“Where you’re standing will be the living room,” he said, pointing to a patch of sand in the Neve Dekalim settlement where a few dry weeds swayed gently in the midday wind. “We still have to make some changes to this blueprint but we hope to start building in a month.” Vanunu, a 28-year-old Israeli settler who voted twice for Sharon and now feels betrayed by the Israeli leader, thinks even suggesting the evacuation of the 7,500 Jews who reside in enclaves in the Gaza Strip–alongside 1.2 million Palestinians–encourages terrorism.
But Vanunu, who lives with his wife and three children in a rented apartment in the settlement, believes talk of a withdrawal is just that: talk. “Look around you, this place can’t be taken down. Too much has been constructed over the years to evacuate us,” he says.
Whether Sharon is serious about uprooting Gaza’s 17 settlements and relocating residents to areas within Israel proper is still the subject of debate among analysts and political observers. Most Palestinians are skeptical. So are politicians in the opposition Labor party.
But if Sharon does take on the Gaza settlers (he promised this week to hold a referendum before removing even one community in the occupied territories) he will probably unleash the most severe social turmoil Israel has experienced in its history.
And if that’s not enough, a Gaza withdrawal will also present a huge logistical challenge, costing the Israeli government untold millions. Three of the most vexing issues Sharon would face:
Twenty-one other families are building new homes in the same neighborhood and Vanunu says community officials get calls everyday from Israelis interested in moving to Neve Dekalim. During more than three years of fighting with the Palestinians, the settlement’s population grew by about 20 percent from 2,100 people to 2,500, he says. “In the Bible it says: ‘The more they afflicted them, they more they multiplied and grew,’” says Vanunu, who wears a skullcap like most male residents of Neve Dekalim and describes himself as an observant Jew. “I think Sharon will find just how much that applies to us.” And how that view could affect the rest of the country.
