HERITAGE FLORIDA JEWISH NEWS, AUGUST 8, 2014
PAGE 11A
survivor worries
By Ben Sales
RAMLE, Israel (JTA)--In
her living room in the Israeli
town of Ramle, Sarah says she
wants a peaceful life. At 79,
she deserves one.
A Hungarian-born Holo-
caust survivor, Sarah was
sent to a Nazi concentration
camp in Serbia as a child,
arriving in Israel at age 17.
Her entire family perished
in the Holocaust.
Now she watches from
her armchair as her family
is threatened once again.
Sarah--not her real name--
is now a Muslim, and her
daughter lives in Gaza City.
"The whole city is in ru-
ins," Sarah says. "Everyone
is just trying to find a piece
of bread."
Sarah arrived in Israel in
1950, one of the tens of thou-
sands of Jewish survivors who
found refuge in the young
Jewish state, From there,
her story departs from the
conventional narrative.
In 1962, she married an
Arab Israeli and, with no
surviving family of her own,
converted to Islam to join
his. Neither of them were
particularly religious.
"In my time it wasn't
Arab or Jew," said Sarah,
who speaks Hebrew with a
slight European accent. "We
knew there was no problem
between Jews and Israeli
Arabs. I'm very liberal; my
husband was the same. We
felt no discrimination."
Light-haired and soft-
spoken, Sarah has lived for
decades in the same Ramie
apartment, which she now
shares with her daughter,
Nora. Both women leave
their hair uncovered, and
Nora said not to worry as
she set out tea and cookies
on the last day of Ramadan.
She wasn't fasting.
Sarah's other daughter,
also an Israeli citizen, moved
to Gaza in 1984 after she
married. On Sunday, Sarah
and Nora waited by the phone
as the Arabic news network
Al Jazeera played on the
television.
In the first days of Israel's
Operation Protective Edge,
Sarah's daughter took her
six children and one grand-
child and fled their home in
the Zeitoun district of Gaza
City for a calmer area in the
southern Gaza Strip. The
day they left, their four-story
home was destroyed, most
likely by an Israeli airstrike.
Since then, the family has
survived on dry goods and
whatever they can scrounge
up during brief cease-fires.
Alongwith food, electricity
is scarce in Gaza, so Sarah
has a hard time getting in
touch with her daughter.
She learned the house was
destroyed only when another
relatTve posted on Facebook
a picture of the rubble. She
hopes for the rare phone call
when her daughter manages
to charge her phone. But
sometimes, no call at all is
better.
"With every phone call, we
pray that she's charged so we
can reach them, talk to them,
see how they are," said Nora.
"Every call jolts us, that we
won't hear bad news."
Neither women would
agree to be photographed or
give many personal details
out of fear of retribution from
Israeli authorities or Hamas,
the reigning power in Gaza.
Only Nora would give her
first name.
Though they have lived
through such conflicts
before--Protective Edge is
the third such campaign in
Gaza in six years--Sarah
says this round has been
harder than previous ones.
Anti-Muslim discrimination
flared up during previous
conflicts, but Sarah said the
antagonism seems stronger
this time.
"I go to day centers [for the
elderly], and they don't talk to
me," Sarah said. "Behind my
back, they curse me. I hear
it. I hear 'Their name should
be erased. They should die.'"
Sarah and Nora used to
enjoy driving to Gaza City
to visit Sarah's daughter. But
Nora hasn't been allowed to
visit since the signing of the
Oslo Accords in 1993. Sarah
was allowed only once, for a
five-day visit several years
ago.
Will the family return t~)
Zeitoun to rebuild its home?
When will Sarah's daughter
be allowed to visit the family
in Ramle? Will Sarah ever be
able to visit her grandchil-
dren and great, grandchild
in Gaza?
They don't know.
Is there still hope for peace?
Emad Nassar/Flash90
Palestinian men seen in front of a fire raging at the Gaza's main power plant following
an overnight Israeli airstrike, south of Gaza City, July 29, 2014.
At that question, Nora shakes
her head.
"Honestly, no. I don't
think the situation will
get better after this war,"
Nora said. "There's tension
between me and my Jewish
friends. They want to justify
themselves and this war. I
never encounter a person that
says, 'Enough spilled blood'
or 'Poor civilians,' I haven't
heard that."
Like most Israelis, Nora
has coped with the sirens
that warn of incoming mis-
siles for a month now. She
opposes Hamas, she says, and
understands that Israel needs
to protect its citizens, though
she wishes the government
would scale back its operation
and pursue diplomacy more
aggressively. Hei" family in
Gaza, she said, is not affiliated
with any movement--not
Hamas, not Fatah, not any
other.
"Israel has the full right to
self-defense," Nora said. "The
missiles don't differentiate
between Jew and Arab, We
don't need to see houses de-
stroyed, women crying, dead
soldiers. A soldier is the son
of a mother. Anywhere in the
world, the pain of a mother
is the same pain."
Both Sarah and Nol:a say
they support a two-state solu-
tion to the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict. Both wish their Gaza
family could visit Israel to eat
Bamba and Bissli, the classic
Israeli snack foods they love.
Both wish they could hop into
a cab and drive to Gaza City
to eat fish on the coast.
But Sarah says that be-
cause of Hamas, because
of the war, because of the
antagonism born of decades
of separation between Israelis
and Palestinians, a hopeful
future seems less likely than
ever. She scoffed at the oc-
casional peace negotiations.
