothers of the suicide bomber over night along with at least ten other Palestinians suspected of belonging to Islamic Jihad.

Whenever the army begins its imminent offensive, which will focus on Islamic Jihad cells, it will also have permission to use assassinations (Israel calls them "targeted killings") and probably house demolitions as well, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said.

"We decided to operate in a much broader, much deeper and more intensive manner against the Islamic Jihad infrastructure, and I hope that we will be able to prevent such attacks in the future," Mofaz told Army Radio after the security meeting.

Though the army will likely retake areas where Islamic Jihad cells are active, Government Spokesman Ra’anan Gissin said the action is not expected to reach the scale of Operation Defensive Shield launched in 2002. In that operation, Israel retook control of most West Bank cities and killed dozens of Palestinian militants

"But we are going to use what is at our disposal to bring this to an end," Gissin said. "We will pay house calls. Either they will be brought to justice, or we will bring justice to them."

U.S. Ambassador Richard Jones told reporters here Tuesday that Israel had a right to defend its citizens. "We have called repeatedly on the Palestinian Authority to take actions against these terror groups, in particular Islamic Jihad," he said. "We are doing everything we can to persuade the Palestinian Authority to shoulder its responsibility as a partner for peace."

With pressure mounting on the Palestinian Authority to reign in militants, PA security forces also arrested three suspected Islamic Jihad members in the northern West Bank.

Though he has harshly criticized violent acts against Israel as counter-productive to the Palestinian cause, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has shied away from confrontation with militant groups, seeking instead to negotiate cease-fires and bring them into the Palestinian political process.

Israeli officials, however, were not impressed with the arrests, with Gissin saying the PA cannot employ "a revolving door policy" towards jailing terrorists.

Islamic Jihad has been responsible for all four suicide attacks which killed Israelis this year, and the latest bombing was met with disbelief by the family of the bomber.

Before the army arrested her sons and husband, suicide bomber Lotfi Amine Abu Saada’s mother, Amina, said "those who sent him have fooled him," the Associated Press reported. "My son is a poor soul. He doesn't know anything about this, he was never jailed and he never participated in demonstrations."

His father, Amin, claimed his son was illiterate while his uncle, Mufid Rashed, said Monday was the first time Abu Saada missed work.

"I am not convinced, I don't believe this. My son can't even get to the city alone, how can he get to Netanya? He doesn't read or write," the AP reported the father saying.

©2005 Rafael D. Frankel and The New York Daily News

Suicide bomber kills 5 in Netanya

By Rafael D. Frankel

NETANYA, Israel—Five people were killed and over 40 injured Monday when a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up at the entrance to a popular mall in this coastal city.

The blast tore through the concrete wall of the Canyon Ha Shomron mall and sent glass from the above façade crashing down to the crowded sidewalk below. There it laid for hours after among body parts, a pair of boots, shopping bags, and the leaves of a nearby tree which were blown off in the blast.

Pieces of burnt and bloodied flesh were sent 50 yards in every direction and blood stained the mall wall as high as 20 feet above ground after what both an Israeli police spokesman and an NYPD counter-terrorism expert said was anunusually large explosion.

However a far greater loss of life was prevented by the diligence of private mall security guards and three or four policemen who identified the bomber as suspicious and, with weapons drawn, ordered him to the side of the entrance, Police Spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld said.

"The fact that the security guard and policemen managed to identify the bomber meant that they prevented a major disaster," Israeli Police Commissioner Moshe Karadi said. Though reports were unclear as of press time, at least one security guard was killed and police officers were among the injured.

The terrorist group Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack and named 21-year-old Lutfi Amin Abu Salem, from the nearby West Bank village of Kafr Rai, as the bomber. Shortly after the bombing, the group released avideo of Abu Salem posing with a grenade launcher and an assault rifle.

Buchnik Gal, 36, who was stopped in his car at a traffic light directly across from the entrance to the mall said after the explosion there were “lots of bodies on the ground and on the road and people yelling out.”

The driver’s side window on Gal’s car was blown out and the front windshield was cracked in the explosion which also deposited a piece of flesh in the door slot where his window was. Additionally, a ball bearing shot through the shell of his car just one inch from the gas tank. (Suicide bombers here often pack their bombs with ball bearings to maximize injuries and damage.)

This was the third bombing of the Canyon Ha Shomron mall since the last intifada began more than five years ago.

The attack comes at a time of heightened tensions in Israel after a series of rockets launched from the Gaza Strip landed in southern Israeli towns the last two days, prompting Israel to retaliate with artillery fire into the territory recently evacuated by the Israeli civilians and the army.

No life was lost in those attacks and counter-attacks, but just hours before the suicide bombing, Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz announced the IDF was authorized to resume its assassinations of Palestinian militants both in Gaza and the West Bank.

Though Palestinian militant groups signed on to a cease-fire with Israel at the beginning of the year, Islamic Jihad has nonetheless been responsiblefor at least five suicide bombings since then, and leaders in Damascus, Syria, had recently said they would likely not extend the cease fire beyond the end of the year.

The bombing drew a harsh verbal response from Palestinian Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, who said "the Palestinian Authority will not go easy on whoever is proved to be responsible" and that he would issue arrest orders for anyone connected with the attack.

However Israeli officials were skeptical of his promise, saying Abbas had talked tough before but had not delivered results. Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom called the attack "additional proof of the inaction of the Palestinian Authority under [Abbas]. He added: "The leadership of the Palestinian Authority is refusing to act against the terror organizationsand to dismantle them."

Government Spokesman Ra’anan Gissin further accused Syria, Iran, and the terrorist group Hezbollah, which operates in southern Lebanon, of encouraging the attack to deflect growing international pressure against them.

IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz warned Sunday that he does not think diplomacy will compel Iran to give up its nuclear weapons program and Iran fired back that any Israeli attack would be met with a harsh reply.

©2005 Rafael D. Frankel and The New York Daily News

Peres to quit Labor, join Sharon

By Rafael D. Frankel

JERUSALEM—Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres, the stalwart of Israel’s Labor Party and the longest serving member of the Knesset will quit Labor and party politics to join his long-time friend and political rival Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in a potential new government, a top Sharon advisor told reporters Tuesday.

Though the advisor, Lior Horev, back-tracked, saying he was not in a position to speak for Peres, the cat was already out of the bag.

On Monday, in Barcelona, Peres told reporters: “My goal is to make peace and it doesn't matter with which party.” Many in Israel also feel his motivation stems from a feeling of betrayal at the hands of newly elected Labor Chairman Amir Peretz, whom Peres brought back into the party only to be defeated by him in primary elections.

The vice prime minister is currently in Spain attending a soccer match between a joint Israeli-Palestinian team and FC Barcelona sponsored by his Peres Center for Peace and is expected to make a formal announcement of his intentions when he returns to Israel Wednesday night.

Under a deal with Sharon, Peres would be a senior minister in charge of negotiations with the Palestinians and development of the Negev and Galilee regions of Israel in a new Sharon government. He would not, however, run as a member of Kadima for the Knesset, ending his record streak of serving in Israel’s parliament since 1959.

The seeds for Peres’s departure seem to have been laid on Nov. 20 at the final cabinet meeting of the government before it fell. “This is the beginning of the joint work between us,” Sharon told Peres at the time. “I won't let you turn away from completing the missions you are destined for. I'll call on your assistance in the future.”

The defection of Peres from Labor represents a coupe-de-gras for the prime minister who has wielded his influence and soaring poll numbers to pull stars from both the left and right of Israeli politics to join him in his new Kadima party. “Kadima” means “forward” in Hebrew.

Abraham Diskin, a professor of political science at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem, said Sharon’s political power has grown both from weak rivals and his capturing of the vast Israeli political center which has given up on the idea of real peace but has also accepted the inevitability of a Palestinian state.

“The alternative [candidates to Sharon] are not really very trustful or admired by most of the people, so compared to others, his personality shines,” Diskin said.

“People on the left gave up the idea of a rosy peace and people on the right gave up the idea of Greater Israel and [both] moved to the center. No one represents that better than Sharon himself, and now no one looks more reliable than Sharon,” he said.

Though the most high-profile defection to Kadima from Labor, Peres is not the first. Popular Knesset member Haim Ramon left Labor last week and Dalia Itzik, a close Peres ally, announced her decision Monday. Sharon has also taken with him 13 Knesset members from his old Likud party, including ministers Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni.

Sharon also received a boost Tuesday when Uriel Reichman, a founder of the secularist Shinui party and a well-known academic in Israel, bolted his party to join Kadima.

Assuming the latest polling numbers are correct, Sharon’s Kadima party will gain the most mandates in the March 28 elections, followed by Labor in second and the depleted Likud in a distant third. The prime minister will then decide whether to look left or right to form a new governing coalition.

Though it is believed his preference is to join with Labor again, Diskin said, one thing will be clear: “Sharon will hold all the cards in his hand and he will be the one to make the decisions.”

©2005 Rafael D. Frankel & The New York Daily News

Sharon's Gamble

Sharon’s Gamble

BY RAFAEL D. FRANKEL

Analysis

JERUSALEM—Saying Monday evening that “the Likud in its present configuration cannot lead the nation to its goals," Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon formally quit the party he helped found 32 years ago. At the same time, a huge majority in the Kinesset passed motions to dissolve Israel’s parliament, capping a day that shook the foundations of Israel’s political world like none other in recent memory.

Though Sharon’s decision was met by much fanfare here, the old general is taking substantial political risks in forming his new, centrist party, the main goal of which is “to lay the foundation for a peaceful arrangement in which we will determine the final borders of the state, while insisting that terror organizations are dismantled.”

Despite polls here which suggest his “National Responsibility” party would gain the most votes in general elections expected in March, the fracturing of the Israeli political system—long dominated by the Likud and Labor—leaves a path full of potential pitfalls in Sharon’s bid for a third term as premier.

In the general elections, the prime minister will have to contend with the fiery trade unionist Amir Peretz, who recently wrestled control of the left-leaning Labor from Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres, as well as one of a slew of candidates from the Likud, among them former prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Moreover, history has not been kind to hastily formed parties here, even when they were headed by proven leaders.

That is one of the reasons Sharon is moving to dissolve the Kinesset as soon as possible. The prime minister believes that with the Gaza withdrawal behind him, the momentum is now firmly in his corner and he would like to ride that wave of support to an unprecedented election victory.

With political enemies now flanking both his sides, the old hawk is betting that his leadership credentials and image as conservative pragmatist can appeal to the vast spectrum of voters that make up the Israeli political center—people who are willing to trade land for peace but do not necessarily trust their Palestinian counterparts.

A leader who on the one hand is tough on terrorism, but on the other is willing to make “painful concessions” (code for land concessions) will likely appeal to many Israelis, and Sharon is banking on a strong plurality of voters viewing him in such a light.

Even with strong support, it is almost a given that whichever party emerges with the most Kinneset mandates will fall well short of a majority and thus need to form a coalition.

Were National Responsibility to gain the most votes, it is likely Sharon would look toward Labor and the secularist party Shinui to form a governing coalition that would keep him in power. Whether those two parties will oblige remains to be seen, but offers of ministerial posts have often tempted otherwise reluctant Israeli leaders to join coalitions.

A coalition between National Responsibility and the Likud is not seen as likely since Sharon left the party due to the refusal of so many Likud members to follow his political path.

