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Most settlers go peacefully

Israel's 38-year occupation of Gaza ends with protesters' cries, calm and air-conditioned buses.

By SUSAN TAYLOR MARTIN
Published August 18, 2005

NEVE DEKALIM, Gaza Strip - Last year, when the idea of Jews expelling other Jews from their houses seemed absurd, Moshe Saperstein vowed that Israeli soldiers would have to drag him out.

Just a week ago, he still thought a miracle might save him and the 8,500 other Jewish settlers in the Gaza Strip.

In the end, the miracle never came. On Wednesday, the 65-year-old Saperstein and his wife, Rachel, left their house on their own feet. As he took a final puff on his Cuban cigar, Saperstein even offered frozen juice bars to several young soldiers.

"They've behaved as correctly as they could," he said of those who had come to evict him.

Despite the hope for divine intervention, Israeli police and soldiers swept through Gaza's 21 Jewish settlements ordering residents to leave for good. When the last settler is gone, probably within a week, the houses will be demolished and the land turned over to the Palestinian Authority.

That will end Israel's 38-year occupation of Gaza, marked by thousands of Palestinian attacks on the Jewish settlements and often brutal retaliation by Israeli soldiers against Gaza's 1.3-million Palestinians.

The government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon finally decided the situation was untenable, and ordered the withdrawal that began this week.

Like the Sapersteins, many residents went peacefully Wednesday, with soldiers toting their suitcases to air-conditioned buses. Others had to be carried out, including one man who threatened to kill himself and another who slumped in soldiers' arms while protesters sang and prayed on the roof.

Still others were surprised by the efficiency of the operation, after two chaotic days in which pullout foes often seemed to have the upper hand.

"We didn't expect it to go so fast," said Ruth Lieberman of the Yesha Council, which represents settlers. "It's a tragedy for all Jewish people."

By nightfall, about half of the families in Neve Dekalim, the largest settlement, had left, and the only remaining store, a grocery, closed forever.

Six other settlements were abandoned, and four more were almost empty.

"It's going okay," Maj. Gen. Dan Harel of the Israel Defense Forces said of the evacuation's progress.

A block from Neve Dekalim's main synagogue, police nabbed several of the teenagers from outside Gaza who have been stoking opposition to the pullout. At times, it took five or six officers to shove one kicking and screaming teen into a bus.

Authorities rounded up at least 200 young people and deposited them at bus stations in other cities to find their way home. "A small percentage" may be prosecuted for vandalism, including slashing tires and setting fires, said Ari Gottesmann, an army spokesman.

With the deadline for voluntary evacuation already past, teams of soldiers began going door to door telling settlers to be ready to leave. Almost every team was surrounded by hecklers, many of them standing nose to nose with soldiers as they cursed the officers or urged them to disobey their orders.

In the vast majority of cases, the soldiers took the abuse calmly, even when protesters shoved or poked them.

One reason for the stoicism is that "a lot of soldiers have problems with what they're doing here," Gottesmann acknowledged. Many have relatives or friends in the Gaza settlements; one soldier sadly wandered through his grandfather's house, now empty but for the memories.

Another soldier said he always wears his military cap over his kippeh because he's afraid protesters would be even harder on him if they knew he too was a religious Jew.

"I feel bad, it's a hard feeling because I'm one of them," he said.

Soldiers are not supposed to talk to journalists about their mission here, but Gottesmann offered an example of how fragile emotions can be.

"I saw a very high-ranking officer with a settler who came up to him with a 4-year-old girl and said, "If you want to take us so badly, here, you take her.' The officer broke down in tears."

Gottesmann also praised Gaza settlers for not letting angry rhetoric escalate into violence.

"I don't think anywhere else in the world would you find people being taken out of their homes, and the people kicking them out, acting in such a humane way. There's been no major violence and that speaks very, very good for the army and the settlers. Both sides understand we're brothers and have to live together."

At 10:30 Wednesday morning, soldiers gathered near the home of the Sapersteins, among the leaders of the antipullout movement in Gush Katif, as the main bloc of settlements is known.

The couple didn't want to pack lest it appear they had given up the fight.

But now their possessions were boxed and their suitcases sitting on the sidewalk.

"We will walk out with our things and join the people of Gush Katif someplace - Gush Katif will rise and Sharon will fall," vowed Rachel Saperstein, 64.

In her last time in the kitchen, she cooked a lunch of chicken and potatoes for the 13 friends who had been staying with the couple to show their support. When the bus finally pulled up at noon - already half filled with teenagers - the group filed out, led by a rabbi bearing an orange "Gush Katif Forever" flag.

Three soldiers carried luggage to the bus, while a fourth checked off names against a master list as everyone boarded.

Wednesday night, the Sapersteins were staying at a hotel in Jerusalem, where their children live. They were "so exhausted they were like robots," said a friend, Christa Rhodius, who accompanied them on the bus.

As for the soldiers? "They were very nice, very helpful, very caring."

Susan Taylor Martin can be contacted by susan@sptimes.com

Why is Gaza so important?

Israel captured the Gaza Strip from Egypt during the 1967 Mideast War. With a large and impoverished Palestinian Arab population, over the years Gaza became a cauldron of militant ambitions. A Palestinian uprising against Israel began here in 1987. Hamas, whose goal is to establish an Islamic Palestinian state in place of Israel, was founded here.

What is the reason for the pullout?

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's "disengagement" plan - announced more than a year ago during the height of the Palestinian uprising - was devised as a unilateral action to break away from what most Israelis came to see as a political, military and demographic burden. Sharon says it is a way to separate Israelis and Palestinians after four years of conflict, improve security and strengthen Israel's hold on large West Bank communities where most of the 240,000 Jewish settlers live.

What does this mean for Palestinians?

The withdrawal marks the first time Israel is abandoning land the Palestinians want for a future state.

What does this mean for peace efforts?

Whether this can lead to new peacemaking depends on the Palestinians' ability to rein in militants, who may see Israel's withdrawal as vindication of their campaign of violence. Progress also hinges on negotiations, not unilateral moves. Israeli control of large sections of the West Bank and all of Jerusalem is vehemently opposed by the Palestinians. Jewish settlers fear this withdrawal will lead to an eventual withdrawal from the rest of the West Bank.

And America's role?

Much depends on the Bush administration's willingness to plunge deeply into the mediating effort, many analysts say. Critics say the Arab-Israeli conflict has taken a back seat to the Iraq war. A Palestinian-Israeli deal would do much to calm this volatile region, in a year when Egypt has suffered two terror attacks on Sinai holiday resorts, Lebanon is in flux following the end of its occupation by Syria, war rages on in Iraq, oil prices soar, and Iran alarms the world with its nuclear ambitions.

Sources: Associated Press, Times wires

[Last modified August 18, 2005, 01:06:07]