{"id":822,"date":"2014-01-21T10:04:08","date_gmt":"2014-01-21T10:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/?p=822"},"modified":"2014-01-23T23:46:46","modified_gmt":"2014-01-23T23:46:46","slug":"gaza-settlements-cherry-tomatoes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/gaza-settlements-cherry-tomatoes\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflections on Israeli Life: Gaza Settlements & Cherry Tomatoes"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Israel\"<\/a>

Hills of Israel<\/p><\/div>\n

by Esther Korson,<\/p>\n

As the week of \u2018sitting Shiva\u2019 following the death of Ariel Sharon has ended, there is one more thing that I have to add to his legacy, and that is the tragedy of the disengagement\u2014initiated by Sharon—from the Gush Katif settlements in\u00a0 August of 2006.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I’ll begin with a bit of history! Jewish people had actually been living in Gaza for over 1600 years until the historic Jewish community was forced to move by the British at the time of the deadly Arab riots of 1929. The village of Kfar Darom was later there on land that was purchased, before the village was evacuated following an Egyptian siege in the War of Independence in 1948. The nation of Israel decided to settle the area again, and building began in earnest in 1968. By the time of the disengagement in 2005, 8600 people were living there in 17 settlements\u2014all of which were situated on the sand dunes (that separate the coastal plane from the sea along the southeastern Mediterranean).<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to imagine that anything can grow on sand dunes!\u00a0 But from that unlikely setting, beautiful communities were developed, with parks and playgrounds and schools and synagogues, community centres, office buildings and libraries. But possibly most astonishing of all was the fact that the major income from Gush Katif consisted of agricultural products!\u00a0 Greenhouses had been built with a uniquely developed advanced technology that could grow insect-free herbs and leafy vegetables! In addition, the community of Atzmona had Israel\u2019s largest plant nursery\u2014and the Katif dairy was the second largest in the country!<\/p>\n

Most of the agricultural products were exported to Europe. Of the total Israeli exports, the Gush Katif settlements exported the following percentages: \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 95% of bug-free lettuce and greens; 70% of organic vegetables; 60% of cherry tomatoes (invented by Israel, by the way); and 60% of geraniums and flowers. The total sum of exports from the greenhouses of Gush Katif, which were owned by 200 farmers, came to $200,000,000 per year! From sand dunes! (statistics from Wikipedia)<\/p>\n

Friends of mine lived in Kfar Darom and I\u2019ll never forget my visits to the Gush Katif villages and to their lovely home. The sand dunes had been turned into a paradise! They proudly gave me a tour of the garden surrounding their home, and it was amazing to see the many plants and flowers that had been induced to grow out of the sand! They presented me with a handmade wreath, which was made from twigs and had on it a shell from the nearby sea and dried flowers from their amazing garden. I still have it today\u2014a sad reminder that nothing else is left of that noble enterprise that was known collectively as \u201cGush Katif\u201d.<\/p>\n

The disengagement, when all 8600 residents of the area were forcefully uprooted from their charming homes and villages, was totally heart wrenching and tragic.\u00a0 Almost none of the residents left voluntarily and most of them did not even pack their belongings.\u00a0 The army had to physically remove most of the people and it was a terribly sad time, both for the residents who were forced by government decision to leave their wonderful homes, and also for the young soldiers who had to physically remove them.\u00a0 This needs a bit of history as well for you to truly understand how devastating it really was. It was more than 3500 years ago that the Lord God of Israel made a covenant with the Jewish people and promised us this very land upon which we now dwell.\u00a0 (There are many Scriptures, which you are probably familiar with, such as Genesis 17:7-8; Jeremiah 31: 35-36; Deut. 1:8; Joshua 1: 2-4, 6 etc.)\u00a0 The Lord also promised that even when we were exiled from the actual land, He still would never break His covenant with us. And even more amazing\u2014that He would bring us back home again!\u00a0\u00a0 \u201c\u2026the Lord your God will bring you back from captivity, and have compassion on you, and gather you again from all the nations where the Lord your God has scattered you. If any of you are driven out from the farthest parts under heaven, from there the Lord will gather you, and from there He will bring you.\u00a0 Then the Lord your God will bring you to the land which your fathers possessed and you shall possess it.\u00a0 He will prosper you and multiply you more than your fathers\u2026\u201d Deut. 30: 3-5 \u00a0<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0\u00a0 Those prophecies have indeed been fulfilled in our lifetime.\u00a0 We came home again to our Biblical homeland from more than 80 nations.\u00a0 But can you even imagine how, after 2000 long years, we even remembered our ancient homeland?<\/p>\n

How is it possible that century after century, scattered among the nations, we still turned 3 times daily towards our beloved Jerusalem with the prayers on our lips, with the hope and with the longing\u2014\u201cNext year in Jerusalem\u2026\u201d\u00a0 It has been a Jewish refrain for a very, very long time!\u00a0 Can you imagine how He even kept us as a separate people during so many hundreds of years?\u00a0 None of it could have been possible except for our covenant-keeping, awesome and loving God.<\/p>\n

After such a long time away from home, there\u2019s no way to describe the joy that is felt being back in Israel at last!\u00a0 Therefore, when 8600 Jewish people were forced to give up their beautiful homes and villages and livelihoods and synagogues in Israel, in our very own land at last,\u00a0 it caused an almost unbearable pain\u2014for those who were uprooted, for those who had to physically remove the weeping families, and for all who witnessed the tragedy of those days. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There was a man who on the last day of the disengagement was the last person to leave.\u00a0 He lowered the Israeli flag from Gush Katif for the final time.\u00a0 When Sharon\u2019s body was lying in state at the Knesset, that very man came and draped an Israeli flag over his coffin.\u00a0 And many of those who went through the removal came.<\/p>\n

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by Esther Korson, As the week of \u2018sitting Shiva\u2019 following the death of Ariel Sharon has ended, there is one more thing that I have to add to his legacy, and that is the tragedy of the disengagement\u2014initiated by Sharon—from the Gush Katif settlements in\u00a0 August of 2006. I’ll begin with a bit of history! more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":915,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10,49],"tags":[70,67,69,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-822","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-biblical-spiritual","8":"category-featured-stories","9":"tag-ariel-sharon","10":"tag-gaza","11":"tag-jewish","12":"tag-settlements","13":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=822"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":921,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822\/revisions\/921"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}