Depending on the results, and the duration of the next government, the coming election may be the last time Sharon stands for political office. Though he would like to cement his legacy with a peace deal, the man once known as “the bulldozer” has made clear that any final-status negotiations are predicated upon a disarming of Palestinian militant groups.

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has said he is willing to make such a move, but only after Palestinian elections in January, where he is trying to fend off a stiff challenge from Hamas.

“I hope that, once the dust settles down in Israel,” Palestinian Chief Negotiator Saeb Erekat said Monday, “that we will have a partner that is willing to re-engage in the end game, the end of conflict, in order to achieve a peace treaty between Israelis and Palestinians, which, I believe, is doable.”

Until then, the peace process is on hold as the two sides focus on internal political dramas.

©2005 Rafael D. Frankel

Pressure on leaders rises in Holy Land

After a weekend of conflict in Gaza, Sharon and Abbas are facing intense scrutiny.

By Ilene R. Prusher and Rafael D. Frankel

JERUSALEM AND GAZA – Just as the Israeli and Palestinian leaders seemed to be inching away from hostilities, a new cycle of violence is a troubling reminder of a reality that has so often tripped-up Middle East peacemaking: Gestures that win accolades abroad often earn arrows at home.

As such, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, are both targets of sharp domestic criticism in the aftermath of Israel's handover of Gaza to the Palestinian Authority (PA).

For Mr. Sharon, the challenge comes in the form of a leadership contest within his right-wing Likud party, which Sharon himself helped found. Sharon faces a formidable takeover attempt from Benjamin Netanyahu, the former prime minister. He's aiming to assemble enough Likud members at a party convention - due to end Monday night - to oust Sharon.

For Mr. Abbas, what many perceive as a failure to impose law and order in Gaza after Israel finished its withdrawal from Gaza is giving fodder to domestic critics.
Members of the Palestinian legislative council raised a no-confidence motion against Abbas, the first of its kind in the Palestinian Authority. The debate on the motion, planned for Monday, was postponed Sunday amid the flare-up in violence over the weekend.

The hostilities spilled over again on Friday after a bomb killed 18 people at rally held in Gaza by the militant group Hamas. The PA, Hamas, and Israel all traded blame over the bombing, which was followed by a series of Hamas rocket attacks - 35 in all - on towns in southern Israel on Saturday, wounding five. Israel responded by attacking the offices of Hamas in Gaza early Sunday with helicopter gunships and arresting more than 200 Palestinians in the West Bank.

"It's Abu Mazen's failure to do anything about Hamas that has put Sharon on the spot and that allows Netanyahu to say, 'I told you so,' " says Yossi Alpher, an Israeli political analyst who is the former head of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University. "But Sharon never articulated to the Israeli public what the point of disengagement was. He never told Israel that this was never intended to improve tactical security, but to improve demographic security."

Leaving Gaza, more specifically, is expected to help Israel keep a Jewish majority over the areas under its sovereignty in the years to come.

Gaza militants

The weekend's events seemed to fast-forward to the scenarios that Israeli opponents of disengagement had predicted. Critics of the pullout plan, Mr. Netanyahu foremost among them, argued that militants would simply use the reclaimed territory as a launching pad for new missile attacks on Israel.

Israel had warned that if such attacks were to occur, there would be harsh retaliation. The threat of a major Israeli military raid had been looming since Thursday night, when the Islamic Jihad organization launched several rockets into the southern Israeli town of Sderot.

"We have to make it clear to the Palestinians that Israel will not let the recent events pass without a response," Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofa said in a statement over the weekend. "The response will be crushing and unequivocal."

The move of hard-line Muslim militants to attack Israel now, after the withdrawal, evinces the degree to which there is disarray among armed groups whose raison detre was to attack Israel. While some say that they would only focus on pushing Israel back to the territorial lines of 1967, when Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip, others view themselves as in a battle for the destruction of the Jewish state.

For a change, both Israeli and Palestinian officials laid blame on militants for the flare-up. "We were all shocked and pained by what happened in Gaza," Abbas said, calling for an end to "armed parades and disruptions in civilian areas at the expense of serious work and of the rule of law."

While most Israeli and PA sources viewed Friday's bombing as Hamas's fault - the Palestinian interior minister called it an internal "accident," indicating that someone was working on building a bomb - Hamas blamed it on Israel.

Moreover, it began to paint the PA as a collaborator with Israel, in an attempt to turn public opinion against Abbas's government.

"The PA Interior Ministry is playing the role of the "Satan's lawyer," says Hamas leader Dr. Mahmoud al-Zahhar, because it had taken on the role of defending Israel and launching media campaigns against the Islamic resistance group, Hamas.

"The PA stance, and that of its spokesmen, indicate that the ministry's task is to wage a media war against Hamas and to market the Israeli stance," says Mr. Zahhar, who charged that the flare-up was orchestrated by Israel as a way to block Hamas from participating in legislative elections scheduled for next January.

Israel has asked for international support for its position that Hamas should be barred from participating in the elections, a point of contention for PA leaders who hope to coax Hamas into the political system. But reining in militant groups, which Sharon says is a prerequisite for any earnest return to Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, will prove a formidable task.

One of the groups that has begun to assert its power at the PA's expense is the Popular Resistance Committee (PRC), a group of militants who come from a variety of different ideological viewpoints and are deeply critical of corruption in the PA.

In an interview in Gaza, the head of the PRC says the group would move its focus to the West Bank, and that one of their strategies would be to kidnap Israeli soldiers. "If Israel returned to the '67 borders, gave up East Jerusalem, and released all its Palestinian prisoners, we would cease fighting," says Jamal Abu Samahadhana, leader of the PRC.

Sharon's political fight

Compared with Abbas, analysts note that Sharon's political career is far more endangered. If Abbas does face the postponed no-confidence motion, he would most likely be forced to change his cabinet. He will not be forced to step down as he was elected by a direct vote.

