Israel is one big Kfar Darom in the eyes of Hamas

Nadav Shragai..
Israel Hayom..
16 November '12..

"Dirty" warfare aimed specifically at civilians, like the type of terrorism Hamas is currently waging against us, in which civilians are forced to become soldiers and the homefront becomes the front line, creates a situation requiring resolve, faith in the justness of the cause and emotional strength from those accustomed to living their lives far from the field of battle.

In moments like these, in which the army is dependent on the home front's perseverance more than the homefront is dependent on the army, the leadership needs to instill in the public a sense of belief and determination. However, the public has other means, plentiful in our tiny country, from which to find strength and latch on to.

One of these is Kfar Darom, which no longer exists. The Israeli government erased it from the Earth with the rest of the Jewish communities in the Gaza Strip during the injustice known as the "disengagement," which happened some seven years ago. The residents of Kiryat Malachi, Ashkelon and Ashdod can lean on the story of that wonderful place and its people, some of whom are sitting in bomb shelters today with the rest of Israel's south; in a community they built in the northern Negev.

Their story is so relevant to the million Israelis in bomb shelters right now because during its existence Kfar Darom became the unofficial capital of Gaza's Jewish community in Gush Katif. Its residents displayed and shared faith even when their brethren's sword of eviction was raised against them, and when, for years, their enemies rained mortars and Qassam rockets on them. Even when Kfar Darom was the most attacked community in Gush Katif its residents refused to evacuate, despite pleas from IDF officers.

Requiem for Kfar Darom

Memory is a chain that weakens and kinks with every added link, or generation. In a few decades the legendary of a region is only its most stubborn opinions, right or wrong. The truth may have been crushed by accumulative errors.
– California historian William Lawton Wright, 1961


Sarah Honig
Another Tack
19 August '10

Kfar Darom was crushed five years ago – on August 18, 2005, to be exact. That day, its population of 400 – among them bereaved families of five Kfar Darom inhabitants murdered in terror attacks and others maimed in these same incidents (like the three Cohen family children whose legs were blown off while they were seated in their school bus) – were forcefully ejected from their homes.

The IDF later razed these homes to the ground. Kfar Darom’s synagogue was subsequently despoiled and demolished by gleeful Gazans. Physically, the community was ruthlessly crushed by the accumulative errors of the 2005 disengagement.

Kfar Darom’s truth was crushed by the accumulative error that callously defamed it as an “illegitimate settlement” on usurped Gazan land, one that Israel would be better off without. Stubborn opinion-molders imperiously perpetuate this narrative.

This was Kfar Darom’s third crushing. But the first two blows were dealt by enemies who were eventually, even if belatedly, repulsed. Twice Kfar Darom came back to life.

Sadly its chances of recovering from the third blow, the mercilessly fatal one inflicted by a seemingly friendly force, appear nil. With the passage of time and the addition of new links to the chain of history, memories of Kfar Darom are already fading from most Israeli minds, save those with the “most stubborn opinions.”

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