neve dekalim, gaza strip | When Meir Rottenstein publicly came out in favor of Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip last year, he became an instant pariah.
Fliers appeared branding him a sellout, his children were harassed at school and business at his electronics store evaporated.
“I don’t have many friends here now,” he said.
Rottenstein is one of a small group of Gaza settlers trapped in a painful purgatory. Outspoken backers of the pullout, they have been ostracized by their close-knit community but forced to remain here as they wait for the government compensation they need to move.
“I supported the government publicly,” Rottenstein said. Now he feels abandoned.
Officials in charge of compensation say they are sympathetic to those who want to leave, but they could not begin allocating money until Israel’s parliament passed the budget on March 29.
Since then, they established a committee to look at the settlers’ claims and paid “a few,” said Haim Altman, spokesperson for the agency in charge of settlers compensation and relocation. Altman says the process was further slowed because many settlers hired lawyers to handle their claims.
Many of those in the Gush Katif settlement enclave in southern Gaza strongly oppose the withdrawal.
With the pullout date approaching, some of the 8,500 settlers in Gaza’s 21 settlements are beginning to quietly resign themselves to the likelihood they will be forced to leave. But few are willing to talk publicly about their feelings, especially after witnessing the fate of people such as Rottenstein.
Rottenstein, 42, moved to the Neve Dekalim settlement in 1983 with his parents, who had visited and thought it was pleasant. The family had previously lived in the Sinai settlement of Yamit and deeply opposed Israel’s decision to evacuate that community in 1982 when it returned the Sinai to Egypt under a peace deal.
The location of the settlement never seemed to matter until the latest Palestinian uprising broke out in September 2000. Palestinian snipers began shooting at the settlers’ cars on the road leading to the settlements. Other militants pounded the settlers’ houses with mortars and homemade rockets.
Rottenstein’s children were terrified. Relatives stopped coming to visit. Even the washing machine repairman wouldn’t come.
Rottenstein had enough.
“I do not want to live in the war or the terror. I don’t want to die or have my kids killed, in a shooting,” he said.
He kept his opinions to himself, but after Sharon unveiled his plan, he began expressing his feelings to some of his friends.
Word spread quickly, and soon fliers were posted all over the community branding him a traitor. Business in his shop withered and he was forced to close it last year. He can’t pay his mortgage, his health insurance and electric bills.
While he waits for his compensation check, he is relying on donations: groceries sent by one sympathetic Israeli, some money from a few others.