Sharon, however, could find himself pushed out of his job. His fate as head of the Likud rests with the party's central committee members, who are considered to be significantly more right wing than Likud voters overall.

A poll in the Israeli daily Maariv showed there was a majority of members who wanted to oust Sharon. That is a trend he will have a difficult time reversing, wrote Nahum Barnea in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, especially when it is occurring "under the shadow of Kassam rockets."

• Ayas Sabah in Gaza contributed to this report.

© 2005 The Christian Science Monitor

Gaza greenhouses damaged by looters

By Rafael D. Frankel

NEVEH DEKALIM, Gaza—On a flattened sand dune a mile up from the Mediterranean Sea, where some of the world’s finest quality vegetables grew until just over two months ago, all that remains are torn plastic sheets, twisted wire, and metal support beams of a once fertile greenhouse.

Left here by Gaza’s departed Jewish residents and gifted to the incoming Palestinians by American philanthropists who shelled out $14 million to save them, at least hundreds of the approximate 4,000 greenhouses were looted by the Palestinians in the first days of their new found freedom.

Despite pleas from Palestinian Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Amed Queri, it is clear hundreds, if not thousands of Palestinians here had other priorities and severe damage was done.

Though Palestinian troops are now posted around most of the large greenhouse fields which abut former Jewish towns, much of the expensive equipment was already lifted from the sites.

Water pumps, irrigation lines, and electricity boxes were taken, said Zaki Karim, 51, who worked at greenhouses in the Gadid settlement before the Israelis withdrew from Gaza last month. “All over Gush Katif the greenhouses have been damaged and a lot was stolen from them,” he said, adding that the Palestinian Authority was paying Palestinians who worked in the Greenhouses before to clean up the messes and repair the damage done to sites across the former settlement block.

Many of the former workers were despondent over the damage done to the greenhouses, Karim said. “It’s a big problem for us, it was our work for a long time and it was supposed to help even more people now, but it’s a mess.”

Pvt. Mohamed Cidawi, a Palestinian soldiers who is now assigned guard duty at the greenhouses of the former Katif settlement, said many plastic and canvas coverings and metal support beams for the houses were also stolen or damaged in the looting. Walking through the rows of greenhouses, some damaged and some not, he encountered a boy with a sledge hammer priming to break into an electricity box. “Go away,” he shouted, “if I see you here another time I’ll kick your ass.”

At the greenhouse sites, a few Palestinian police officers claimed that much of the stolen booty was recovered and that it would shortly be returned. When initially asked to view it they agreed before backtracking and saying the goods were off limits to reporters.

For their part, Palestinian Officials have either not bothered to survey how many of the greenhouses were damaged or they are unwilling to say, insisting the damage they did to the homes was minimal and that most of it was inflicted by the departing Israelis.

According to Interior Ministry Spokesman Tawfiq Abu Qusa, around 30 percent of the crop houses which grew mostly tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers were damaged or destroyed by Israel. However according to the World Bank, which facilitated the transfer, Israel left intact 90 percent of the sites.

Pressed on this, Qusa maintained “the Palestinians damaged so little you can’t even count it.”

But at mid-afternoon on a cloudless Monday, Samir Al-Najar, 29, directed a crew of eight workers as they methodically dismantled a half-acre greenhouse in plain sight of all who drove by. From Al-Mawassi, a Palestinian town neighboring this former Jewish settlement, Al-Najar said the land was his family’s from before Israel occupied it in 1967 and that it was his right to do with it as he pleased.

“I want to reorganize the land so we’re clearing it out for now,” he said as two workers struggled together to carry away a stack of tall metal support beams. Asked whether he would sell the materials he was confiscating, he shook his head. “We’ll probably rebuild with them, but I want the greenhouses to be our own, not Jewish ones.”

Standing next to Al-Najar, a boy of 16 smiled with a semi-automatic rifle slung over his shoulder. Looking at the gun, Al-Najar said it was for protection from looters. “There were a lot of people who stole from the greenhouses,” he said. “The Palestinian Authority was here all the time, but they were overwhelmed” by the amount of people and could not stop them.

©2005 Rafael D. Frankel and The New York Daily News

Former Gush Katif residents battle stagnation and depression

By Rafael D. Frankel

MAFKI’IM—One week ago, Ya’akov Abrigil picked up a saw for the first time in his life and started building a wooden picket fence. Among the raw lots of Mafki’im, where 25 prefabricated homes stand out against the pervasive dirt, occasional replanted palm trees and out of place green manicured lawns, the fence is a lone, stubborn symbol of a man who refuses to give in to what he sees all around him.

“I need to do something,” Abrigil, 47, a former resident of Peat Sadeh in Gush Katif said, throwing both his palms in the air. “People here have nothing to do with themselves. All day long they sit. I’m afraid of the day when I sit,” said the father of four who admitted that was all he did during his initial days here.

Sitting is a way of life in this small settlement just a few kilometers north of Gaza which took in 18 families from Peat Sadeh and seven from Rafiah Yam after the disengagement. The sedentary days of its residents are a far cry from the years of farming they knew until now, and their perpetual lack of motion lays in sharp contrast to the tractors, steam rollers, and construction crews who are busy laying roads and landscaping the new neighborhood of their adopted town.

Without jobs, and still in a state of shock over the loss of their homes and land, many here are beset with stagnation—a state of being they have never known and can see no way out of.

“Some of my friends get in their cars and drive in circles,” Abrigil said. Others “don’t even have the will to get out of bed in the morning.”

For the most part, the former Gush Katif residents spend their days lounging on plastic lawn furniture in front of their temporary homes. They sip coffee, smoke cigarettes and then repeat each of those ordinary acts on another plastic chair in front of a different prefabricated house where they find minimal solace in the companionship of friends in the same state of mind.

