THE GAZA WAR REACHES US

by Rachel Saperstein
Gush Katif Viewpoint 146
December 29, 2008

We have forty-five seconds from the time the missile leaves Gaza and reaches us. The tracking system lets each area know that a rocket is due to land in their vicinity. Then the siren wails. It may not land on your doorstep or penetrate your roof but it is somewhere around.

I know all of this because we got notices from the Home Front Command, the Regional Council and our own Neve Dekalim Council. The first two were slipped under our door; the latter, via email.

Today we even were visited by the army, which has taken over the Community Center. Reserve soldiers, both English speakers, knocked on our door, introduced themselves and asked me how I was feeling and could they come in for a chat about security. My first reaction was to say "You pulled us out of our home instead of cleaning up the mess we lived under for five years." My second reaction was my general politeness when people come to my door. I invited them in.

I assured them that I don't feel very secure in this cardboard house.

The two young men felt uncomfortable especially when they informed me that the Home Front Command was planning on bringing in large sewer pipes. Yes, you read that correctly, sewer pipes, made of thick concrete, for our protection. The pipes would be distributed to each cul-de-sac. When the sirens wail we would run outside, crawl into our very own sewer pipe and wait five minutes or at least till we hear the explosion. Then we crawl out and return to our cardboard homes.

I stared open-mouthed in disbelief. From our homes in Gush Katif to cardboard caravillas in a refugee camp to a sewer pipe. We have certainly hit rock bottom. I laugh as I write this. I have tears in my eyes as I write this. I was assured that the pipes would withstand an explosion close by but not a direct hit. Our bit of security.

The south of Israel has become a war zone. We went to Ashkelon yesterday. The health clinic I visited was practically empty. The mall in which it is located was mostly closed. Even the pharmacy, open when we arrived, was closed when we left at 4:30pm. Except for a shop selling mobile phones all was dark and deserted. A large city lives under the shadow of massive rocket attacks. Children can no longer go to school. Social and cultural events are cancelled.

Our local grocery and greengrocer are still well stocked. Mail is delivered. Electricity is still on. For how long?

This afternoon the sirens wailed. We heard three explosions in the distance. Friends are calling offering us a place of refuge. An emergency committee is being formed. I volunteer for it.

A reporter for a Danish newspaper called. Would I meet with him and give him my take on the war. I agree, and he is thrilled to be entering a war zone. Journalists are not allowed into Gaza, but those who lost interest in us after our expulsion are interested once again now that the war has reached us. I keep thinking of a motto from our days in Gush Katif: "Those who flee from Gaza will find Gaza coming to them."
 

HOW TO FURNISH YOUR SEWER PIPE

by Moshe Saperstein
Goodbye 27
December 31, 2008

Rachel has been out inspecting the sewer pipes and reports they are larger than she first thought. As she put it, in her most diplomatic way, "I can walk in. You'll need a shoehorn." We haven't gotten ours yet.

Several of you complained to the authorities about the nature of our shelters and were assured they aren't sewer pipes, but muganiyot, which translates as 'teensy weensy shelters'.

What an amazing country this is! What a talent for verbal and physical deception and self deception. We are expelled from Gush Katif and the public is told we haven't been expelled, merely evacuated. We are assured 'there is a solution for every settler' and we are solutioned into refugee camps. We are put into cardboard structures which are verbally and physically whitewashed as 'caravillas'. And now our sewer pipe shelters are cutesy muganiyot.

The Jerusalem Post called Rachel yesterday asking permission to print GAZA WAR REACHES US. It will appear in tomorrow's Post. If I were normal I would be jealous. Thank G-d I'm not normal.

We have always had this "Picture of Dorian Gray" relationship. As I get older and uglier, she remains youthful and beautiful. Now I see this arrangement also applies to writing. As my own writing decreases in volume and quality because I'm choking on my bitterness, Rachel's output increases in volume and quality watered by her innate optimism and unshakeable faith. And I am near to bursting with pride at her success.

