To my Nitzan,
Very soon you will be discharged from the military, following three years of service in combat engineering. You are the fourth in our family to be discharged, but I have never been happier about a discharge as I am with this one, as it assures me that you will not need to participate in the destruction of your parents’ home, your childhood home.

You were born in 1983, a sign that your father returned safely from the “Peach of Galilee” war; The same war that Arik Sharon, the same Arik Sharon now serving as Israel’s Prime Minister, sent your father to, in order to conquer “only” 40 kilometers, and which persisted through fraud and deception. Today, along with us, you are about to be evacuated from 40 square kilometers (Gush Katif), also through deception and fraud, perhaps in an attempt to make us forget about those other 40 kilometers.

Nitzan, my child of the dunes, in order to turn opinions against us, they say on every stage that the occupation corrupts, that we are not virtuous, that we are deceivers. I, who knows you so well, as I do all your good friends - all of whom serve in the most elite military units: the Air Force, the Naval Commando, Golani, Givati, the Paratroopers, and others, all of you commanders who have buried in this golden sand several of your best friend - have not witnessed your corruption.

For a while, I served as the liaison between the soldiers and the settlement. I sent you letters and listened to you on your weekend visits. I visited you while standing at a roadblock and saw nothing but compassion and sensitivity. It is my belief that anyone who says that the occupation corrupts, need check his own home, to see what values he instilled in his children. I know that amongst those meant to remove me, my husband, my children and my grandchildren from our homes, will be soldiers from the most elite units. This is not because they care for us, but rather because the system is such that will not allow them to refuse, as their concern is with maintaining their status in the prestigious units.

The media tells me the menu these soldiers will be fed during the evacuation. Bon Appetit (if they are able to maintain their appetite). I know as well that they will be given hats, sunblock (lest they tan too much) and even lip balm, lest their lips chap. There is only one thing they do not know yet: where they will place us on the day of evacuation; where we will go with our elders, our children, and our babies. Is our fate of the people who erected flourishing settlements to be thrown in refugee camps? True, we insist on staying united, but what can we do? A supportive group is irreplaceable.

So here it is, my beloved son. It seems that the battles you incurred in the IDF were meant to train you for civilian life. You are being discharged into a difficult time, but since we see eye to eye on the inabilities of the government of evil, and we believe in the Almighty that everything he does is for good, you have no other choice, discharged soldier, new citizen, but to continue with your initial plans – to return to work in the cow pens of the settlement Katif, as the cows are waiting!!! To hope with us that the future, God willing, will be better.

Because the chosen people are unafraid of a long road.

Your loving mother, Se’era.

Haaretz, July 8, 2005

In her latest letter, Se’era Yuval proves without question the imperviousness, arrogance, and lack of irony prevalent among the settlers.

She opens with an attempt to differentiate between the “Peace in Galilee” war and the occupation of the Gaza strip, and fails to grasp that the two instances are nearly identical, with the exception of the lack of settlement and “Jewification” of southern Lebanon; twenty years of sending soldiers to an unnecessary slaughter, the loss of humanism, and an unmistakable financial loss.

Her son and his friends enlisted in the elite units of the IDF from ideological motives, and a sense of mission, however, those soldiers who were not fortunate enough to reach their discharge date prior to the scheduled date of the evacuation like her heroic son, aren’t members of these units for the same reasons, but rather they are motivated by the preservation of their own personal prestige. So extreme is her hubris, that only the ideologies of her and her offspring are legitimate. She cannot seem to internalize that every coin has two sides, and neither outweighs the other.

She fears her fate of being “thrown in a refugee camp”. What an ignoble and despicable statement. She is not being “thrown” anywhere, but for her own choices. She was given the option of financial compensation, alternative accommodations, and mostly the choice of her own fate. What right has she to compare herself to a refugee, while surrounded by a million and a half Palestinians living in abject poverty, oppression, and ceaseless abuse from the settlers, for over thirty years, and whose only choice is to watch the destruction of their dilapidated tenements in order to “protect” her settlements?

If I had any sympathy for the settlers of Gush Katif (having been evacuated from Sinai), Mrs. Yuval is invited to accept full credit for its dissolution.