SkaroffBlog

I wrote this yesterday morning:

It’s first thing in the morning, and while I really need to get to work, I flip on CNN to find myself confronted with wordless live coverage of protesters in a synagogue in Gaza, lying on the ground with their arms linked while soldiers struggle to drag them out into the streets and out of the settlement. I watch an old man, dressed in black pants, a tallit, tefillin, and a yarmulke be torn from the arms of those around him. His tallit falls off, and as they finally move him out of the room, a soldier makes sure to scoop up the prayer shawl and wrap it back around the man. Another protester, outside the temple where there are many more cameras, tries to light an Israeli flag on fire, and failing that, tears it to shreds with his teeth. The settlers are weeping. The soldiers are weeping.

Over at All Spin Zone, Rachel Luxemburg of Fiat Lux sums up my feelings:

Personally, I do not hold with those who say that all of Israel was given to the Jews, and that giving back Gaza is a sin against God. I don’t think God sits there with a map drawing lines as to what is or is not Israel. Israel existed in the heart of every Jew during our long Diaspora. Israel will continue to exist, with or without Gaza. And the wounds the occupation have given us, the spiritual coarsening we have fallen into in a vain attempt to hold onto that land is bad enough. For the sake our our collective soul, we need to let go in order to heal.

But even if giving up Gaza is a good thing, it’s still a hard thing to do, and a sad one. Seeing the photographs of weeping settlers holding onto IDF soldiers who were also weeping, was hard. The settlement policy was a deeply misguided one, but the settlers themselves are not puppets, they’re people. They are not all gun-toting Arab haters, and now they have lost their homes. Perhaps this is the karmic payback we have to go through in order to make amends for past wrongs. If so, then perhaps some good will come of it.

And I do wonder whether giving back Gaza will allow Hamas and their ilk to claim victory, or even worse, give them a reason to keep on sending out suicide bombers and spilling innocent blood. Giving up land for peace is one thing. Giving up land and not getting peace in return would be intolerable.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 19th, 2005 at 1:26 pm and is tagged as Israel, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.