Lives on the line
By Ada Ushpiz
The fragile tranquillity at Nir Oz, one of the southernmost in the chain of the Eshkol Region kibbutzim that surrounds the Gaza Strip, did not disclose the intense Israel Defense Forces activity at Sejiyya, on the other side of the border. The inhabitants of the kibbutzim in the area surrounding the Gaza Strip are accustomed to sleeping to the sounds of shooting, explosions and helicopters. Winter sunbeams danced in the sprinklers of the mobile irrigation systems, and gazelles leaped in the plowed fields that had been prepared for the sowing of wheat. Tracks of personnel carriers and tanks cracked the fields of ripe potatoes that will be harvested this winter, but no tank was visible in the area.
Beyond the fields of the kibbutz, on the other side of the thick and tangled patrol fence, stretch two Arab villages, Greater Ibasan and Lesser Ibasan, and at their foot lies the "sterile" no man's land, about 300 meters from the fence, which has been scrupulously "shaved" of any Palestinian house, field or grove, as the military security coordinator of the kibbutz, Yitzhak Stein, explains. This has been the routine of the occupation and the hinterland that perpetuates itself by the very fact of its existence and also seeps into the life of Kibbutz Nir Oz, which was founded by Hashomer Hatzair and many of whose members wholeheartedly condemn the occupation.
"The sky is the limit, G Company, the Pepper Company" is written jokingly on the red and blue flag of the Bedouin Patrol Battalion that fluttered from the lone military Hummer in a potato field. "Of course peppers - hot, of course," giggles the Bedouin soldier. Two Bedouin privates from the Negev and from Nazareth, a driver who is a Russian immigrant and a native-born Jewish officer from Bat Yam make up this improvised observation post.
"Wow. I identify wheels. Look, sine 79, a person running fast. I see this, sine 172. There's a blockage. For an hour now I've been watching him run from thicket to thicket. I located him an hour ago. There he is, in a black shirt. The cameras aren't picking him up. There's a blockage," enthused the private over the field radio that connects him to observation towers and hidden cameras. "If he comes within 300 meters, he's wiped out," added his friend, his eyes glued to the binoculars.
The coming disengagement and the return to the status of "conflict settlements," or "border settlements," are arousing anxiety and hope in these kibbutzim that surround the Gaza Strip. Adopting military lingo, the secretary of Kibbutz Nahal Oz, Hezi Einat, 58, a supporter of the disengagement, says: "It all depends on the scenarios that happen. No one knows; even the army doesn't know. If what happens here is like the border with Lebanon, that's excellent, but if the army's prophecies of doom are realized and there are major security scenarios, from light weapons fire to infiltrations and even, heavens forfend, the firing of missiles and Qassams, that's already a different story."
`Protection basket'
Not long ago, the secretaries of the 12 kibbutzim next to Gaza, kibbutzim where the economic situation is relatively difficult, convened for a meeting with the head of disengagement plan for the area, Colonel Yossi Turjeman. The scenarios went beyond routine security threats, as far as the abduction of soldiers for bargaining purposes and attempts to infiltrate from the sea and air. The "protection basket" that was offered to the kibbutzim included electronic fences, about 20 armored tractors, weapons storehouses, full-time military security coordinators, special training of stand-by squads, ceramic bullet-proof vests and more. New roads that will be paved for moving troops to the border and areas that will be flattened to serve as landing sites for aircraft will bite into the fertile agricultural lands. If the IDF carries out only part of its plans, the kibbutzim will, at least for an interim period, become like military fortresses.
Stein, who is 40 and the father of three, is expecting that the coming period "isn't going to be easy," with the withdrawal of the IDF that is expected in September 2005. As the date of the disengagement approaches, "everyone will want to show he is in control of the territory and that he is the one who has kicked the IDF out of Gaza," he says. "They're not going to allow this move to be unilateral." According to him, "the Palestinians want to be liberators, not liberated, on the Lebanese model. I am afraid they are going to lob anything and everything at us - rockets, Katyushas. I don't remember the Gaza Strip without the army. It's scary. This is the mentality of the Middle East."
Stein was born in Karkur, is a graduate of the Shomer Hatzair youth movement and has voted Labor all his life. He came to Nir Oz after the first Gulf War, looking for a rural life. He began to work in landscape gardening and cattle-rearing, and for the past nine years has been the military security coordinator of the kibbutz. He likes the work: "It's in my blood," he smiles pleasantly. He does not like extremism. Yitzhak Rabin was the leader he most admired. He compares Ehud Barak to Benjamin Netanyahu: Both of them are young, boastful and egocentric, and both of them let their parties lynch them and throw them off the map.
