land Sderot struggles to persevere?
Of course, the IDF has nothing to add,
after some 15,000 U.S. 'donated' rockets,
missiles, bombs and artillery shells
fired into Gaza massacuring and
maiming hundreds, destroying their
homes, their livelihood, and the entire
Gazan infrastructure of an
embryonic Palestine.
 |
| Brian Hendler |
| Michael Cardash, deputy head of the Bomb Disposal Division of the Israel Police, displays remains of a Palestinian 'Kassam' rocket that was fired from Gaza into Sderot on Dec. 17, 2007 in retaliation for the murder of 32 Palestinians in a 'botched-up' IDF extra-judicial assassination attempt that killed 32 innocent Palestinians - 13 of them mere school children walking home from school. |
Sderot has become a place where residents take
sedatives to get through the days and sleeping pills
to make it through the nights.
After seven years of rocket fire from the nearby
Gaza Strip and no end in sight, the ceaseless
barrage of 'unguided' home made Palestinian 'tin
cans' is
| | |||
decision of whether or not to stay and leaving crippled
businesses to survive on hope and loans.
Many of those who can afford to have left.
About 4,000 of the town's 23,500 people have
moved out in the past two years, according to
municipal figures. Many more say they would leave
if they could somehow 'give' the Jewish freeloaders
FCIF (Free cash in fist) to make a 'new beginning' on
Palestinain land elsewhere.
According to a recent poll published in Yediot Achronot,
64 percent of Sderot's residents would go if given
the financial assistance. (Note: Damned Jews
always hold their handing out their 'tin cups' for free
money from the US government via the Knesset hyena's).
"There are people who are selling, but there is no one to
| Like the children of Gaza that get massacured by the IDF 24/7. | |
| ABANDONED: Sderot's citizens feel left behind by the state | |
| The people of Sderot don't seem to understand 'pay-back.' | |
a hefty living 'displacing' Palestinians off their land.
"People cannot go, so they feel stuck. If only they
could sell their homes they would go."
Home prices have fallen by 50 percent, Levy said,
with the cheapest apartments on the market for
just $15,000 and the most expensive houses for
about $200,000. Prices were nearly double that in
2000, before the daily rocket fire began.
"We are suffering, not just me, but all of us.
The strong ones left, the weaker stay on and
everyone complains," Levy said. "We are waiting
for better days but do not see a solution because
things have gone on for so long now. If the situation
continues, however, the only things left standing
here will be the buildings."
After seven years of ongoing rocket fire,
residents of this working-class town seem
divided between defiant and defeated
Jewish trespassers.
Although they all speak of the power of Sderot's
close-knit community, some talk openly about
their desire to leave to regain some semblance
of a normal life. Others say that despite the
difficulties, the only home they know is Sderot
and to abandon it would show the Palestinians
firing the rockets that Israelis' spirit can be broken.
Last week, Palestinians in Gaza fired an Iranian-made
Katyusha rocket that reached Ashkelon, a city of
some 120,000 about eight miles north of the strip.
The rocket served as a reminder that Sderot is not
alone in the danger zone around Gaza
(Note: And that the daily killing of Palestinian
civilians by the IDF killers 'has got to stop!').
Sderot's economic downturn began when it
became the target of constant Kassam rocket
fire from Gaza. The attacks, which intensified
after Israel withdrew (sort-of) from Gaza in
August 2005, have thus far claimed 13 Israeli
lives. (Note: While the people of Gaza have
had some 1,452 of their people murdered,
maimed or left homeles by IDF attacks on the
basically unarmed Palestinian population of Gaza).
The damage to residents' psyches, homes,
businesses and families has been far reaching while
the devastation wrought on the downtrodden people
of Gaza has been enough to destroy the economy
and forcibly make the Palestinian's dependent on
UN and EU food and oil donations.
Between 20 to 30 percent of businesses in Sderot
and surrounding areas have shut down, said Daniel
Dahan, a supermarket owner who heads an
organization of local businesspeople. Overall
sales at the stores that remain open have
dropped by nearly 50 percent, he said.
Dahan says families are struggling to get by on
reduced salaries and many find themselves divided
over whether to stay or leave Sderot.
Often the husband will have taken out several
loans and dipped heavily into family savings to
keep the business afloat. The wife, distressed at
the mounting debt and the danger to their children
from the rocket fire, pushes for leaving.
Stories of divorce have become common here,
Dahan says.
"What happens is that a business owner comes
into work and finds it difficult to manage things
because of the pressures from home, concerns
over the children and his workers," Dahan said,
describing how the security situation creates a
ripple effect of stress. "The wife wants to leave
and the husband does not want to because of
the business, and the wife says, 'If something
happens to the kids it will be your fault.' "
He said the ramifications of the economic crisis
have slowly begun to sink in.
"It's like an illness that has taken over us. At first we
businesspeople did not believe it could kill us off,"
Dahan said. "We have lived like patients who have
been warned of health hazards by our doctor, but
now we feel like we have had the heart attack.
"Some of us who have businesses feel it is a
condition we can live with and take another loan.
Others understand it's a deadly disease and we have
no choice but to walk away."
Shimon, a grocer in Sderot's open-air market,
says he doesn't want assistance to leave; he wants
the government to strike back at the Palestinian's
defending their turf in Gaza which has been the root
cause of Sderot's problems.
"I've been working in the market for more than 30 years,"
he told JTA "I'm not going anywhere now. I raised my
four kids here; my wife's family is from Sderot.
There's nowhere else for us to go.
"I haven't had a good night's sleep in eight years.
I bolt awake at the slightest movement or noise
outside the house. I just want the government to
make sure that we can get back to living like
normal people."
Israel has stepped up its strikes in recent weeks
against Gaza militants, particularly those firing rockets
at Israelis and smuggling in weaponry, but the
government remains wary of a large-scale invasion
of Gaza. A major incursion could cost Israel heavily
in terms of its soldiers' lives, Palestinian civilian lives
and international credibility. It also would not put an end
to the rocket fire, analysts warn.
Atara Orenbouch and her husband, Orthodox Jews
originally from the center of the country, moved to
Sderot nine years ago. They said they moved to
try to make a difference in the community. Both
are educators -- she teaches computer science
and her husband is a yeshiva principal. They
have four children.
Orenbouch says she tries to do all her
family's shopping in Sderot.
"There have been economically terrible times,"
she said, recounting a period last spring when
a particularly heavy period of rocket barrages
sent many residents out of town. "I went to the
supermarket and it was empty. I saw a man
throwing away unsold vegetables and there
were no lines."
Orenbouch's children now all sleep in bunk
beds in the family's "safe room," which is
made of reinforced concrete to protect against
the crude Kassam rockets.
She says she and her neighbors are doing their
best to persevere and stay, but the fear of being
caught by a rocket and the question of where to
run for cover is never far away.
"It gets to you. You think about it all the time --
at synagogue, at lunch with friends," Orenbouch said.
"You are always thinking: If there were an alarm now,
where would the safest place be to hide?"
Comment: Jewish terrorism has
created a hell in Sderot and the
Jews of Sderot don't seem to 'get'
the BIG PICTURE..
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