From Kadim to the Bronx: Jewish settlers dream of new life in US
AFP
Date: 04-03-05
KADIM SETTLEMENT, West Bank (AFP) - "Israel is finished! Long live America!" Set to be evacuated from the tiny Jewish outpost of Kadim in the northern West Bank, Motti Elgarissi has only one dream: to emigrate.
"I can't go on any longer. (Prime Minister) Ariel Sharon wants to uproot us? Very well then, I can't stand this country any longer," said Elgarissi.
The postage-stamp sized, putrid-smelling Kadim with its overgrown grass and decrepit alleys is perched above the Palestinian city of Jenin, itself a veritable bastion of resistance to the Israeli occupation.
Now in his 50s, Elgarissi earns a living by operating a mobile restaurant out of the back end of a bus. But he is not the only one to profess his disgust at the seeming inevitability of Israel's evacuation of settlers from 21 outposts in occupied Gaza and another four, including Kadim, in the West Bank.
The last political obstacle to the pullout was overcome late Tuesday when parliament passed the 2005 state budget, averting a government crisis that could otherwise have forced early elections and delayed the withdrawal.
Martine Achgari, originally from near Paris, has been living in Kadim for almost 20 years. "Here we are waiting for death. I would also happily leave for America or Paris," said the petite brunette.
Her 22-year-old daughter Karen finished military service two years ago and has been unemployed ever since.
"No one has hired me. All the employers are in the town and they worry I'll be late because of all the army checkpoints in the area," she said.
"We have become outcasts," Karen added. "And it was the government who encouraged us to move here".
One of a dozen families left in Kadim out of the 42 who lived there before the Palestinian uprising broke out in September 2000, Achgari chose Kadim for its peace and greenery.
Encouraged by successive leftist and right-wing governments since the late 1980s, Elgarissi and Achgari used to think their presence in Kadim, within shooting distance of Jenin, was "vital to Israeli security".
"We've been had. Security is a lie," said Elgarissi's wife Dvora. "Sharon, who swears only by security, lied to us. Otherwise, you would let us live here," she added directing her anger at the prime minister.
Like her husband of 32 years, she also dreams of living in New York. "Over there, I could open a restaurant and sell my pizzas. Here, there's no one left to buy them. I don't have the strength anymore," she said, catching her breath.
"No more strength for this country that has betrayed us," she added.
For the settlers, most of them secular, their main preoccupation is uncertainty over indemnities promised by the Sharon administration to recompense their forced expulsion.
"There are rumours going around about the amount of money... If they turn out to be true, it would mean the government is spitting on us," said Elgarissi.
When he moved in Kadim in 1987, his red-roofed house and small garden cost him the equivalent of 5,000 dollars today.
Israeli government officials have already told settlers that they can expect compensation of up to 100,000 dollars, the equivalent cost of an average three-room apartment in Israel.
"The disgrace!" deplored the Elgarissi couple.
Source
FAIR USE NOTICE
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. |
|