At first, when you gaze upon the tent city of Alei Sinai, you can only feel sorry for the refugees of the Gush Katif community who left their homes 10 months ago during the Gaza disengagement.
Why hasn’t the Israeli government made good on its promise and found them new homes? Who allowed these ex-settlers to live in such squalor during the winter and into the blasting heat of this summer?
Is there an explanation? Of course. Aren’t there always two sides to every story?
But first a glimpse of this tent city.
About 40 of the 90 original Alei Sinai families are living in what looks like an army encampment. They are squatting in a number of large “catering” tents, each of which manages to squeeze in 10 families apiece. There are three showers for these 140 people.
The tents sit behind a gas station outside of Ashkelon. Only a few feet from the tents is a small gully of water where rodent droppings are visible.
They’ve named their new “neighborhood” Alei Sinai and posted signs from the original Alei Sinai throughout the tent city.
These are not poor people. They are professionals who go off to their jobs every day. Among them are chemists, lawyers, architects, etc. Some are religious, others secular. Some are sabras, others made aliyah from Europe and Africa. Some vote for Labor, others for Likud.
And they’ve brought lots of children here with them. Fifty, to be exact, from newborn to age 18. One baby girl was actually born in this tent city.
Some of the kids can be seen riding their bikes on the barren, bumpy landscape. Others are sitting outside watching a large TV powered by generators.
These families have remained here almost 10 months to protest what they say is the government’s broken promise of fair compensation for their former homes. Residents say the original 90 families are a close-knit group who want to be relocated to a neighborhood where they can all live together.
And that’s where the problem lies: Where is Israel going to find a neighborhood with 90 available homes together?
The families from Alei Sinai also have specific requirements. They don’t want to live in a large Israeli city. Instead they want a village or kibbutz. And some even say that Israel should move them to a seaside coastal community like the one they left behind in Gaza.
With no solution in sight, they have spoken with members of Kibbutz Palmachim near Ashkelon and supposedly have an agreement to move there if enough space can be found for them.
But for now, the residents of Alei Sinai remain in limbo waiting for an answer.
These people have a sense of entitlement because they were among the 15,000 Jews who peacefully left Gaza last summer when Prime Minister Ariel Sharon turned it over to the Palestinians.
The government admits that it still hasn’t done enough to compensate all of the ex-Gaza settlers. The Disengagement Authority, known in Hebrew as Sela, says that some 800 people have received full compensation. In addition, more than 230 have received 75 percent payment while others have received lesser amounts. More payments are in the works even as some families are just beginning to file compensation claims.
In the meantime, some of the families have moved into temporary housing, some into kibbutzes, others into family homes throughout Israel, some into hotels and still others into recreational vehicles and mobile homes.
It could take two years or more for Israel to build homes, schools, farms, etc., for displaced families, Sela says.
Eventually, Sela would like to relocate all 15,000 families to the Negev in the south and the Galilee in the north. But there also has been an effort to bring some Gaza families to the West Bank. The city of Ariel has attracted more than 600 people and the government just announced the construction of a new housing development in the West Bank for Gaza refugees.
There isn’t much sympathy in Israel for these ex-settlers. That was evident in the recent elections when Sharon’s Kadima party, which evacuated Gaza and announced its intentions to evacuate much of the West Bank, won a clear mandate.
For a long time much of Israel wanted to give Gaza away. Israel took it over in 1967 after the Six-Day War. When Israel handed the Sinai back to Egypt, it tried to give Gaza back too, but Egypt said no.
The reason was simple. Gaza is home to 1.3 million Palestinians, many poor and many young and militant. Egypt wanted nothing to do with them.
Over the years, 21 Jewish settlements emerged there, taking up about a third of the land in Gaza. At a high cost in both dollars and human lives, young Israeli soldiers were shipped out to guard the Jewish residents. Both settlers and soldiers were sitting targets for Gaza gunmen who wanted them gone.
Nevertheless, the settlers had no intentions of leaving. They had large, beautiful homes in Gaza that couldn’t be replicated elsewhere in Israel for the same cost.
There is no reason to feel bad about their homeless plight. Those who live in the Alei Sinai tent city and other former Gaza settlers who live elsewhere in temporary housing knew they were formerly living on disputed territory. And they knew they were encircled by 1.3 million Palestinians who would never let them live in peace.
The residents of the Alei Sinai tent city are now seeing their protests fizzle. The cars drive by on their way to Ashkelon, not even noticing the former Gaza residents. The media rarely mentions them. It’s as if nobody cares anymore.
It’s time that the Alei Sinai folks pack up their tents. The government owes them compensation, but the government does not owe them another coastal community with 90 new homes.
Let’s get realistic here. The Jews of Gaza gambled and lost. Now they should take whatever chips they have left and cash out.
Marc S. Klein, editor and publisher of j., attended the International Conference of Jewish Newspaper Editors last month in Israel.