Remembering Gush Katif

Prolific commemoration enterprise prevents us from forgetting Gaza pullout

Hagai Segal
08.01.09,
Ynet/Israel Opinion

As if we have a shortage of national days of morning in the month of Av around here, the second Sharon government contributed a few more to our national psyche.

Of all the months of the year, it chose to raze the Gush Katif communities precisely in Av. The original date scheduled for the beginning of the onslaught was the Ninth of Av itself, because our determined and sensitive leaders failed to notice that August 15, 2005 coincides with the day both our Temples were destroyed.

Religious media outlets raised a hue and cry and the operation was postponed by a day. Perhaps someone whispered to Sharon that religious IDF officers fast that day too and it would be difficult for them to evacuate settlers on an empty stomach.

Were the new national memorial days etched on the nation’s proverbial heart? Apparently they were. The Gush Katif wounds reopen every summer time and again. The refugees are interviewed on television, most newspapers write about them, a new law calling for the establishment of a commemoration center had been legislated, and a Gush Katif museum was inaugurated in Jerusalem last year already.

In the past four years, at least 15 books about the disengagement were published. Independent producers made 10 documentaries. Seven of them were aired on television.

What did we gain from it?

When we evacuated Yamit in the framework of the peace treaty with Egypt, we only dedicated two documentaries to it. In the 27 years that have passed since then, only seven books about the evacuation were published; all of them sold just a few copies.

The general public did not wish to read, while the evacuated residents preferred to forget. Most Israeli citizens today barely know that the Yamit region and Sinai were once home to 17 prospering Hebrew communities.

Yet they remember Gush Katif. The prolific commemoration enterprise thwarts the schemes of forgetfulness and enables us to engage in a thorough historic examination of the very act: Why did we need all this great sorrow? What did we gain from it, aside from Qassam rockets, Grad missiles, Operation Cast Lead, and Gilad Shalit’s captivity?
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