'I believe in God, but not the occupation'
Rotem Bar opens her heart and describes what it's like to be a soldier about to take part in Israel's first Gaza evacuation mission
Private Rotem Bar is part of the Caracal Battalion, which is tasked with removing settlers from their homes in the upcoming pullout from Gaza. Rotem, 19 years-old, of Rishon Letzion, suffers chronic pains in her legs due to her dancing career, but despite that has decided to fulfill the mission assigned to her unit.
Practicing for the real thing (Photo: Attila Somfalvi)
Two young brothers, a boyfriend, and her parents await her return home, anxious, but proud. In a conversation with ynet, Rotem explained why she chose not to stay at home, and discusses the cutting of relations with a childhood friend, who studies Torah in Nave Dekalim, and who has started to recently doubt Rotem's belief in God and her Jewishness.
“I think this is one of the most difficult missions that the IDF has undertaken since the formation of the state,” Bar said. “There is no enemy. The people we have to evacuate are Jewish and are citizens of the country. They have families, and kids, they are human beings.”
“That’s why this mission is so difficult. To arrive at a house in the Gush (Katif), to look at a family like my own, and to say, ‘Well, you have to leave the house,’ is terribly unpleasant. It breaks the heart,” she told ynet.
“I think about it all the time, and it bothers me because I know that people close to me live there. A very, very close friend of mine lives there, he studies at the yeshiva in Nave Dekalim. I have been sending him text messages asking him not to be at certain anti-pullout protests, like the one at Kfar Maimon.”
“He’s one of the people who tries to talk the soldiers into refusing orders. We were very close for many years, and recently we did not even discuss politics. But two weeks ago we fell out over the disengagement. It was the first time we got into a real fight. Our worldviews are different. Once it became clear that I would be taking part in the first wave of settlement evacuation, we drifted. I think about him, about Yogev; I think about the fact that he’s there, and that yeshiva is actually his whole life. He lives there, he studies there.”
Since the fight, there has been no contact between you?
That’s right. He’s religious, and keeps the commandments. Our relations have changed drastically. He would suddenly say things to me like: ‘I don’t know how you believe in your God.’ And I believe in God. I fast (on the Day of Atonence), I keep Shabbat, I don’t eat non-kosher things. I am Jewish, and I think that Gush Katif is ours, and will always be ours so long as we live there. But I don’t think that occupation and settlements are the way forward.
What is the right way?
This is a completely different topic that I don’t want to get into right now. I don’t want to start preaching. In any case, I will not refuse orders. I don’t want to answer the question of whether the pullout is legal or not. This is an order and I will carry it out. I have no dilemma, people have to understand that an order is an order. To refuse orders will lead to anarchy. There are some who say that the order to evacuate settlements is immoral, but morality is a personal thing.
