But you came at the urging of the government of Israel, a government whose "greatest" security people, headed by Ariel Sharon, anticipated the problems in the Gaza Strip and conceived the "five fingers" plan to split the area by means of Jewish settlements. Because a Jewish settlement is always, always the border, the last furrow.
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And you/we took up the challenge, the challenge of the fingers. You transformed an accursed land into an astonishing agricultural empire, with special crops that are exported to every corner of the world.
I remember well how we came to visit you in Gush Katif 22 years ago, when I wanted to leave Sde Eliahu. We met a young family with two infants, a tiny home and extensive hothouses in the glowing sand. We too wondered how to do it. How do you extract plants and saplings from such a vast nothingness?
But you, with infinite patience, with hard and demanding work, by trial and error, looked for the right and best crop - the one that would be suitable for our special climate and soil conditions. At the same time you enlarged your family, expanded the house and, along with all of us, turned Gush Katif into a fertile garden. Today, suddenly, ill winds are blowing, winds of destruction and evil, winds that are stronger than an east wind - winds that threaten to dry up this project, to uproot what lives and grows.
And the worst of it is that behind these winds is the same person who sent you, us. The same person who morning and evening explained to us how vital it was to settle the barren land, the accursed land; the same person whose feverish brain conceived the "five fingers" plan, the same one who already cut off one finger - Yamit - and sent its uprooted people to Gush Katif, too.