בס״ד who left. “The divorce עש"ק פרשת ואתחנן 15 Av 5779 ISRAEL NEWS rate increased, and it August 16, 2019 shattered the faith of Issue number 1257 A collectioncollection of the week’s news from Israel many. Most of those expelled From the Bet El Twinning / Israel Action Committee of belonged to a national religious Jerusalem 6:42 community to whom the value of Beth Avraham Yoseph of Toronto Congregation Toronto: 8:03 Eretz Israel was sacred. “The heartbreak of the expulsion even caused many to fall ill and die prematurely. These are young people who died from heartbreak.” Neve Dekalim was Gush Katif’s urban center and home to the largest Special Feature… community. Credit: Yakob Ben-Avraham via Wikimedia Commons. Kirzenshaft added that “most of the residents were owners of Disbanding Gush Katif a Failed Experiment, Says General Who greenhouses, where they grew and exported vegetables with a very high Helped Carry Out Evacuation By Avrohom Shmuel Lewin turnover rate. One acre produced 20 tons of tomatoes. It was a Fourteen years ago, the unilateral evacuation and demolition of 21 supernatural blessing, despite the fact that before we came it was a desert, Jewish communities that comprised Gush Katif in the Gaza Strip and four total desolate. Now it reverted to its former state of total desolation and small communities in northern Samaria were authored by then-Prime serves as a safe haven for terrorists.” Minister Ariel Sharon to serve as a pilot test that would ultimately lead to “When we lived in Gush Katif, it was good for the Jews and for the further withdrawals in Judea and Samaria. Arabs,” said Kirzenshaft. “The Arabs of Gaza were employed by the Instead of laying the groundwork for the creation of a Palestinian state Jewish farmers and had a decent income to provide for their families. that would live in peace alongside Israel, many across the political spectrum They did not want us to leave. Just recently, someone told me that one of in Israel now believe that the Gaza withdrawal of more than 8,500 Jews in the Arabs who worked in one of our greenhouses is now trying to grow a August 2005 serves as a costly case study demonstrating the implications of greenhouse on his own, but with no success.” (JNS Aug 12) evacuating lands and turning them over to Arab control. Many of the assumptions proposed by Israel’s military establishment ahead of the withdrawals have proven false, while the social impact of the evacuations have left deep scars on many of the Jewish residents who lost their homes in the experiment. Commentary… Maj. Gen. (res.) Gershon Hacohen led the IDF 36th Division that was Shorter News Cycle Barring Omar and Tlaib By Aaron Lerner responsible for the disengagement. At the time, he personally opposed the Israel is going to endure a news cycle getting slammed for refusing to move, yet still carried out his assigned duties as a commanding officer. allow BDS advocates Rep. Omar and Rep. Tlaib. “In a way, I now see the disengagement from Gaza as sort of a miracle One news cycle. from heaven,” Hacohen told JNS. “Just imagine if Hamas would have If they visited we would have suffered a nightmare of a series of remained quiet for several years after the disengagement; there would have controversial incidents, each with its own news cycle. been a general consensus in Israel to disengage from Judea and Samaria. And the pair would have returned no doubt armed with material to use No one in his right mind in Israel will now agree to a disengagement from in their ongoing campaign against the Jewish State. Judea and Samaria except for a few left-wing radicals.” Let us not kid ourselves. Hacohen explains that the military assumptions that were asserted by The American Jews and others now slamming our decision probably proponents of the withdrawals from the security community have been wouldn’t have lifted a finger to defend us if this duo had come and proven “totally untrue.” engaged in provocations. In fact, many of them would have weighed in The first assumption, he said, is that “territorial separation between with their condemnations of how we handled them. Israelis and Palestinians, including massive evacuation of Jewish West It is simple math. Bank neighborhoods, will delineate borders, reduce friction and create One news cycle vs a multitude of news cycles. stability.” One controversial decision vs a series of controversial decisions - Rather than lead towards peaceful coexistence between neighbors, many of which could have been magnitudes more serious. (IMRA Aug 14) Hacohen said that “on the contrary, massive evacuation from Gaza gave Hamas a chance to fortify itself and make life for Israelis miserable.” He said that leading up to the controversial