Hamas War

Monday, January 22, 2007

Even worse than my pessimistic predictions

It's hard to believe, but that's the case. It was easy to predict that the compensatory dreams of the Gush Katif victims wouldn't be realized. As soon as their homes, communities, businesses, etc were destroyed, their reconstruction dreams would prove illusionary at best. It was clear to me that their "compensation money," to the lucky ones who were deemed deserving by the government, would be wasted on inflated rents and bare survival.

Olmert and Sharon's post-Zionism is even worse than that of the Left. It takes a "recent convert's" fanaticism to do what the old-time Leftists wouldn't dare.


17 months later, no one is building for Katif evacuees

By Nadav Shragai

Former Gush Katif residents Shai and Iris Hamu and their four children have been living in a two-room rented apartment in Moshav Mavki'im, near Ashkelon, for a year and a half. Shai, who once had a successful farm, is unemployed. Iris' salary is not enough for the family's needs. At a certain point the couple realized that if they continued drawing on their compensation payments, they would not have enough money for their permanent home. They began building on their lot in Mavki'im, without a permit. A stop-work order was issued a few weeks ago, but they are continuing with the construction.

The Hamus, who lived in Pe'at Sadeh, are just two of the 11,000 people who were evacuated from Gush Katif in the Gaza Strip and from the northern West Bank in the summer of 2005. Although 17 months have passed since the evacuation, work has not begun on even a single house in the 21 sites designated for the evacuees' permanent residence.

Six months ago the last of the evacuees left the hotels and guesthouses where they were placed after the evacuation. The protest encampment of former Elei Sinai residents has been dismantled, but everyone is still in temporary accommodations.

Shai Hamu says the state should be ashamed for turning him into a criminal, and that he does not care. He is not alone. A neighbor, Yaakov Aberjil, began building his home without a permit, too, and was issued a stop-work order. Some of the double-wide trailer homes at Nitzan are now sporting illegally built additions. Avraham Ben-Hamu, a former resident of Bedolah with six children and four grandchildren, built two wooden structures next to his trailer home, one for a son's family and one for a daughter.

The temporary accommodations have apparently created two, opposite, behavior patterns. The more common one is to avoid spending on the trailer home in order to save toward the permanent house. The other one, which is becoming more popular, is to build illegally.

After unemployment, temporariness itself is the biggest enemy of the evacuees. The professionals who have been aiding the evacuees say it creates a feeling of alienation, reduces privacy and often leads to a dissolution of the family.

The story of Rahamim and Shosh Ben-Haim is just one example. Rahamim, 57, was among the founders of Neveh Dekalim and the first secretary of the community. He was the manager of a security-door factory with 100 employees, which had a 40-percent market share. His family is supposed to move from Nitzan to Givat Hazan (formerly Egoz), which is slated to house about 120 families. Ben-Haim was unable to find a suitable location for a new factory, and signed a two-year lease on a smaller building in the Ashkelon industrial zone. He now employs 70 workers. He says he is losing about NIS 1 million a month and is "holding on by the skin of my teeth."

The sequence of events at Givat Hazan amply illustrates the bureaucracy and official foot-dragging regarding the evacuees' permanent residences. The families originally wanted to settle in Egoz, but the site was vetoed out of environmental protection considerations. Givat Hazan was proposed as an alternative, but it is next to a firing range that the Israel Defense Forces is loath to relinquish. The families have been waiting for months for an answer, and the issue has reached as far as the Prime Minister's Bureau.

When the temporary housing is far from the permanent residence site, it makes it difficult for an evacuee who is lucky enough to find a job near the current home to make a long-term commitment.

Kobi and Yaffa Haddad, formerly of Rafiah Yam, attempted to avoid this trap by going directly to Bustan Hagalil rather than joining their neighbors in temporary accommodations in Nitzan. Kobi Haddad worked as a guard at communities in the area for two months and was laid off, while Yaffa was unable to find work in the north. A year or so later, the Haddads joined their former neighbors in Nitzan, where Kobi found a job.

K.N. and her family live in Nitzan and plan to settle in the north. She wants to build guest cabins and enter the hospitality industry. "I went up north to try to start a business there but soon realized it's impossible when you're not on your home turf, in your home. Until you are living there, you can't do anything."

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