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