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The Heroes of Gush Katif

Amidst all of the false portrayals of the Jewish residents of Gaza as extremists, Nadav Shragai's column in today's Haaretz is a must read.

Shragai wrote, in part:

After 5,860 mortar shells and Qassam rockets, as of yesterday morning - or, in the words of Gush Katif residents, 5,860 miracles - the time has come to discuss miracle No. 5,861: the fact that most Gush Katif residents still manage to preserve their sanity and behave in a way that elicits astonishment and respect from the external enemy and those who hate them at home...

Other people would have exploded, possibly taken the law into their own hands... But that's not what happened in Gush Katif, where residents displayed a restraint difficult to understand, and decided to stick to the routine...

Soon everything might end, and the people of Gush Katif will embark on a new path. The Israeli public would do well to engrave on its memory the noble behavior pattern of the Gush Katif residents - a type of unknown Jewish attachment to the land, in which every additional day of green grass and laundry fluttering in the wind, of planting in the greenhouse, learning Torah in the study hall and shopping in the grocery store, even when the sword is on the neck - is the fulfillment of a nearly sacred commandment...

In the middle of this crisis and harsh reality, many Gush Katif residents still find time for some self-examination regarding the sin of secluding and distancing themselves from other crises in Israeli society. At this time, many of them are still going door to door in a personal attempt to convince people to oppose the disengagement. They insist that the slogan, "With love we will triumph" is not just a marketing device, that only love (sometimes baseless love) and dialogue will lead to a renewed engagement, and that even if disengagement is the punishment, engagement is the correction.

Everyone has his own engagement. Gush Katif residents see not just engagement with territory, but primarily engagement with a different spirit - a spirit of faith, with Jewish tradition, with a different type of relationship among individuals and between each person and his God.

The big test of Gush Katif residents after the evil, immoral and dangerous "disengagement" will be the continuation of the engagement process. Those who already have proven they are not blinded by money will need to prove, even after they have been uprooted from their homes, that the process of engagement does not stem solely from a momentary interest. They will certainly know how to do this.
posted on 7/19/2005