Sderot and Gush Katif

Sderot. A town even smaller than Arad thrown into the spotlight of the international media with visitors from Obama to the Kenyan security delegation all the way down to Year Coursers flocking to gawk at a town that has fallen victim to thousands of rockets raining down from Gaza. I don't know what's more depressing: that psychologists have named the children growing up there "דור קסם" (Qassam generation) because of the psychological effect it has on them or that it took the Israeli government so long to respond to these attacks. I don't know whether it was restraint or neglect but regardless, imagine how the American government would react if Mexico shot rockets at El Paso, Texas. Forget thousands of rockets, the government would have started WWIII after the 1st explosive hit (This is another especially sore point for me...how can American be so hypocritical by lecturing Israel on restraint and nonretaliation in the aftermath of every suicide attack and yet 9/11 happens and we start two wars. But I digress.) This lead me to the final infuriating issue: How can any government still condemn Israel's war with Gaza in 2008 knowing of our UNILATERAL withdrawal from Gaza three years before that. (By the way, "unilateral" means we made this concession without demanding anything in return. Of course many hoped that this show of goodwill would be reciprocated by the Palestinians with the halt of violence and a clamp down of terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip.) Turns out, the extremist Palestinians saw the withdrawal in 2005 as a sign that terrorism clearly works and thus must be continued. And so the rocket firing into Sderot and surrounding areas continued.

During our tour through Sderot one point that really stuck out in my mind was our guide's observation that violence and death and destruction make sexy stories and good fodder for the press. The squalor and destruction in Gaza make for good photos and headlines- the stories of miracles in Sderot do not. A synagogue hit by a rocket only minutes after the building had been filled with hundreds celebrating the addition of a new Torah does not warrant a story because there was a miracle that day and no one got hurt. A boy sleeping in bed when a rocket hit his home and only surviving because he had been sleeping face down with blanket and was thus protected from the brunt of the shrapnel was not story worthy because he survived with only minor injuries. The stories that are the stuff of miracles and that make you wonder if there is really a God go unnoticed yet when the guide indicates the roof destroyed by a Qassam a bus load of heads turn and cameras start flashing. The way they view the world around them is just so different. They are so accustomed to the "צבע אדום" * that no matter where they are they know where the closest bomb shelter is located. One particularly poignant story was one from our guide's personal experience. He was once in a pizza store when the alarm went off. He and the other customers crowded into the center of the shop, away from the windows and doors. The baby in the stroller next to him took out her pacifier, pointed up to the sky and went "boom, boom".

Our last stop on our siyur was to the largest resettled area of those removed from Gush Katif. A little background: Gush Katif was composed of the Jewish/Israeli populated neighborhoods in Gaza. These areas were evacuated in the summer of 2005. The Gaza withdrawal was and still is enormously controversial. Some believed it to be a necessary step towards peace and others felt it was simply too dangerous for this relatively small group of Israelis to live in such a hostile area. Those opposed to the withdrawal called it immoral and cruel to remove fellow Jews and Israelis from land the government had encouraged settling for decades. Regardless of how one feels then and now the fact remains that the government has done and extremely poor job of helping these people resettle. They were not and still are not being given proper support in relocating and rebuilding. Here are families that were forced to leave their homes and livelihoods and completely start from scratch. Communities that used to have one of the lowest unemployment rates in all of Israel now have one of the highest. The compensation money they received for their homes did not match market value, and that was before the current economic crisis hit. Thousands of poeple who for a short time were at the center of the country's attention have quickly become forgotten. Israelis who were saying "אחים לא מפקירים" ("Brothers don't desert") are now forgetting their אחים.

* "צבע אדום": when this alarm sounds you have 15 seconds to get to the nearest bomb shelter. Imagine living your life where the world around you is measured by where the next shelter is, always alert for the distinctive click that indicates the megaphone system going on and that moment of panic every time you hear there was a direct hit on a home or other occupied building.