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Mike Levine is a journalist who lives at Kibbutz Bahan.
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By Mike Levine
March 2, 2005
As the soldiers and the police approached the first Gaza settlement slated to be evacuated, they seemed confused. Not a human could be seen anywhere. There was not a sound. No dog barked. No cat meowed. No child cried. It was erie.
The first house they came to was empty. Everything was orderely, straightened up and clean. The dining table was set as if for a celebration, but no one was at home. The same at the second, and the third, and the fourth.
They checked the greenhouses. They too were empty. The rows of vegetables had been carefully and lovingly weeded and watered, but there was not a soul to be found.
They went next to the Synagogue. All the lights blazed. The Aron Kodesh (resting place of the Torahs, the sacred texts) was wide open. One of the Torahs lay on the readers table open to Genesis, with the silver pointer at the ready. Everything was in order, but no one was there, the pews were empty.
The Commanders met for a quick confab to decide what to do. No one could figure out where these people had all gone. Seventeen hundred men, women, and children lived in this community, yet it was empty.
Had they somehow all left together rather than face being thrown out, carted away in chains? But how could they? Every exit, every road in Gaza was heavily guarded and patrolled to ensure the expulsion order was carried out efficiently with as little trouble as possible, and to keep away the hordes of blood thirsty terrorists who were ready to overrun the newly abandoned houses and farms.
Seventeen hundred souls could hardly have slipped through without being spotted.
Where the devil were they?
What had happened here?
At that moment one of the trackers spotted ground markings leading toward the cemetery. The entire squad headed to the burial grounds.
There a sight greeted them which none of them would ever forget for the rest of their lives.
Seventeen hundred men, women, children, and their adored pets lay in neat rows atop the graves of their departed loved ones, and between them. Each had been slain by the head of their family before he committed suicide next to them.
A handpainted sign sat propped against a headstone. It read:
"WE SAID WE WOULD NEVER LEAVE OUR HOMES, THAT WE WOULD NOT BE EXPELLED FROM OUR LAND, THAT NO GOVERNMENT WAS STRONG ENOUGH OR EVIL ENOUGH TO WRENCH A JEW FROM HIS GOD-SANCTIONED PARCEL.
WE PREFER HONORABLE DEATH BY OUR OWN HANDS, JUST AS THE JEWS OF MASSADA WHO REFUSED TO GIVE THE FINAL VICTORY TO THE ROMANS, WE REFUSE TO TO BE DISCARDED BY THE EVIL DECREE OF A PRIME MINISTER AND A GOVERNMENT GONE MAD.
YOU WILL FIND OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS IN EACH OF OUR COMMUNITIES IN THE SAME PLACE, IN THE EMBRACE OF THEIR LOVED ONES.
SOLDIERS, POLICEMEN: GO HOME AND NEVER AGAIN LIFT A FINGER AGAINST A FELLOW JEW. NEVER. NEVER!
NEVER AGAIN!!"
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