withdrawal, Israel’s security May Dvir Sorek’s Legacy be a Lesson to the Jewish Left establishment insisted that if security broke down, “the Israeli government By Ruthie Blum would not hesitate to decide to embark on any necessary military The slaughter last week of 19-year-old yeshivah student and Israel operation;” that “the IDF will be able to remove this security threat within Defense Forces’ recruit Dvir Sorek from the Judea and Samaria days;” and that any such an operation would be supported with “broad community of Ofra was not exceptional. Palestinian terrorists with hatred international backing.” in their hearts and weapons in their hands are integral to the Jewish state’s When asked why he implemented the disengagement if he opposed it at otherwise vibrant landscape. the time, Hacohen told JNS that he felt if not for him, “it would have been a But this particular tragedy struck a nationwide nerve even among million times worse.” those who blame the so-called “occupation” for Palestinian violence, and As he explained, “if the struggle in Gush Katif would have escalated to consider citizens like Sorek to be illegally and immorally living in a point where soldiers would have been killed or injured severely, the territory that should become part of a future Palestinian state. settlement movement would have been delegitimized by the masses, and One detail of Sorek’s slaying that caused even hard-core leftists to Sharon would have no problem evacuating the settlers from Judea and pause was the fact that this “religious settler” was found clutching a book Samaria. I made sure that did not happen.” by internationally renowned author David Grossman. The book was Aside from the security setback of the Gaza withdrawal, former Gush among others that Sorek had purchased prior to his brutal murder as end- Katif Regional Council member Yigal Kirzenshaft told JNS that the of-the-year gifts to his rabbis at the Machanayim seminary, an institution evacuation has taken a severe toll on the displaced community and ruined a that combines Torah study with military service. model, albeit a flawed one, of integration between Jews and Arabs. Unarmed and in civilian clothes, Sorek was ambushed by his knife- He said the government has done a less-than-satisfactory job wielding killers as he made his way on foot from the bus stop to his compensating the evacuees and helping them rebuild their lives, now 14 evening class. His failure to arrive sparked the search that led to the years after the disengagement. “They promised us full compensation and discovery of his body six hours later. said that there will be a solution for everyone, but it turned out bollocks; Grossman, who was awarded the Israel Prize for literature in 2018 by they really never had any solutions.” then-Education Minister Naftali Bennett—a kipah-wearing right-winger— Kirzenshaft related that the expulsion broke up some of the families Readers are requested to please mail contributions to: BAYT - re: Israel News, 613 Clark Avenue West, Thornhill, Ontario. L4J 5V3 Annual Rates: Friend - $36, Supporter - $50, Benefactor - $180. Dedications are welcome at $120/week. Call (905) 886-3810 for further info. See Israel News on the internet at www.bayt.ca and www.frumtoronto.com or email [email protected] to request to be added to the weekly email. Opinions expressed do not necessarily represent the views of BAYT. is an outspoken leftist. He is also a bereaved parent, whose own son fell in including all of present-day Israel). The murder of Sorek is not an isolated battle during the 2006 Second War in Lebanon. This was two days after incident but simply their latest effort to achieve this goal. Grossman and two other iconic left-wing Israeli writers, Amos Oz and A.B. The Palestinian reaction to the murder of Israelis forces one to more Yehoshua, called for an end to the fighting against Hezbollah. closely examine the Palestinian narrative. That narrative includes many When Grossman learned from the media that Sorek had been holding a claims to support their cause: statelessness, occupation, refugees, copy of one of his books at the time of his murder, Grossman was both violations of human rights. And yet the Palestinians are not unique in their moved and shocked. circumstances. It is well-documented that there are well over 300 peoples “I’ve heard a lot about him over the course of the day,” he said of in the world today with legitimate claims to statehood, and many of these Sorek. “A kind, sensitive, youth who loved others and loved peace, with the people live under brutal occupation and deprivations far in excess of soul of an artist. My heart goes out to his parents and his family and all who anything suffered by the Palestinians.