http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/Politics/6566.htm
Palestinians torch four Gaza synagogues
By israelinsider staff and partners September 12, 2005
Palestinians burn the synagogue at Netzarim. (AP)
Thousands of triumphant Palestinians poured into abandoned Jewish settlements early Monday, setting empty synagogues on fire and shooting in the air, as the last Israeli soldier rolled out of the Gaza Strip, completing the Israeli pullout from the territory after a 38-year presence.
Palestinian police stood by helplessly as gunmen raised flags of terrorist groups in the settlements and crowds smashed what was left in the ruins or walked off with doors, window frames, toilets, and scrap metal. Initial plans by Palestinian police to bar the crowds from the settlements for the first few hours quickly disintegrated, illustrating the weakness of the Palestinian security forces and concerns about growing chaos after Israel's departure.
Gaza's night sky turned orange as fires roared across the settlements. Women ululated, teens set off fireworks and crowds chanted "God is great".
Just after sunrise, the last column of tanks rumbled out of Gaza, passing through the Kissufim crossing into Israel. Gaza commander Brig. Gen. Aviv Kochavi drove through the crossing and became the last Israeli soldier to leave.
"The mission has been completed, and an era has ended," he said after crossing into Israel. Then Israeli troops raised their national flag, removed from Gaza military headquarters, on the Israeli side of coastal strip.
As Israel completed its pullout, Palestinian Jeeps decorated with the flags of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist groups stopped just near the border and a group of masked gunmen waved their weapons before Palestinian police began moving them away.
"Today is a day of joy and happiness that our people were deprived of in the past century," said Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, adding that the Palestinians still have a long path toward statehood. He denounced Israeli rule in Gaza as "aggression, injustice, humiliation, killing and settlement activity."
Just before daybreak, Abbas was heading to what was once the largest Jewish settlement, Neve Dekalim, his aides said. However, aides later said he was forced to turn back because of huge traffic jams.
Israel's pullout marks the first time the Palestinians will have control over a defined territory, and Gaza is seen as a testing ground for Palestinian aspirations of statehood.
Palestinians hope to build their state in Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem -- areas that Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast War -- but fear that Israel will not hand over additional territory. They say Israel's occupation of Gaza has not ended because it retains control over borders (with Israel) and air space.
Israel removed some 8,500 Gaza settlers from their homes in 21 settlements last month, and razed homes and most buildings in the communities. However, the Israeli Cabinet decided at the last minute Sunday to leave 19 synagogue buildings intact, drawing complaints from the Palestinians and criticism from the United States.
After rushing into the settlements early Monday, Palestinians set fire to three empty synagogues, in the Morag, Kfar Darom and Netzarim settlements, as well as a Jewish seminary in Neve Dekalim. In Netzarim, two young Palestinians waving flags stomped on the smoldering debris outside the synagogue, and others took turns hitting the building with a large hammer.
Palestinian police appeared overwhelmed, watching the destruction from the sidelines. Police Col. Abdel Khader Abu Tayr said police didn't have enough time to deploy because Israeli troops left without sufficient warning. "Now we are expending every effort to kick the people out and protect the buildings," Abu Tayr said.
In the Neve Dekalim settlement, 22-year-old Abdel Rahman Barakat rode his bicycle through the streets, amazed at the space the settlers had enjoyed. "Oh my God, I feel so comfortable here," he said. "It (the settlement) is very wide, it's very big."
In northern Gaza, university student Rami Rayan walked toward the abandoned settlement of Elei Sinai, where he said a cousin carried out a suicide bombing five years ago. "I want to feel that his blood wasn't spilled in vain," Rayan said, as he picked up bullet casings as souvenirs. "They (the Israelis) left because of resistance," Rayan said.
Some 5,000 Israeli troops left in Gaza began driving toward Israel before dawn Monday, and the last Israeli soldier was out just after daybreak.
Two tanks broke down because of mechanical problems, and troops waited for huge tow trucks to arrive. Soldiers fired in the air to prevent Palestinians from approaching.
After the pullout was completed, Maj. Gen. Dan Harel, head of Israel's southern command, pointed toward the horizon and told the AP, "It's a very strange feeling, almost unreal. I have a lot of memories from that place, a lot of friends who died."
"The responsibility is of the Palestinian Authority," he told reporters a few minutes later as Hamas and Islamic Jihad supporters gathered a few hundred meters behind him. "We hope that they will rise to the responsibility, and enable all of us to live in peace and security."