When the soldiers came to the door I took off, to Rachel's annoyance, refusing not only to talk to them but also to have to look at them. It was bitterly cold — by our standards — and drizzling, and I had fled in such haste I had no hat, sweater or coat. I stood in the drizzle, in pajamas, keeping warm by power-puffing on a cigar to keep it burning though sodden.

Yesterday the Great Dane was supposed to interview us and I again annoyed La Passionara by telling her she'd have to do it alone. After several hissy fits, foot stampings and hints of worse to come, I said I would stay. But I planned to sabotage things by pre-empting his questions with questions of my own:

"Have you seen the 1961 monster movie Reptilicus?" I would ask.

He would doubtless shake his head in the negative.

"You mean you haven't seen the only monster movie made in Denmark?"

Another shake of the head.

"Too bad. I wanted to ask you how a cultured, intelligent people could make the worst monster movie in history."

He would stare, vacillating between annoyance and amusement. Rachel would stare, smoke coming out of her ears.

"Did you know that when the monster snorts fire, it comes out looking like mucous?"

He would gasp. La P, with exaggerated politeness, would tell me I was dismissed. And as I walked out I would hear her apologetically explaining that I had suffered serious head injuries in the war...

Alas, 'twas not to be. The Great Dane called and cancelled his visit.

Several of you have, quite rightly, criticized me for the crudity of my descriptions of Barak and Livni. All I can say is, when you lose the skill to cut with a scalpel you use a bludgeon.

When Beastly Barak was ready to evict Jews from Beit Hashalom in Hebron he announced he was going to hold a series of meetings with settler leaders, thereby lulling our people into a false sense that expulsion was not imminent. When the air force was about to attack Gaza he announced that all border crossing were about to be opened, thereby lulling the Arabs into a false sense that action was not imminent. The lesson is, not only is he a devious bastard, but he views both our Jews and Gazan Arabs equally, as enemies.

Loathsome Livni, of course, is a pet hate of ours since her tenure as (In)Justice Minister when she prepared to remove children from their parents and operate kangaroo courts to place us in internment camps in the Negev.

And, with apologies for the outrageousness of this [clearly a product of my paranoia], I believe much of what is happening now is a collaborative effort by our Enlightened Ones and our Arab neighbors to get her elected prime minister, so that she can oversee our dismemberment. Surely her theatrical 'press conference' in Egypt — "Enough is enough!" — was designed solely to convince the gullible that her tapioca spine had turned to steel.

Terror victims, apparently, are entitled to private sewer pipe shelters, and Rachel showed me one today whose owner had furnished it with a rug, folding bed, lighting fixtures and, most flamboyant of all, a purple cloth covering. It looked like nothing so much as an unique Israeli invention, the Brothel Shelter.

Sadly, having completed his Arabian Nights fantasy, the terror victim packed his bags, sealed his caravilla, and fled for [presumably safer] parts unknown. One can only hope that even after the present hostilities end, the Brothel Shelter will be allowed to remain as a tribute to his ingenuity.

Moments ago there was a knock at the door. "Move your car! We are about to install your shelter." Our parking lot empty, except for one vehicle whose owner's whereabouts are unknown and which was removed by forklift, we are now ready to receive the government's gift.

Rachel is outside, chatting with workers, 'supervising' the installation. I will leave it to her to describe the activity. What scares me is that her eyes are aglow in a way I know too well: Decorating Fever.
 

ADDENDUM:

Nadia Matar (nmatar@netvision.net.il) of Women In Green distributed Rachel Saperstein's essay to her readers. Nadia is an activist who insists that Jews must not allow themselves to be ghettoized in their own land. They must be able to walk free anywheres in the land. This is what she wrote as preface:

Moshe Saperstein lost an arm while fighting in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. A resident of Neve Dekalim in the Gush Katif area of the Gaza Strip, Moshe was wounded in February 2002 when he drove his car into a terrorist who had just shot and killed a young mother traveling in the car in front of his. He writes frequently of his physical and emotional struggles on the long road to recovery

He and his wife Rachel were among the thousands of Jews kicked out of their homes in Gush Katif, in the Gaza strip, and forced into temporary quarters so dismal, their still-temporary paper-based trailers in Nitzan, seemed a step up. Contact them by email at ruchimo@.netvision.net.il

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