Rami and Ruti Ya’akov, Amos Burdeh, and Tzion Yitzchak, all of whom lived in Gush Katif for at least 18 years, were doing just that on Sunday as they helped a Thai worker they knew find a flight back to Bangkok. They joked that at least he had a home to go back to.

“Everyone here are farmers and there is nowhere for us to farm,” Rami Ya’akov, 40, said. Though the government is in the process of finding them new land, Ya’akov said no one in Mafki’im is expecting to plant crops until next summer.

While the parents here struggle to find what to do with their lives until then, their children are confronting challenges of their own. Adjusting to new schools has not been easy, Burdeh, 50, said of his three children, who are 7, 10, and 14 years old and were divided into three different schools around Nitzanim, Yad Mordechai and S’derot.

His oldest girl has fallen into a depression and does not want to meet her new classmates. “She’s sitting at home all day,” he said. “I can’t even make her smile.”

Up the road, the mood is mixed among the 273 families who have flooded into the expeditiously developed New Nitzanim, where mounds of soil, coils of fiber optic cable, and flats of roof tiles wrapped in plastic lay on the side of the road into town.

“Everyone is dealing with the situation individually,” said Chen From, a volunteer from Even Yehuda. The 23-year-old is running after school activities for children “who have nothing else to do,” adding that high unemployment has also rendered many of the adults listless.

Though a precious few are happier in Nitzanim because of the improved security situation, most still feel slighted by the government. “I hope Sharon pays the prices for this,” said one resident who would not give his name because he was “tired of talking to journalists.”

While affirming the right of that attitude, Tziporah Sharabi, who came from Gadid with her family, said it is also counterproductive. “It was terrible what happened, but slowly, slowly we are moving on,” she said. “It’s not good for the soul to only talk about the bad and see only the half-empty glass.”

Sharabi spoke from her new and temporary 90-square-meter prefabricated home, located at the end of a block of identical dwellings reserved for former Gadid residents. At the entrance to their cul-de-sac, the “Welcome to Gadid” sign which once stood at the gate to the former settlement continues to greet all who enter.

“Since we came together as a community it’s probably not as hard,” the mother of five said. “The friendship continues even if the place does not.”

Unlike many of her friends, Sharabi wants to work in the nursery here to regain her former job. “There are a lot of people who are still mad at the state who don’t want to go back to work. For me, I can’t stay home.”

For her husband, Yichiam, it is a different story. Already passed 50 years old, he feels to old to start over with more greenhouses. On Sunday, the slender man with dark skin and a disarming smile, who a month ago traipsed around his land in Gush Katif with a light step and a contented air about him, was “keeping himself busy buying a refrigerator,” his wife said dryly.

Back at Mafki’im, Ya’akov Abrigil was feeling antsy following a twenty-minute break from building his fence. After plugging a drill bit into its socket, he grabbed five nails and put them in his mouth, holding them with his pursed lips as he checked to make sure the fence rail was on straight before drilling it in for good.

Catching a glimpse of his new town, he paused for a minute and surveyed the scene. At four adjacent homes, his neighbors sat languidly on their porches. “Everyone wants to be optimistic that things will be good here,” he said, taking the nails out of his mouth to speak. “We are trying to be strong because we know there is no chance to go back, but really, people here are in a sorry state.”

©2005 Rafael D. Frankel and The Jerusalem Post

Gaza and the path forward

By Rafael D. Frankel

OPINION

At sunrise this morning, I stood with a couple dozen journalists and a couple hundred soldiers and watched the last column of Israeli tanks rumble down the Gush Katif highway through the Kissufim checkpoint out of Gaza. Immediately following their departure, two army bulldozers erected a roadblock of huge cement pillars and dirt on the road. As they lifted the blocks and earth, dozens of Palestinians from the neighboring village spilled onto the road they had not walked on for at least five years, waving the flags of the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad. They kept their distance though, and after 15 minutes the bulldozers also cleared out followed by the armored personnel carrier of Brig. Gen. Aviv Kohavi who was, until that moment, the IDF commander in Gaza. He walked out of his jeep and replied to the salute of two second lieutenants who then swung the newly erected fence shut and at 7:02 a.m. on September 12, 2005, turned the key on 38 years of Israeli presence in the Gaza strip.

"The gate that is closing after us is also a gate that is opening," Kohavi had said at a ceremony the day before in Gush Katif marking the end of Israel's military presence in Gaza. As the setting sun hovered over the Mediterranean Sea, casting a glow over the white sand dunes, he continued: "We hope it will be a gate of peace and quiet. A gate of hope and good will."

By the time he himself left Gaza, I was utterly exhausted. Not only by the fact that I had only slept one hour that night, but by the last month of work covering Israel's disengagement from Gaza and part of the northern West Bank. Still, I could hardly believe the history I was witnessing. "Privileged" wouldn't be exactly the right word to describe what I felt to be a part of it all, but something along those lines. And my amazement with the event was clearly evident to the editor at the night desk in Chicago who I was on the phone with when the gate was locked. "Wow," she said. "Yeah, incredible," I replied.

Though the last month was physically draining, it was also very much an exercise in mental agility and emotional toughness. I really was not prepared for how much I would be effected by the sight of people being carried from their homes, sometimes kicking and screaming and nearly always in a fit of tears. A lot of it probably had to do with the week that I spent in Gaza before the army got there, interviewing and just spending quality time with the "settlers" who lived there. I must say my preconceptions about who and what these people were were utterly shattered in the 12 days I spent down there. Despite what I had read and seen in the media, and been told by others, the good majority were not crazy idealogs with whom there was no possibility of relating to. Rather, they were incredibly warm, well spoken, resilient and caring people who built communities out of sand dunes that were the envy of all of Israel for how close knit, safe, and friendly they were. And they did it in the midst of a constant barrage of mortars, quassam rockets, shootings, and bombings.

