- NEVE DEKALIM, Gaza
Strip (AP) -- A day after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Jewish settlements
in Gaza would have to be removed, the settlers threw open their heavily
guarded electric gates Tuesday to show they are just ordinary suburban
folk who want peace ó but will never leave this land.
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- Many say they do not believe Sharon is sincere, but just
in case, they launched a full-scale counterattack with cookies, glossy
brochures and media-savvy English speakers.
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- "We will stay here for another 2,000 years,"
said Avneri Shimoni, mayor of the Gush Katif group of settlements in Gaza.
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- In recent months, Israelis have increasingly begun to
see the 21 Gaza settlements as a boondoggle.
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- The settlements, home to about 7,500 Israelis, have enraged
Gaza's Palestinians. Israel controls about one-third of the narrow coastal
strip while more than 1.3 million Palestinians share the rest.
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- Sharon said Monday he planned to dismantle 17 Gaza settlements
and appeared ready to take them all down eventually. "Over the course
of time, it will not be right to continue Jewish settlement in Gaza,"
a Likud Party official quoted Sharon as telling legislators.
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- The Gaza settlers were ready with their response.
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- On Tuesday, they welcomed journalists with brochures
showing pictures of smiling children, palm trees and families at the beach.
They piled the pamphlets with chocolate chip cookies and coffee.
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- "You cannot take us and throw us out of our homes,
our schools," Shimoni said, insisting God promised this land to Jews
in the Bible ó a hotly debated assertion.
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- Shimoni said Sharon's comments were hurting the morale
of the soldiers posted in Gaza. He insisted Israelis strongly supported
his right to be here, despite a poll published in the Yediot Ahronot daily
showing 59 percent support Sharon's proposal.
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- In nearby Netzer Hazani, Anita Tucker, a New York native
who has lived in Gaza for 28 years, delivered an impassioned defense of
her community.
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- Speaking with a thick Brooklyn accent, Tucker, a 58-year-old
religious Jew, spoke of how her great-grandparents were thrown out of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire, her grandparents were kicked out of Poland, her
parents were exiled from Germany and "now some Jew comes along and
says, 'I'm gonna throw you out of your home because you're Jewish.'"
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- Tucker said the community was deeply affected by the
killing of three of its members, including its rabbi, by Palestinian attackers
during more than three years of Israeli-Palestinian violence.
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- But she also insisted the Gaza settlements are a lovely
and quiet place to live, far safer than suicide bomb-plagued Jerusalem.
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- "It's a town. I never understood the word settlement.
It's a town like suburban Long Island, like suburban London," she
said.
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- Tucker's small town is protected by a triple layer of
curled razor wire, electric fencing and a tall metal fence, its entrance
guarded by soldiers.
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- Rachel Sapperstein, 63, a teacher and another Brooklyn
native, took the opposite tack, saying the settlers earned the right to
stay here because of the constant danger they face from Palestinian militants.
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- "We've been living here under mortars and shelling
for all these years and our reward for that is being thrown out of our
homes," she said.
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- Sapperstein said she believes Palestinian leader Yasser
Arafat is laughing at what she called Israel's capitulation.
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- Dismantling settlements amid the violence would only
invite more attacks, settlement spokesman Dror Vanunu said.
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- When asked if the settlers would agree to move if 20
years passed without a single attack, Vanunu appeared shocked: "If
it's peace we must stay here. If it's war, how can someone dare to run
away."
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- Vanunu said Sharon personally approved 280 of the 500
houses in Neve Dekalim more than a decade ago when he was infrastructure
minister. Even now, his government continues to approve its expansion,
Vanunu said, showing reporters a site of clear sand where an earthmover
was digging up ground for 22 new houses.
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- Just a few miles and a world away in Gaza City, Palestinians
celebrating the Eid Al Adha festival said they do not believe the settlements
will be evacuated.
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- "Sharon is a terrorist, all his speeches are lies,"
said Wael Yusuf, a Palestinian police officer wearing khaki fatigues, carrying
a Kalashnikov and eating orange cotton candy beside a park filled with
hundreds of frolicking children.
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- Even if Israel did leave the Gaza settlements, it would
not be enough, Yusuf said. Israel would also have to give back the West
Bank, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa and every other square inch of land it
inhabits, he said.
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- Hussein Afana, 49, though equally skeptical, said he
would be thrilled if the settlements disappeared. "We would start
to trust (Sharon) and his government," he said.
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of The Associated Press.
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