wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] Israel leaves Gaza synagogues intact after withdrawal

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Note #8898 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

05476
Sept. 13, 2005

Israel leaves Gaza synagogues intact

After settlers' withdrawal, Palestinians torch holy buildings in Gush Katif  

      
by Michele Green
Ecumenical News International  
      
JERUSALEM - Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip after the government decided
not to go ahead with a plan to destroy 19 synagogues in the coastal
territory.

	As Israel prepared to withdraw from the Gaza after a 38-year
occupation, cabinet ministers said they would not agree to the destruction of
synagogues there. The government planned to destroy them for fear that they
would be desecrated by Palestinians, but dropped the plan after leading
rabbis expressed stern opposition.

      Some Palestinians said they view the decision as a means for Israel to
keep a presence in the area.  
       
      The empty shells of the synagogues were left intact by the Israeli army
as the last soldier left Gaza on Sept. 12. Interiors and religious fixtures
had been removed to Israel. Even before the withdrawal was completed,
thousands of Palestinians rushed into the Gush Katif settlement, where most
of the 8,500 Israeli settlers had lived, and set fire to synagogues there.  
       
      "It is impossible to argue in the defense of the government that it
failed to see the writing on the wall and did not clearly expect the mass
Palestinian assault on the empty synagogues in Gush Katif," the liberal
Israeli newspaper Haaretz said in a Sept. 13 editorial. "Most of the members
of the cabinet were afraid to be seen by the public as having gone against
the words of the rabbis. They preferred to blame the Palestinians for the
destruction of the synagogues rather than have some (people) blame them."  
       
      The fires did little structural damage to the concrete and stone
buildings. Later, the Palestinian Authority bulldozed a synagogue in the
abandoned settlement of Netzarim, near Gaza City, to make way for housing
developments that will include high-rise buildings for many of the 1.3
million Palestinians in Gaza. The coastal strip is one of the world's most
densely populated places, and has one of the highest birth rates.  
       
      President Mahmoud Abbas had said the Palestinian Authority would
destroy the synagogues, which he said were no longer holy sites because they
had been emptied of religious objects. Palestinian officials cancelled their
participation in a withdrawal ceremony to protest the Israeli decision not to
destroy the synagogues.  
       
      Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office expressed disappointment
that the Palestinian Authority had refused to safeguard the synagogues.

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