He defines himself as "an anti-party realist." He will cherish anyone who brings stability and security to his life. He is not turning his back on the Labor Party, but to his way of thinking the real strong leader is Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. "I think that Sharon, with all the good and the bad in him, is the only one who can bring about the change," he says. It isn't that Sharon has changed his spots, but "he has revealed himself as a courageous, strong person faithful to his beliefs, who can't be toppled, and the terror attacks during the past four years have made a lot of people change their more refined outlook. There has been a drift from the more extreme left to the moderate left."
Damage to rural life
Stein fears the damage to the rural way of life in the western Negev. Even now, the increased alert on the kibbutz, the repair work being done to shelters, the routine of firing on tractors that go out to work in the fields (from which Nir Oz and Nirim, in particular, have been suffering), and the irreversible damage to the land and the crops from the movement of tanks and military vehicles through the fields are spreading discomfort. "It isn't really fear, but our freedom has been impinged upon - night hikes in the desert, nature, the birds, the gazelles, porcupines, wild swine, hares. Once a panther even came from Ein Gedi to drink water here. All of them are going to flee here when a larger mass of soldiers and vehicles arrives," he says.
Stein is also concerned about the "transfer" - he prefers not to use the terms "confiscation" or "requisition" - of agricultural land for military needs, which is likely to exacerbate the economic situation of the kibbutz. He is also anxious about the polarization in the populace of the country as a result of the disengagement. His greatest fear is of the infiltration of terrorists into the kibbutz. But in contrast to other kibbutz members, he is not disturbed by the tough and brutal atmosphere that is spreading in the kibbutz and eroding its political ethos.
He is against the occupation, but is definitely in favor of "the toughness of a people that is fighting for its existence." As military security coordinator, he has witnessed quite a few "scenes" of "inappropriate behavior" by soldiers towards Palestinians, but he will not talk about it. He "closes" everything directly with the IDF. Stein is in favor of the disengagement, but "the Palestinians have to know that the moment there is a security threat, Israel is capable of going in." He feels good with his toughness, he says. "We are a small country and we have to show muscle. This is the mentality of the region, and there's nothing to be done about it."
For Alon Pauker, the secretary of the kibbutz, 38, the son of a family of founders, the disengagement is not only a "threat" but also mainly "a window of opportunity." Nir Oz is the kibbutz that is most heavily in debt (about NIS 50 million) of all the kibbutzim in the area surrounding the Gaza Strip, whose total debt comes to about NIS 200 million. Its draconian debt settlement (NIS 4.5 million a year) was set in 1997, a time of economic prosperity and high expectations from the Nirlat paint factory, and the kibbutz is weighed down by this burden.
`We will fight for this'
Pauker, a leftist and a graduate of Hashomer Hatzair, believes in a Palestinian state and supports the disengagement as an initial stage in the withdrawal from the territories. The solution that he prefers is the Geneva Initiative, even though it threatens to deprive his kibbutz of its most fertile lands in the framework of exchanges of territory. ("We are in favor of the initiative, not in favor of its price. We will fight for this.") At present he is consciously preparing, together with the leadership of the nearby kibbutzim, to turn the approaching proximity of the front to his home into a lever to obtain the benefits that are showered upon "confrontation settlements," like Sderot. He believes that the disengagement is offering the kibbutzim around the Strip a rare opportunity to obtain government recognition and to eliminate years of discrimination "on the part of a right-wing government that is not interested in anyone who isn't a crony.
"We are cultivating the land on the country's border - that's the reality. If the trend of drying up the periphery continues, with the security situation just heating up - we are young people, most of us educated, and anywhere we go we will just have a higher standard of living. If they force us, we will leave an old people's home behind us," he says. Today too, according to him, the security situation is severely damaging agriculture. The policy of working every last meter of land remains on paper only. In fact, the IDF does not always provide the necessary military accompaniment, and the damage to life on the frontier is harming the economy of the kibbutz. When the front gets closer, the situation will get even worse.
Thin and bespectacled, he divides his time between teaching at the regional high school at Kibbutz Ma'aleh Habasor, his work as secretary of the kibbutz and his doctoral studies in history at Tel Aviv University. Nir Oz, he says, is characterized by its young leadership. This is one of the last remaining collective kibbutzim, where it is the younger generation that is guarding the sanctuary. It too was not spared the large desertion of young people (more than 50 percent), but those who have remained are opposed to differential salaries and extensive privatization. "We have chosen to maintain the collective spirit," says Pauker. "We don't have any grudges against anyone who doesn't want to be a kibbutznik. This is a way of life that is possible only out of choice, not because you happened to be born a kibbutznik. A collective desire is needed."