And yet, despite all this, to withdraw from Gaza was the right thing for Israel.

As great as the Gush Katif people were, they had "a serious blind spot," as Joel Greenberg, the Chicago Tribune bureau chief told me. Indeed they did. Their lives of comfort were lived at the expense of more than a million Palestinians, many of whom lived in their back yards in immense poverty. Their villas and suburban lives were also subsidized by the tax dollars and sacrifice of Israelis throughout the country who's money and bodies went to protecting the Gaza Jews for more than two decades, much to the resentment of many here. In short, this was an ill-conceived enterprise to start with, and it only got worse over the years, as the 8,500 Jews took over 1/3 of Gaza's land and 40% of its water resources at the same time as the government continued pouring money into Gaza better spent elsewhere.

I am under no illusions that withdrawing from Gaza will bring peace to Israel--nor do I think are any Israelis. On may way back to Jerusalem this morning, a mortar had already fallen on the town of Sderot (well inside Israel) and over night, Palestinians had set fire to at least four of the synagogues Israel left standing in the demolished towns. Even if it was expected, such actions show how far we truly are from peace. If there was ever any doubt, I hope that by now people from around the world realize that on balance, there is no moral equivalency anymore between the actions of a state trying to defend itself and a groups of terrorists buoyed by a complicit society which has chose an path of nihilism and destruction over reconciliation and peace.

So why withdraw then? There are two reasons. First, not all Palestinians are bad people (since I've been here I've met some great ones), and the collective punishment they have lived under and the conditions they are forced to raise their families in because of it are appalling. Admittedly though, and you can judge me for this if you so choose, my sympathies do not abound even for them. They are part of a society that refuses to deal with the cancer of terrorism which has taken it over, and until they do, they are mostly part of the problem.
The more important reason to withdraw is the concept itself of Disengagement, which, though not under that particular name, I've been urging ever since the collapse of the Camp David peace talks in 2000. At that time, it became clear that there was no partner for peace on the other side. And despite the hopes of new leadership since Arafat's death, Abu Mazen appears either unwilling or unable (probably both) to confront the demons of Palestinian society. It's a shame, because he is selling his own people short and in the end it will cost him his job or his life.

Working off that premise, Israel must act unilaterally to put itself in the best situation possible, which it is now doing by erecting, for the first time since 1967, real, defensible borders. In tandem with the separation barrier (also my idea from 2000, which I will continue to remind everyone always:) ) that means withdrawing from land that has large majorities of Palestinians in its population. We have just seen that happen with Gaza, and there is every reason to believe it should, and will happen to settlements in the West Bank that fall on the Palestinian side of the fence Israel is nearing completion of. This disengagement, though sad, and the wall, though an ugly eye sore and a reminder of how ruined the dream of peaceful coexistence is, is the only pragmatic option Israel has at its disposal. We need a wall. We need separation. We need a divorce.

As it stands, Ariel Sharon's route for the separation barrier (in some places it’s a fence and in others a large concrete wall) will incorporate into Israel around 10% of the West Bank. Though I would personally like to see that number more around 2-3%, with that amount of land being given reciprocally to the Palestinians from Israeli territory, it is pretty clear that only Sharon could have pulled off the disengagement from Gaza, so let's give him credit.

Sharon and his cabinet now have to decide what kind of autonomy to give the Palestinians in Gaza. Who should control the sea, the air, and the border crossings? Israel would do well to relinquish all of it. It will have to happen at some point anyways. Better to do it now than let more blood be spilled over it. Give them Gaza, give them safe passage from there to the West Bank via a sunken train track or military escort. Let them control their border with Egypt. Because of advanced technology, it will soon be possible to scan anyone coming into Israel without having any physical contact with them. So fine, let some people come in for work through the hi-tech scanners. But in general, we should wash our hands of them as much as possible. Let them figure out their own affairs, take care of themselves, get help from other Arab countries or Europe if they can, and leave them be. Alone. Without us in any part of their lives. Whether that is good for them or not, I'm not sure, but more importantly, it's best for Israel.

This won't solve everything. The terrorism will continue. But it will be manageable. It will not involve suicide bombers in our midst killing dozens in cafes and busses. And what will be left, Israel is for sure strong enough to deal with--both militarily, and within society.

Because of the mind field that is Israeli politics, we now will likely see a general election within the next six months. Since he alienated much of his traditional extreme right-wing base, Sharon may have to form a new party to run again for prime minister. Make no mistake about it, he is by far the best hope to continue the unilateral disengagement strategy since he is the only person both capable of taking on the settler movement and also viewed as strong enough by most Israelis to not weaken Israel's security position. Let us hope that one way or another, he is given the chance by the voters to do that and that he can live long enough to see it through to fruition.

One day, probably 20 or 30 years from now, there will hopefully come a time when the Palestinians have cleaned themselves up and are really ready to talk peace. Until then, Israel and the Jewish people must hunker down, close ranks, consolidate land and resources, and wait for the dream of peace in our land to come. We've waited 2,000 years, we can wait a few more decades.

©2005 Rafael D. Frankel. Not for reprinting or redistribution without the author's express written consent.

Rubble all that remains of Gaza homes

By Rafael D. Frankel

NEVEH DEKALIM, Gaza—Bulldozers are no strangers to Gaza, but even during the last intifada they did not scar the earth like this.

Despite all that was predicted by the settler movement, religious Zionists, and anti-disengagement activists from around the country; despite the prayers and the predictions of miracles, the fact is that by the beginning of Shabbat today, the bulldozers, brought here by “The Bulldozer,” will have finished the job they came here to do: destroy all the Jewish homes the modern Gaza Strip has ever seen.

