About the Author
Don Canaan
Don Canaan, a former network TV film editor, is the publisher, editor and chief bottle washer for
Israel News Faxx, a daily publication that brings you the latest news from Israel and the Middle East.
By Don Canaan
This year marked the 23rd anniversary of the return of the Sinai by
Israel to Egypt--a day of mourning by many of the 2,000 settlers
who settled and later were forcibly evacuated by Israeli authorities under the command of today's prime minister, Ariel Sharon, from the seaside city
of Yamit on the Mediterranean.
Chaim and Sarah Feifel, former Cincinnatians, arrived in Yamit in
1976 and wanted their future grandchildren to remember them as
pioneers who started a new Israeli city. Now they're looking back
at the days when paradise was regained and subsequently lost.
From their current home in northern Israel, south of Haifa, the Feifels
remember paradise.
Yamit was former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan's dream--a
projected seaport and city of 250,000 founded on the Sinai sand
dunes overlooking date palm trees and the blue Mediterranean--a
populated buffer between the Gaza Strip and Egypt on the other side
of the Suez Canal.
Some alternate historians say Moses and the children of Israel
passed near the site of Yamit 3,500 years ago as they wandered for
40 years through the Sinai Desert on their way to the proverbial
land of milk and honey.
Since April 25, 1982 only the whine of the desert wind weaves its
currents through the crevices of destroyed homes, businesses and
monument--a memorial to the young men who died during the 1967 Six
Day war.
Christians, Jews and Muslims died during three Arab-Israeli wars
and battles that took place in the Sinai in 1956 1967 and 1973--Egyptian and Israeli--young people who fought and died in that
desolate, forsaken desert wasteland.
The modern-day chariot carrying Egyptian President Mohammed Anwar
al-Sadat hugged the intermittently green coastline of Sinai on its
historic mission to Jerusalem.
Israelis glancing upward into the clear night sky saw merely a jet
banking gently to the northwest.
It was only later that the Feifels, along with other new children
of Israel who had moved to the city of Yamit realized their dreams
were about to die.
Sadat wanted peace with Israel, but its price, Sadat insisted, had
to include the removal of the Feifels and other old and new
Israelis from Sinai's sands.
They had came to this Eden spotted with rusting Egyptian and
Israeli tanks and fertilized with the blood of humanity.
Some Yamit residents threatened to kill themselves if they were
forcibly removed from what they referred to as paradise. Others
threatened to secede from Israel.
Official Israeli government policy was that the settlers had to be
removed and the army came and forcibly removed the remaining
diehard residents. The Jerusalem Post described the scene:
"Apocalypse had arrived in Yamit and in the dust and noise and
destruction one could wander freely. Dozens of bulldozers and giant
mobile air hammers were loose in the city like a pack of predatory
beasts."
One resident told reporter Abraham Rabinovich, "We received sand
dunes and made palaces. Let's see what they (the Egyptians) can do
with the dunes."
The Post's Joshua Brilliant reported Yamit's last day: "A huge
blast engulfed the 5,000 square meter commercial center in a cloud
of blue-grey smoke, which rose like a mushroom."
Former (Cincinnati) Adath Israel Cantor Chaim Feifel described life in the
seaside resort before the army came. "It was an exciting time. You
were building a new community with your own hands. With Camp David,
it all came to a stop."
Red, purple and white flowers--counterpointing the embryonic city's
myriad blue and white Israeli flags--hugged closely to the
cream-colored prefabricated concrete slabs being smashed by the
piledrivers and bulldozers.
April 25, 2006 will mark marks the 24th anniversary of Israel's withdrawal
from Yamit and Sinai and a cold peace between long-term enemies.
That gift of peace silently glided overhead as the Sabbath
disappeared and the stars appeared. At 8:01 p.m. Sadat's jetliner
landed at Ben-Gurion Airport and the first minutes of a then
potential peace came to the Middle East.
Old enemies became new friends. The crowds roared its approval when
Sadat shook hands with Moshe Dayan. A person standing nearby,
according to the Jerusalem Post, said Sadat told Dayan, "Don't
worry Moshe, it will be all right."
The peace treaty between the two nations was signed on March 26,
1979 and on April 25, 1982, the events that had started on a
November day at Camp David came to fruition. Sinai was returned to
Egypt. Yamit was bulldozed to the ground.
But Anwar Sadat did not live to see that day. He had been
assassinated seven months before.
Sarah Feifel reflected on the events that resulted from the
appearance of the two omens in the sky--44 hours apart. "After Camp
David, I walked down to the beach and wept. I went through all the
stages of mourning."
Amidst the rubbage and wreckage of destroyed dreams, the sun sets
each night on paradise gone astray.
As you remember this article, remember the youngsters who
suddenly grew up--and who, even more suddenly, died.
Published by Don Canaan on October 2, 2005 11:08 AM