This is not an egalitarian kibbutz. As an Israeli kibbutz where the founders are today about 65, most of its members have personal inheritances or property outside the kibbutz. The rest are suffering from the impossible erosion of their pensions as a result of the arrangement to pay off the debts to the banks. The wealthy are simply asked "to behave courteously with respect to our standard of living," explains Pauker. For the young people, the kibbutz provides an alternative way of life that neutralizes economic competition, "and a lot of this is in relative equality," he says.
Nir Oz, argues Pauker, has proved that even without competition and personal profit it is possible to increase income. Over the past three years, the kibbutz has increased efficiency efforts to deal with the debts. About half of the members (in contrast to 20 percent in the past) are working at jobs outside the kibbutz and contributing their salaries to the kibbutz. Income has increased by about NIS 3 million. Most of the hired hands have been dismissed. Growing potatoes is "gold in the ground," as he puts it. Were it not for the heavy debts, the kibbutz could exist respectably and not have to live at the standard of the fifth and sixth deciles.
The worst evil
Despite the difficult economic and security situation, three or four new families come to the kibbutz every year. Ohad Guberman and his wife Ayelet are the most recent candidates for membership. Ohad, 33, was born in Kfar Sava and from the age of 15 lived in Alfei Menashe. His parents came there looking for quality of life, when the settlement in the West Bank was identified with the labor movement. Guberman comes from a home that lacked for nothing. He studied film at Sam Spiegel in Jerusalem and had some experience in high-tech, lived in South Africa for a year and in Jerusalem for five years, but did not feel satisfied.
"Everything began to go sour," he says. He wanted "to live differently, to get close to the land," and so came to Nir Oz. When he would come with his wife to meetings at the kibbutz, they joked that "the settlers from the territories are coming," but they welcomed the couple with open arms. "I'm really not a settler from the territories," he says of himself.
The security situation does not worry Guberman. He is accustomed to going to school under military escort. The disengagement is irrelevant to him. His dream is that they take down the fences, around Gaza, around Qalqilyah, everywhere. He thinks the fence is the worst evil. Without it there would be just good neighborliness, not war. He is not a political person; he simply doesn't believe in fences.
However, Omri Lifschitz, 31, who was born in Nir Oz, has already announced his intention to leave. "I don't like kibbutz life. There are too many people who decide what I do," he says. He has mixed feelings about the disengagement. "It is good to get out of Gaza but ... it's just a step to distract people and postpone a comprehensive agreement with the Palestinians and the establishment of a Palestinian state. Its like giving a finger instead of a whole hand, to drag it out a little longer, and it is all to our detriment. But first of all, I want to see it happen. I'm not seeing it happen yet."
He is not worried about the army taking over the kibbutz. If they try to create a security zone, there will be a problem, but any other deployment doesn't seem problematic to him. About two months ago, he and his brother came under sniper fire as they were repairing a mobile irrigation system in the fields. A bullet penetrated a wheel of the tractor behind him, puncturing it. "At first, it was quite scary, but afterwards it's OK. So they're shooting. We weren't too scared," he says.
It is not the shooting that is making him leave here, nor is it fear of what the disengagement will bring. He was five years old when Yamit was evacuated from Sinai, and then, also, large military forces came to the Gaza area. "This is our country, a military state. What are we going to do about it?" he snorts.
Despite the failure of Oslo and the frustration with imaginary breakthroughs to peace, in the kibbutzim near the Gaza Strip, the disengagement has engendered dreams of "a new Middle East," of economic cooperation with the Palestinians. At Nahal Oz they are hoping the disengagement will renew the economic flourishing of the Karni crossing point, which is adjacent to the kibbutz.
At Nir Oz they are dreaming of renewing the sale of cattle to the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Before the Al-Aqsa Intifada, the kibbutz sold NIS 1 million worth of cattle, and the Palestinians, who imported cattle from Australia, raised it in the corrals of Nir Oz. The greenhouse that was established at the entrance of the kibbutz by a Jewish settler from Gush Katif, who saw what is coming, is perceived as a kind of sign that the disengagement really is going to happen. "In Gush Katif too they have already come to terms with it," they said this week at Nir Oz with a smile.
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