In what was the largest of the Jewish settlements in Gaza, the job here was already done. Black tar still coated the streets, red bricks still tiled the sidewalks, and power lines ran up and down the white sand dunes as they have for more than two decades.

Though devoid of life, the municipal buildings, sports gym, and all the structures which housed businesses remained intact. And from the Gush Katif highway, the dozens of greenhouses and the Star of David shaped yeshiva provided the familiar view for anyone accustomed to traveling here.

Yet where homes once stood for more than 500 families, only mound after mound of crumbled concrete, twisted metal, and busted stucco remained. Once manicured lawns were overrun with the rubble, and pits two meters deep and three across lay testament to uprooted palm trees crated off for replanting in new soil.

“It’s like a movie, a bad dream,” said Rashbi Cohen, 39, a bus driver from Beit HaGedi who was in Neveh Dekalim Thursday. With an uncle who lived here and a job in which he often drove groups from Gush Katif on trips around Israel, Cohen was familiar with the tranquil suburban town this once was. “You can’t imagine something like this, what we did here.”

What little traffic remained—mostly trucks moving heavy machinery and army and police vehicles augmented by the occasional car of a resident who received special permission to visit—dodged random debris strewn across the roads. Palm fronds mixed with a refrigerator here, a set of chairs and a table there.

In the parking lot and town square, which hundreds of youths made their hang-out during the town’s last days, dozens of unused, still flattened boxes were scattered across the concrete along with two mattresses.

On the barbed wire fence still ringing the settlement, orange ribbon was tied around metal wire to read: “Gush Katif forever.”

All the while, perched above the methodical destruction, tattered “Chof Aza” and Israeli flags fluttered from still-standing lampposts.

Such was not the case at the site of the Gush Katif cemetery. Where just over two weeks ago thousands gathered for a final visit that doubled as a tearful Tisha B’Av service, the sand dunes were well on their way to regaining their former domain.

With the last of the 48 graves removed Thursday, only stone from the cemetery’s concrete foundation and the occasional plastic water pipe protruded from the sand which was marked by fresh bulldozer treads.

It took five days to remove all the graves, Brigadier General Orna Barbibai said, as she stood with a unit of soldiers who just completed the job. Each coffin was escorted by a former Gush Katif rabbi on its way to its revised final resting place.

“Wherever the families asked us to move them, that’s what we did.” Barbibai said, adding that 15 people will be reburied on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.

Though various settler and religious groups are petitioning the high court to spare the Gaza synagogues, not even a memorial plaque is planned for the site of the cemetery. But whether by chance or purpose, a compact disc stuck up from a dune in front of the former site. “Memory” was engraved on its gold surface.

Meanwhile, from the Gush Katif highway, the dilapidated shacks and grey apartment buildings of Khan Yunis stood as they always have. Though testaments to Jewish life in Gaza will remain—the greenhouses, the roads, perhaps the synagogues—38 years later, the Arabs are once again alone with this land.

©2005 Rafael D. Frankel and The Jerusalem Post

For long-time Jewish and Arab friends, disengagement is a double edge sword

For long-time Jewish and Arab friends, disengagement is a double edge sword

By Rafael D. Frankel

PEAT SADEH, Gaza—On the bottom floor of a house that no longer exists, two Palestinians and one Israeli shared a meal two weeks ago that they hope will not be their last together.

Ya’akov Abrigil, Tasir Abu Shaluf, and Sabri Sadudi swapped stories, hugs, shed a few tears, and said they would see each other soon, even though that is far from certain. Their friendship, which is more than a decade old is now, in the hands of politicians.

Though Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza is being hailed around the world as a courageous step toward peace in this war-torn region, it is also tearing apart relationships between Jews and Arabs here that transcended violence and politics for more than two decades.

Soon after Abrigil, 73, moved to this Jewish town in Gush Katif 18 years ago, he built a series of greenhouses in which he grew cucumbers, tomatoes, and sweet peppers. Throughout the years, Abrigil relied on Palestinian workers to provide most of the labor needed to maintain the greenhouses and grow and harvest the crops.

Over time, the bonds they formed turned into much more than a standard employer-employee relationship.

“They’re our family,” Abrigil said. “Some of them have worked for us since they were teenagers.”

Shaluf and Sadudi both described a relationship with Abrigil in the same terms and took pride in seeing each other’s children and grand children grow up—though because of security restrictions the children themselves never came to know each other.

“Their house was always open and we never had any problems with money,” Shaluf said of Abrigil.

Unlike many of the Jewish towns in Gaza, the residents of Peat Sadeh did not put up a fight against their eviction, nor did they wait for the army to forcibly remove them. In the final days of Peat Sadeh’s existence, only a lack of tumbleweed blowing across the pavement prevented comparisons to an Old West ghost town.

Many of the once luxurious villas were stripped down to the stucco walls. Doors, window glass, floor tiling, cupboards and closets, kitchen appliances, and even the red shingles on many roofs were removed by their former owners who took everything of value with them. On the shells of the homes that remained standing, graffiti in red spray paint told tales of the former village and its occupants.

“Here lived in fun the Amin family,” it was written on one home. “Gush Katif forever!”

In those days, when the end was nigh, the friends said they were dealing with separation anxiety. “For a week I didn’t see him and I was mad,” Shaluf said. “These are our last hours together and we are neighbors.”

In the end, Abrigil did come by, even visiting the house of one of his workers in Mawassi—the neighboring Palestinian town—to visit his sick mother.

From his second-story balcony with a view of sand dunes and palm trees which eventually give way to the grey concrete apartments of Mawassi and then the sparkling waters of the Mediterranean Sea, Abrigil pointed to a series of cream-colored oblong tents pitched amongst the dunes.

