Scenes From the Disengagement

This is not a political piece about disengagement; this is an attempt to find for me and for you some consolation after what we have seen in Gush Katif. This consolation I found in the unique strength of the democracy in Israel.First, it’s not for a journalist to confess that sometimes words are not enough to express what you have seen, certainly not for somebody who has gone through a lot of terrorism and wars as I have. But after this week in Gaza, I’m afraid I’m not nearly able to tell the story: the tears and cries of the settlers losing their homes and their greenhouses, their schools and synagogues, their friends and their neighbors, the beauty of their sea and the heroism of resisting the loss of their beloved in terrorist attacks for something that now doesn’t exist anymore, the end of their Zionist dream of making the Gaza dunes blossom, the disappearance of the entire meaning of their life in the hands of their Jewish compatriots, the silent pain and the shouting rage.But I can give you a hint by recalling a man from the Matzilia family who had just set on fire his own beautiful two-story villa adorned with purple bougainvillea and acacias, the fire coming out from doors, windows, and attics, his family standing on the inflamed roof, and he was there, at my feet, lying down in front of his door face down, a peace of earth himself, his old father trying to turn him around and give him some water.I can recall a 10-year-old boy pushing a big soldier out from his door, arms outstretched to the big man’s chest, glasses going down on a little nose full of freckles and tears, asking, “Please not my home, not my mom”; and in the evening the same boy, going around alone among the empty houses and mumbling, “I want to go home,” while all the buses were leaving forever his birthplace, Morag. I can remember a group of residents of Netzer Hazani, while an enormous bulldozer enters the settlement, destroying the barricades set on fire and proceeds rolling over the marvelous grass that will return to sand in a second, crying to the sky, “Adonai, Adonai,” as if God could suddenly wake up and operate the miracle they had been expecting in vain for months.It’s hard to say, but it was difficult to avoid thinking about the never ending suffering of the Jews all along the centuries when the soldiers had to drag from their synagogues many crying old men wrapped in their prayer shawls while they kept reading their prayer books.And there has been much more. But here is the consolation that came to me, even in those hours, from the mere nature of the state of Israel, in the shape of its unique and amazing creation, its soul, the Israel Defense Force and the police. The amazingly sweet, understanding, and yet firm, professional, and morally clear attitude of the Israeli soldiers and policemen created a sincere, warm but uncompromising relationship with the very people they were removing. This will be forever an example for all the armies of the world. And a guarantee that, in a democracy, you can continue speaking and protesting and praying (oh, how many words were spent from the two sides, as if a single soldier who refused the orders could stop the disengagement) without shooting and using force, except in very few cases. The disengagement has been the image of a morally motivated democracy in motion.In Netzer Hazani, where the disengagement was relatively calm, there was a group of citizens who barricaded themselves inside a little house. The young commander, Udi Lav, invited them to discuss outside: “You have to come out now. I have the order to operate the disengagement, and sooner or later, today, I have to fulfill the orders.”Reply: “But this is the home we have built with our own hands, our forefathers were here, what will you tell your sons, will you tell them the story of how you dragged out your Jewish brothers from the land they have given so many lives for?”Lav, standing in the very hot sun, putting a hand on the shoulder of his interlocutor, answers: “Brother, I understand you, but you have to come out of here, I’m so sorry, I cry with you, but now it’s time to go.”Lav looks tired and keeps his hand on the shoulder of the settler.Reply: “You know I’ll not go, because I’m right, and I obey to the Law.”Here Lav has a little smile. He puts his hand on the Israeli flag embroidered on his shirt and says in a soft voice: “You know that I’m right. I’m simply right because it’s me actually, obeying the law, I represent law and order, I represent a decision of the parliament of the state of Israel, you cannot mix politics and religion.” He says it without any rhetoric, but just as a matter of fact. There is no place for theocracy when you live in a parliamentary system, and this has nothing to do with respecting every citizen’s belief.That young guy in uniform sweating in the sun is a flashing light of democracy, and I feel honored to have witnessed the dialogue. Even his interlocutor now stands in silence, even if he certainly still believes that the Torah is over anything else. But he too is just an Israeli, like Lav. And Lav, with his respectful attitude, shows that he knows that without the Torah, the Jews and therefore the Jewish state would not exist. They both know they have very good reasons to stand together in front of the past and in front of the future.Many soldiers discussed for long hours with the families, until they were able to help carry out their bags.I witnessed a young official sitting on the floor of the house of the family Hillberg, whose son Jonathan was killed in 1997. Under his portrait, he listened in tears to the bereaved mother Broide, who leaves not only her home but also her son’s tomb in the village, and then asked permission to say something: “I only want to tell you that I love our country no less than you do. Please believe me. I and my friends serve in the most distinguished units, just like your son, of whom I have heard so much about. We fight the terrorists just like he did. I’m here just to help overcome any possible fracture among our people, we cannot allow it, please let me help me bring your bags out.”Broide let him take her bag all along a path toward the synagogue, where she and her husband Shaul have walked every day for so many years. There, with all the citizens, the soldiers sat and cried and sang.In Kfar Darom, one of the toughest places in Gush Katif, a young girl, after telling a young soldier for the thousandth time that “a Jew doesn’t deport a Jew,” started shouting at him the second basic slogan, “Look into my eyes.” She told him so another thousand times, while the young soldier was simply patiently looking at her. When he could not stand it anymore, he asked her, “Don’t you see? I’m just looking into your eyes, blue eyes, you have to look at me, too.”The girl, a religious, modest, pretty girl who probably has never looked much into boys’ eyes, suddenly saw the soldier, his 18-year-old face, his different culture, his embarrassed, sad expression, the Israeli flag on his breast: “Wow,” she said with simple honesty, “it’s true, you are looking into my eyes, we see each other.”Ms. Nirenstein is an Italian journalist.

Scenes From the Disengagement

Scenes From the Disengagement

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