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Make peace, Not War. Disengagement: Rehovot Residents Viewpoint
"The sun shone high in the deep blue sky above Rehovot, a small city/town, part of the heavily populated, multi-municipal megalopolis surrounding Tel Aviv in the central Sharon Plain of Israel, where I spent last Shabbat. I was in the home of family.
He is 68 years old, born in Mandatory Palestine of parents who immigrated from Lebanon in 1933. His wife, also born in pre-State Israel, is of Yemeni background. They live in a quiet neighbourhood shared by Jews of all backgrounds and types, observant and non-observant, Ashkenazi and Sephardi, Hebrew speakers, English speakers, Russian speakers, Amharic speakers, friendly and non-friendly, short and tall. Their home, semi-detached with three bedrooms and a small private garden, is modest by Canadian standards but exceptional in Israel for its roominess and private gardening possibilities.
Two of his sisters and a brother-in-law from Poland, who came to Israel in 1948 after surviving Hitler’s maniacal efforts at killing him, drove from the Galilee to join us for lunch.
The table was set for a holiday. We feasted on more than a dozen typically Mediterranean, olive-oil-rich salads, six different kinds of cheeses, three different kinds of salty fish, three different kinds of bourekas, oven-baked hard-boiled eggs, jachnoun – the sweet, Yemenite layered dough cake eaten only on Shabbat – endless platefuls of parsley-topped hummus and challah.
We sat around the table and talked. The discussion, of course, was about the disengagement slated to begin some 48 hours later. But the terms “talked” and “discussion” hardly convey the nature of the interaction – I cannot call it a debate or conversation – that took place on that hot and sunny Shabbat.
Emotions were very close to the surface. There were as many opinions as there were people in the room, often expressed at the same time. And no one spoke below a shout.
“I will never trust [Prime Minister] Sharon again.”
“He had no choice.”
“No one pressured him. Even [U.S.] President [George W.] Bush said so yesterday [referring to an interview with an Israeli journalist that was broadcast on local television Friday]. It was Sharon’s own decision. No one forced him.”
“He had no choice. It is the only way to separate from the Arabs.”
“How can we trust the Arabs? Who speaks for them? Who controls them?”
“[Palestinian Authority President] Abu Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas] must defeat Hamas and the extremists.”
“Didn’t you hear, didn’t you read what Abu Mazen said? This is just the first step. Next is the West Bank and Jerusalem.”
“He can speak all he wants. It is up to Israel to agree.”
“Israel won’t agree? Where have you been living these past 10 years?”
“What will happen after they build the road that joins Gaza to Yehuda and Shomron? The country will be cut in half. We are in mortal danger. There will surely be another war.”
“We are already at war. That is why we must separate. We can’t continue this way. We must try another way.”
“Is this the correct other way?”
“Look how we are treating the settlers. We sent them there and now we are uprooting them from their homes and from their livelihoods.”
“The government is compensating them for loss of livelihood, for their homes, for the cost of moving. The government is trying to do the right thing.”
“This is the right thing? Jewish soldiers being trained to use force against other Jews?”..."
Source: Mordechai Ben-dat. Disengagement: the Israeli viewpoint. Canadian Jewish News - North York,ON,Canada (last viewed 18 August 2005) [FullText]
He is 68 years old, born in Mandatory Palestine of parents who immigrated from Lebanon in 1933. His wife, also born in pre-State Israel, is of Yemeni background. They live in a quiet neighbourhood shared by Jews of all backgrounds and types, observant and non-observant, Ashkenazi and Sephardi, Hebrew speakers, English speakers, Russian speakers, Amharic speakers, friendly and non-friendly, short and tall. Their home, semi-detached with three bedrooms and a small private garden, is modest by Canadian standards but exceptional in Israel for its roominess and private gardening possibilities.
Two of his sisters and a brother-in-law from Poland, who came to Israel in 1948 after surviving Hitler’s maniacal efforts at killing him, drove from the Galilee to join us for lunch.
The table was set for a holiday. We feasted on more than a dozen typically Mediterranean, olive-oil-rich salads, six different kinds of cheeses, three different kinds of salty fish, three different kinds of bourekas, oven-baked hard-boiled eggs, jachnoun – the sweet, Yemenite layered dough cake eaten only on Shabbat – endless platefuls of parsley-topped hummus and challah.
We sat around the table and talked. The discussion, of course, was about the disengagement slated to begin some 48 hours later. But the terms “talked” and “discussion” hardly convey the nature of the interaction – I cannot call it a debate or conversation – that took place on that hot and sunny Shabbat.
Emotions were very close to the surface. There were as many opinions as there were people in the room, often expressed at the same time. And no one spoke below a shout.
“I will never trust [Prime Minister] Sharon again.”
“He had no choice.”
“No one pressured him. Even [U.S.] President [George W.] Bush said so yesterday [referring to an interview with an Israeli journalist that was broadcast on local television Friday]. It was Sharon’s own decision. No one forced him.”
“He had no choice. It is the only way to separate from the Arabs.”
“How can we trust the Arabs? Who speaks for them? Who controls them?”
“[Palestinian Authority President] Abu Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas] must defeat Hamas and the extremists.”
“Didn’t you hear, didn’t you read what Abu Mazen said? This is just the first step. Next is the West Bank and Jerusalem.”
“He can speak all he wants. It is up to Israel to agree.”
“Israel won’t agree? Where have you been living these past 10 years?”
“What will happen after they build the road that joins Gaza to Yehuda and Shomron? The country will be cut in half. We are in mortal danger. There will surely be another war.”
“We are already at war. That is why we must separate. We can’t continue this way. We must try another way.”
“Is this the correct other way?”
“Look how we are treating the settlers. We sent them there and now we are uprooting them from their homes and from their livelihoods.”
“The government is compensating them for loss of livelihood, for their homes, for the cost of moving. The government is trying to do the right thing.”
“This is the right thing? Jewish soldiers being trained to use force against other Jews?”..."
Source: Mordechai Ben-dat. Disengagement: the Israeli viewpoint. Canadian Jewish News - North York,ON,Canada (last viewed 18 August 2005) [FullText]
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