Wiping a tear from his eye, he spoke of the greenhouses and the friends he was leaving here. “They are harvesting now, and everything they can pick I’m giving to them,” he said.

Abrigil is also paying his workers three months’ wage—a severance package for a dozen years of work which he said still doesn’t rightfully compensate them.

Unlike the Jews who are vacating Gaza, the hundreds of Palestinian workers they are leaving behind are not receiving any compensation for lost jobs. Though a deal seems to have been struck whereby most of the greenhouses will be saved for the Palestinians to take over, the workers themselves are not optimistic about their prospects for continued meaningful employment.

“We heard maybe someone will buy the greenhouses, but it’s just talk. Arabs always talk but who knows what will happen,” Sadudi said. Along with Shaluf, he has little to no confidence in the Palestinian Authority to manage the greenhouses well “and without corruption.”

What the two really want is to be able to work for Abrigil at his new home in Mavki'im, a town just north of Gaza where the entire 26 families of Peat Sadeh have relocated to together.

So far that has not been possible as Israel is, for the most part, not allowing Palestinian workers out of Gaza until after the disengagement—including the uprooting of the Israeli army—is complete.

Contacted recently, Abrigil said he has not received any word from authorities about when or if Shaluf, Sadudi, and others will be allowed into Israel despite repeated requests. He would keep trying, he said.

“If they let us into Israel it will be fine,” Shaluf said at Peat Sadeh. “But if it’s closed to us, then what will we do?”

©2005 The Media Line

Last targeted settlements cleared

Last targeted settlements cleared
Israeli forces carry out the entire planned evacuation of all settlers in Gaza and at 4 sites in the West Bank in one week with little violence but no shortage of anguish

By Christine Spolar and Rafael D. Frankel, Chicago Tribune. Christine Spolar reported from Homesh, and Rafael D. Frankel reported from Sanur
Published August 24, 2005

HOMESH, West Bank -- Israeli forces Tuesday overwhelmed the hilltop settlements of Homesh and Sanur with practiced assurance, finishing a pullout of thousands of Jewish settlers from Gaza and parts of the West Bank in a week's time.

After swiftly completing the evacuation of 25 settlements in Palestinian territories, the army now will focus on ending its presence in Gaza.

Houses left by the settlers will be razed in the next 10 days, army officials said. Graves already are being moved, and religious buildings will be destroyed. The withdrawal will be complete when Israeli troops uproot their barracks and checkpoints to leave the Gaza Strip, probably within weeks, to Palestinian Authority rule.

"It's finished but it's not over," Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, the army chief of staff, said Tuesday night as troops still were wrangling with the last civilian in Homesh.

The Israeli government has voiced concerns that Palestinians, eager to claim a victory from the withdrawal, will try to enter the settlement sites during the transition. Israeli soldiers are expected to leave no later than early October.

The pullout from the West Bank was the final planned eviction of Jews from land where the Palestinians want to form a state. Twenty-one settlements in Gaza were emptied beginning Aug. 17. Two other settlements in the West Bank, Kadim and Ganim, already were largely vacated.

In Homesh and Sanur, army officials had feared that some settlers, who believed they were reclaiming biblical land for the Jewish state, would fight violently to remain.

Instead, the West Bank settlements, largely religious and right-wing, fell quickly, and soldiers saw no new wrinkles to the pattern of resistance. Army officials said Tuesday night that homes there also will be razed.

`Not volunteering'

Yedidya Lerner, a Homesh settlement spokesman, said Tuesday that the settlers never were armed for the withdrawal and none planned a radical protest. He resented reports that the government considered Homesh an armed threat. The army had negotiated throughout the day with rabbis.

"We're not volunteering to leave the Holy Land," Lerner said. "We won't be embracing these soldiers. We were sorry to see that it was very easy for them in [Gaza]."

Settlers wailed, climbed onto roofs, sprayed troops with water and flour and locked themselves into synagogues to evade eviction. Soldiers used bulldozers in Homesh and cranes in Sanur to break through to the most troublesome settlers. In both communities, troops gave the settlers time to shout themselves into a weakened, though hysterical, state.

In Homesh the army evacuated 709 civilians; one civilian and five police and soldiers were slightly hurt in the confrontations. In Sanur, 620 people were evacuated; one civilian and four police and soldiers were slightly wounded, army officials said.

In the past few days, authorities added, both communities were largely filled with infiltrators protesting the pullout.

In Homesh, infiltrators took control of houses already vacated. Dozens of men and boys locked themselves into the community's synagogue and yeshiva. At one point, 80 girls took over the second floor of a house and sang and danced as soldiers waited outside.

When young women soldiers were sent in, the resisters kicked and screamed for hours. Other girls hurled bags of oil, vinegar and eggs

The synagogue was breached later by troops who first took over the roof and then drilled open the front door.

In Sanur, two dozen girls barricaded themselves inside the courtyard of an art gallery. At an old British police building, 80 resisters sought refuge on the rooftop and dozens more locked themselves inside the building. Security forces used cranes to lift and evacuate them.

In both communities, residents hurled insults at the soldiers as they walked into town.

In Homesh, Mihael Manasherov seethed over how the Israeli army was, as he said, "being used" in an unjust cause.

`Army for Palestine'

"They look like an army for Palestine, not the Israeli army," said Manasherov, an emigre from the former Soviet republic of Georgia, who has lived 14 years in the settlement.

Manasherov, a grandfather of 10, could not hold back his ire as troops walked past the door of his two-bedroom house where a large Israeli flag fluttered. Nothing inside his home was boxed or packed, but the 66-year-old wanted to spend his last few moments in Homesh with soldiers.

"Go on, army of Palestine," he said in a calm, quiet voice to some startled troops. "You're robots."

©2005 The Chicago Tribune