Late Sunday, Israeli troops lowered their national banner in Neve Dekalim, snapped farewell pictures and closed army headquarters, which were left intact for use by the Palestinians.
In a somber farewell ceremony, Kochavi, the Gaza commander, expressed hope the pullout would be a step toward peace.
"The gate that will close behind us is also the gate that will open," he said. "We hope it will be a gate of peace and quiet, a gate of hope and goodwill, a gate of neighborliness."
But he added a threat: "If a bad wind breaks through, then we will greet it with a force of troops ready and waiting."
A field commander, Lt. Col. Tzvika Tzoran, sat on the turret of a tank on an isolated sand dune in his final moments in Gaza, bidding farewell to the Mediterranean coastline. Other soldiers took pride in the orderly withdrawal, in contrast to a hasty retreat from southern Lebanon five years ago.
But the withdrawal, code-named "Last Watch," was overshadowed by Israeli-Palestinian disputes, including over border arrangements. The army was forced to cancel a formal handover ceremony, initially set for Sunday, after angry Palestinians said they wouldn't show up.
The final phase of the pull began Sunday with twin decisions in the Israeli Cabinet _ to end military rule in Gaza and not to raze 19 synagogues in former Jewish settlements there.
The last-minute decision to leave the synagogue buildings intact, a reversal of position, angered the Palestinians who said they would now be forced to demolish the buildings. In Washington, U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the Israeli Cabinet decision "puts the Palestinian Authority into a situation where it may be criticized for whatever it does."
When settlers left Gaza, they took with them the sacred Torah scrolls and the other holy items from the synagogues.
The Palestinians want full control over the Gaza-Egypt border after Israel's withdrawal, saying free movement of people and goods is essential for rebuilding Gaza's shattered economy.
Israel wants to retain some control, at least temporarily, fearing that terrorists will smuggle weapons into Gaza, as they have done on many occaisons before.
Israel last week unilaterally closed the Rafah border crossing.
Last week, Israel agreed in principle that foreign observers could eventually replace Israeli inspectors at Rafah. However, Israel said it could be months before the border reopens, and that a final deal would depend on Palestinian willingness to crack down on terrorist groups.
In the meantime, it plans to reroute border traffic through alternate Israeli-controlled crossings and turn over security control of the border to Egyptian forces, 750 of whom deployed at the border over the weekend.
The AP contributed to this report.
http://web.israelinsider.com/views/6575.htm
The Face of Islamic Religious Intolerance
By Paula R. Stern September 12, 2005
Today, as I knew they would, crazed Palestinian mobs are desecrating 25 synagogues in Gaza, setting them on fire and destroying what it took years to build. I have visited almost all of these synagogues, prayed in many of them. I cannot even begin to put into words the pain I feel today, the anger, and the sadness.
The world, as I expected, is silent. The UN's Kofi Annan was asked to protect the remaining synagogues, but we hear nothing. Empty buildings, they will protest quietly, and what did you expect? Unspoken is the silent message that while the Christian world and the Jewish world would respect places of worship, the Moslem world cannot be held to the same level of accountability. Did you expect any different? No, I did not, though it would be a mistake to assume that knowing they would destroy these holy places in any way lessens the pain.
We can't say that we expected no better, of course, because that would be deemed racist and wrong. It would be insulting to the honorable religion of Islam, even though it is the truth. It would imply that their values are different than ours, even though they are. It would suggest that their culture is one that lacks respect for other religions, one deeply embedded in violence and one that cannot tolerate and respect the beliefs of others. We can't say all that, and so the lie will live on, the destruction go unpunished, the truth left unsaid.
The world will quietly offer Israel their condolences and throughout the world, in places like Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, and even in Poland, Romania, Hungary and the Ukraine, people will wonder if maybe they could destroy a nearby synagogue too. Why should the land on which these buildings sit continue to be "wasted" when there are no Jews around? Could there be a way to rid Europe and Arab countries of these buildings in which Jews once prayed? The first step, of course, is to deny.
Palestinian President Abu Mazen has become a rabbi, apparently. He can now determine the holiness of a synagogue and has issued his rabbinic doctrine that these buildings are no longer synagogues, no longer holy. If you take the wooden pews, the musical instruments, the Bibles, hymnals, altar furnishings and vestments out of a church, is it then permissible to burn it down? Does it lose its sanctity because the inner contents has been removed?