"It's all nonsense," she
said, then in Yiddish: "Bubbe
meises."
ra
Maxine Dovere
lsraeli Ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer addresses the
2014 Christians United for Israel (CUFI) summit.
By Sean Savage
JNS.org
WASHINGTON, DC--With
the conflict in Israel in their
hearts and on their minds,
thousands of evangelical
Christians converged on
Washington, DC, from July
21-22 to flex their collective
muscles for the Jewish state
as part of the annual Chris-
tians United for Israel (CUFI)
summit.
"Our joy is consistently
interrupted by news from
Israel. But it is good to be
together with loved ones at
a sad time. I see the energy
more than ever, that w.e
have to speak out and be a
voice for Israel," David Brog,
executive director of CUFI,
told JNS.org.
With nearly 1.75 million
members, CUFI calls itself
the largest pro-Israel organi-
zation in the United States.
But CUFI's vocal support for
Israel also draws a number
of detractors who deride the
group's mixing of bible-based
morality with lobbying and
politics.
"The day American turns
it back against Israel, God
will turn its back against the
United States of America,"
CUFI's founder, Pastor John
Hagee, told thousands of sup-
porters packed into Washing-
ton's Walter E. Washington
Convention Center.
Despite the skeptics; Jew-
ish and Israeli leaders have
taken notice of the rapid
growth of evangelical support
for Israel over the last few
decades, and those leaders'
presence at the CUFI summit
reflected their gratitude and
respect.
"I come here to get re-
freshed," said Malcolm Hoen-
lein, executive vice chair-
man of the Conference of
Presidents of MajorAmerica
Jewish Organizations, refer-
ring to evangelicals' strong
passion for Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu (in a
recorded video message) and
Israeli Ambassador to the
U.S. Ron Dermer also ad-
dressed the summit. Dermer
focused on the threats facing
Israel and the conflict in
Gaza, saying that the Jew-
ish state should be given a
Nobel Peace Prize for the
"unimaginable restraint"
it is showing in its current
military operation.
But the summit strove
for more than the series of
speeches celebrating Israel
and criticizing U.S. President
Bar ack Obama's policies.
CUFI has a number of leg-
islative goals that it hopes
its supporters will deliver
to Congress. First and fore-
most is preventing Iran from
obtaining a nuclear weapon.
CUFI urged its supporters
to back further U.S. sanc-
tions on Iran, which have
been held up in Congress in
order to allow the U.S.--as
part of the P5+1 powers (U.S.,
U.K., France, Russia, China,
and Germany)--to continue
diplomatic hegotiations
with the Islamic Republic
in Vienna.
During his address, Tea
Party favorite U.S. Sen. Ted
Cruz (R-Texas) urged the
audience to lobby Congress to
pass new sanctions on Iran,
which he blamed the White
House for stalling.
"[The] greatest threat
to the state of Israel is not
Hamas. [The] threat of lran
acquiring nuclear weapons
capability is the 'greatest
threat," Cruz said.
"[Iran] will e!ther halt their
program now and dismantle
it, or we will dismantle it,"
he added.
While external threats
to Israel remained a focus
throughout the summit,
CUFI more subtly reminded
its supporters of the internal
threats to American support
for Israel.
David Brog explained that
one of CUFI's goals is to make
sure the next generation of
evangelicals continue their
support for Israel and don't
go the way of the mainline
Protestants.
"Once you cut yourself off
from the bible and you just be-
come a reflection of modern
politically correct passions,
you lose your distinction
from the rest of society, so
why go to church?" Brog told
JNS.org.
In his opening remarks,
Pastor Hagee heavily criti-
cized mainline Protestants
such as Presbyterian Church
USA, which recently voted to
divest from Israel at its sum-
mit in June.
"When you turn against
Israel you have lost your
moral compass," Hagee said,
while also noting the rapid
decline in the Presbyterian
Church's membership over
the past decade.
While Israel has histori-
cally enjoyed overwhelming
bipartisan support in the
U.S., in recent years the
'cause of the Jewish state has
become increasingly em-
braced by conservatives, who
champion America's shared
values with Israel and the
threat of common enemies
like radical Islam.
A new survey conducted
by the Pew Research Center
amid the Israel-Gaza conflict
found a large partisan gap
in support for Israel, with
73 percent of Rep.ublican
respondents saying they
sympathize with Israel in
the current Gaza conflict,
compared to 44 percent of
Democrats.
"Dating back to the late
1970s, the partisan gap in
Mideast sympathies has
never been wider," the Pew
Research Center said.
Like its Jewish counter-
part, the American Israel
Public Affairs Committee,
CUFI believes that bipartisan
support for Israel is essential
and welcomes anyone on
either side of the aisle who
shares the group's values.
"We are studiously biparti-
san," Brog told JNS.org.
Yet Brog admitted that
CUFI does not want its
mission of bipartisanship
to prevent the organization
from criticizing the Obama
administration or other
Democrats for their policies
on Israel.
"We have been pretty vo-
cal in our criticism of the
Obama administration," he
said. "We don't feel the cause
of bipartisanship needs to
blind us to the failures of this
administration."
Perhaps highlighting
the growing partisan di-
vide on Israel and liberals'
lack of interest in courting
evangelical voters, CUFI's
summit featured a heavy
"concentration of conserva-
tive commentators such
as Bill Kristol and Charles
Krauthammer, as well as
Republican politicians like
Cruz and U.S. Rep. Michele
Bachmann (R-Minn.).
"I hope that in the future
we will see more Democrats,"
Brog said. "We are in danger
of losing one of our parties
on Israel, and that would be
a disaster."
