Settlers believe evacuation betrays God's will

Martin Fletcher Correspondent • Profile

NEVE DEKALIM, Gaza Strip — The forced evacuation of the Gaza settlements on Wednesday is a significant chapter in the history of Israel.

Martin Fletcher, NBC News Tel Aviv bureau chief and lead correspondent, discusses the dramatic removal of the settlers and how it reflects the true divide in Israel between those who believe in the rule of law of the democratically elected Israeli state, and those who believe in the law of God.

What is the mood among the settlers this morning? Is it resignation?
No, it’s the opposite. It’s total determination to stay, while at the same time knowing that they won’t be able to stay. It’s a very mixed reaction.

On the one hand, the settlers' whole lives are so totally shattered that it is quite heart-wrenching to see. Children are crying as they are dragged onto the bus. But, for the most part, they’ve been going fairly peacefully. So, it’s a mixed reaction.

There are also a lot of tears in the eyes of soldiers. Even an army commander who I spoke to said that he sometime had tears in his eyes watching all this. 

The army is stressing that these settlers are families and that these people are not the enemy.  So, the army is trying to be as gentle as possible and trying to avoid any provocations or confrontations. So, things are going according to plan, that’s what they say.

I think that what one needs to bear in mind is a point that seems to get lost a bit. Most people look at the settlers as having these nice homes and just wanting to stay on this land to continue preventing the Palestinians from occupying it.

But, for the settlers, the key issue, and the reason that they are so emotional about being thrown out, is because they believe that God gave them the land. Not only did God give them the land, but he also demands that they stay on the land.

According to the Jewish Holy Torah, the Jewish bible, they are not allowed to leave the land and they are not allowed to give it to any strangers. Not only that, but they believe that the Jews will be punished by God if they surrender this land to strangers. 

So, that’s why we’ve seen these scenes today of Jews kissing the ground and crying, and looking up to heaven beseeching their lord for forgiveness.

These very emotional moments are mixed at the same time with the knowledge that in the end, they are going to go.

So, once they have gone through the agony of the parting, if you will, the vast majority of the settlers, in the end, have simply walked under escort to the buses where they will be taken back into Israel, to find new homes.

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How do the settlers who are prepared to leave peacefully feel about the outsiders who have come in to prevent their forced evacuation?
Many of the settlers who wanted to leave in the last couple of days were prevented by these outsiders from leaving. The protesters blocked the roads to stop the army from coming in, but also to stop other settlers from leaving.

So, the residents of the settlements, who are a completely different kind of person from these radical young people coming in, totally resent the interference from these young extremists.

Last night for instance, these young extremists began starting a fire in the streets. The people whose houses where on the side of the street were shouting at them “Don’t do that. We don’t want you here. Just go away and leave us alone, we don’t need you here. Go back to where you came from.”

Then the residents came and they put the fire out. So, it was a quite interesting interaction between the settlers and the extremists.

Almost all of the violence that we’ve seen here has been from the extremists. There hasn’t been that much violence, but there has been enough of it, punching and that sort of stuff.

But, the screaming, the shouting, and cursing, that’s from everyone. All the settlers have been screaming and shouting at the army and the soldiers basically saying things like, “How could Jews do this to Jews,” and “You’re animals, you’re not worthy to wear the uniform.”

Of course many of the residents being expelled by the army have themselves been soldiers in the army, since service in the army is compulsory in Israel.

There was a scene where one woman was screaming, “Don’t do this to me, don’t touch me. I’m an officer in the army. I teach my soldiers to disobey illegal orders and this is an illegal order and you shouldn’t carry it out and you should leave us alone.” 

This female soldier finished her tirade by saying, “I won’t leave my house. You’ll have to break my arms and legs to make me to leave my house.”

But, then when it came time to leave a couple of hours later and the soldiers came, they went in quietly. They knocked on the door and they discussed the situation. In the end she came out quietly and she got on the bus quietly just like everybody else.

So, in other words, they are going through this terrible emotional upheaval, but at the same time nobody really wants violence. They just want to get their anger off of their chests.

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