Perhaps others are wondering if they too could use the Palestinian excuse that a building stripPed and desecrated is no longer holy and can be destroyed. How many Jewish cemeteries are there in Europe? Are Jews ever likely to return to Iraq? Must Tunisia protect the remaining synagogues? What of Morocco?
Luckily, our holy places will be saved by the most unlikely source. Abu Mazen has one problem in making his claim believable. His own people reject his words. Watch the pictures of them dancing on the rooftops of these buildings, see how they set fire to these holy places.
In his mad rush for the border, Sharon gave the Palestinians millions of dollars in infrastructure, public buildings, lighting, roads and more. And yet the pictures in the media are all the same. The Palestinian mobs are frantic and out of control in their bloodthirsty quest to destroy the synagogues because they recognize that these places are holy to the Jews.
What interest would they have in simply destroying a building? They will scavenge around and take what they can ... but the synagogues are being destroyed. Why burn and damage them if not for the intense hate-filled desire to destroy something that represents Judaism, a non-Moslem place of worship?
But it is not only the pictures from Gaza that cause me great pain today, not just the hatred and destruction that we all knew was inevitable. Add in a debate going on now in England, civilized England. At first glance it seems like it is a different topic entirely, and yet, it its own way, it is the same debate, albeit in a more civilized environment. Perhaps commemorating Holocaust Day is too Jewish, say a team of advisors to Prime Minister Tony Blair. Perhaps it would be more politically correct to call it Genocide Day so as to avoid insulting England's growing Moslem population.
How appropriate that this debate would be raised on days when synagogues are again being burned and destroyed. Would England deny the unique place the Holocaust has in world history? Are the Holocaust and the few days we commemorate it not sacred? There have been many attempts at genocide throughout the centuries, but none were as systematic, as civilized and endorsed as the Holocaust.
Nowhere, never, was the machine of a government focused so totally on obliterating all traces of a religion or people in such an efficient and barbaric way while being accompanied by the silence of nations who could have, should have done something.
Not since Nazi Germany have so many synagogues been destroyed. Moslem intolerance is well known and yet the world continues to be silent. Why was the world silent when 2000 Hindi temples were destroyed by Moslems in India? When will the world finally react to Islamic religious intolerance? Would the world remain silent if 25 churches were burned in one day? Where is the Vatican's voice of outrage as the synagogues in Gaza burn? I can only imagine what fury there would be if Israel were to now demolish 25 mosques on Israeli soil.
Just three days ago, I stood in the Yamit Yeshiva in Neve Dekalim last week, the famous synagogue in the shape of a Jewish star. Abu Mazen has promised that this building will be destroyed. Apparently its continued existence would be an insult to the Palestinians who do not believe in the sanctity of any religion but their own.
As I walked around, there was a swirl of action. Soldiers moved quickly back and forth removing whatever could be taken. The books had been removed, the holy Torah scrolls long since taken away so they would not see the shame of what would come. The High Court had not yet ruled whether Israel should destroy the buildings in anticipation of the desecration Abu Mazen and his government was promising. But the soldiers knew destruction was coming soon.
In the end, the Israeli government made the correct choice. We will not destroy synagogues. We will not send a signal to the world that it is acceptable to wantonly destroy the holy places of our religion or another, and so today, as yesterday and tomorrow, mosques will be safe in Israel while synagogues burn elsewhere.
Jews do not destroy places of worship even if the alternative in the end is the desecration of these Houses of God at the hands of rioting mobs who worship terror, incite violence and care not for any buildings or any people, not even their own. The world will not admit it, it can't be said or written, but Jews honor churches, mosques and synagogues throughout our country and in our communities. Since the Holocaust, the Jewish synagogues in Europe have largely been protected and public outcries have often resulted when desecrations have occurred.
Israelis even protect Arab holy sites when they are built on top of our holy places, as they are on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, Joseph's Tomb, Samuel's Tomb and the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron.
The face of the future state of Palestine can be seen in the actions of Palestinians today. There is an impossible divide between our culture and theirs, our dreams and the nightmares they would force upon us.
Jews made their stand yesterday by not destroying their synagogues. Palestinians made their stand today by burning and desecrating them. The remaining question now is what the Christian world will do. Will you express outrage at Islamic intolerance or continue in silence?
Views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.