Gaza youth have red lines
17-year-old Elad Goldberg infiltrated Gush Katif about a month ago from his home in the Meitar settlement. 'We chose not to spend our summer vacation holed up in the house looking at the boob tube.'
In the coming days, thousands of cops and soldiers will come into Kfar Darom, perhaps the most stubborn of the Gush Katif communities, in order to destroy houses, synagogues and cemeteries.
We'll do everything we can to prevent this expulsion because we believe it is still possible to prevent it.
We won't lift a hand, not against soldier and not against police officer. On this point, we have no disagreement. It is a discussion only had in the media.
Best in the country, praying for redemption Photo: Ilan Marciano
The kids here will do everything we can, and anything we are asked to do by the settlement leadership, but without violence. At least, not on the part of the deportees.
Diciplined and dedicated
Our teenagers are fantastically disciplined and dedicated to the settlement leadership. The truth that is often hidden from the public at large is that the kids here, despite holding strong political views, have clear red lines.
Violence is first on the list of those red-lines.
Security forces have received instructions to destroy a beautiful strip of land, built up by innocent people with their own two hands.
But deportation forces won't only meet residents here. They'll meet thousands of Israeli citizens who have come here during the last month with the intention of strengthening and being strengthened.
Men, women, children and teenagers, all with the intention of thwarting this criminal operation.
No beach, boob-tube
We chose to spend our summer vacation not in front of the "boob tube," and we didn't take the opportunity to make a little bit of money. We haven't been to the beach or the swimming pool.
Instead, we've spent our summer here, in the heat and humidity of Kfar Darom, the symbol of the anti-deportation movement.
We chose to sleep under the stars and in tents, not because we were looking for action and not because we were bored. We chose to spend our summer in Kfar Darom because we believe that we mustn't allow this criminal operation to be carried out.
We are the future
The kids here are the future of the State of Israel. One day, we will serve in the best elite units of the IDF, and we will become members of the upper echelon of the army, police force, and judicial and political establishments in the country.
There are no kids like these kids, more interested in the country than in TV or making money. We are interested in the country, its well-being, and in the values on which we were raised.
In the coming days, we will meet soldiers and cops coming to execute a clearly immoral order. The friction is inevitable.
I'm not a settler. Like many people here in Kfar Darom, I've never been.
But in the coming weeks, we will make clear to all who come and try to pull us out of here that we will not allow the expulsion from this strip of our national heritage.
No one knows what will happen here, not even the army. But the State of Israel absolutely must not let the kids here leave feeling they've been abandoned by the state.
We are the future of this country, and we must protect our future.
Elad Goldberg (17) lives in Meitar, in southern Israel. He has been in Kfar Darom about a month
Forwarded by Ilan Marciano, Kfar Darom
