{"id":1208,"date":"2024-02-03T14:44:23","date_gmt":"2024-02-03T04:44:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/?p=1208"},"modified":"2025-09-24T12:33:23","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T02:33:23","slug":"the-gates-of-gaza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/2024\/02\/the-gates-of-gaza\/","title":{"rendered":"The Gates of Gaza"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

(Published at New Catallaxy<\/a> on 5th February 2024)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u00b9 Samson went to Gaza, and there he saw a prostitute, and he went in to her. \u00b2 The Gazites were told, \u201cSamson has come here.\u201d And they surrounded the place and set an ambush for him all night at the gate of the city. \u2026 \u00b3 But\u2026at midnight he arose and took hold of the doors of the gate of the city and the two posts, and pulled them up, bar and all, and put them on his shoulders and carried them to the top of the hill that is in front of Hebron.  Judges 16<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The term \u201cgates of Gaza\u201d has a more contemporary application. The Nahal program<\/a> was set up in 1948 by Ben-Gurion as a way of combining military service with the founding of settlements and the associated farming. All told, 108 kibbutzim and other agricultural settlements were established. Many of these militarised settlements were set up on Israel\u2019s borders, and served as the first line of defence. Nahal Oz was the first Nahal settlement. I\u2019ll let Wikipedia<\/a>, for what it\u2019s worth, take up the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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Nahal Oz became a kibbutz in 1953, and was frequently in conflict with Arabs who crossed the nearby armistice line from Gaza\u2026 The previous few months had been relatively quiet\u2026but escalated with several cross-border shootings\u2026 On April 4, three Israeli soldiers were killed by Egyptian forces on the Gaza border. Israel responded the next day by shelling the center of Gaza City, killing 58 Egyptian and Palestinian civilians, as well as 4 Egyptian soldiers. Egypt responded by resuming fedayeen attacks across the border,  killing 14 Israelis during the period between 11\u201317 April.
On 29 April 1956 [Roi Rothberg] was caught in a prepared ambush; Arab harvest workers began to reap wheat in the kibbutz’s fields. Rothberg saw them and rode toward them to chase them off. As he approached, others emerged from hiding to attack.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Rothberg was killed, and his death struck a chord in Israel. The Chief of Staff of the IDF came to Nahal Oz for his funeral. This was none other than Moshe Dayan, who was Defence Minister during both the Six-Day War of 1967 and the Yom Kippur War of 1973. The eulogy<\/a> that Dayan read became famous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Early yesterday morning Roi was murdered. The quiet of the spring morning dazzled him and he did not see those waiting in ambush for him, at the edge of the furrow.
Let us not cast the blame on the murderers today. Why should we declare their burning hatred for us? For eight years they have been sitting in the refugee camps in Gaza, and before their eyes we have been transforming the lands and the villages, where they and their fathers dwelt, into our estate.
It is not among the Arabs in Gaza, but in our own midst that we must seek Roi’s blood. How did we shut our eyes and refuse to look squarely at our fate, and see, in all its brutality, the destiny of our generation? Have we forgotten that this group of young people dwelling at Nahal Oz is bearing the heavy gates of Gaza on its shoulders?
Beyond the furrow of the border, a sea of hatred and desire for revenge is swelling, awaiting the day when serenity will dull our path, for the day when we will heed the ambassadors of malevolent hypocrisy who call upon us to lay down our arms.
Roi’s blood is crying out to us and only to us from his torn body. Although we have sworn a thousandfold that our blood shall not flow in vain, yesterday again we were tempted, we listened, we believed.
We will make our reckoning with ourselves today; we are a generation that settles the land and without the steel helmet and the canon’s maw, we will not be able to plant a tree and build a home. Let us not be deterred from seeing the loathing that is inflaming and filling the lives of the hundreds of thousands of Arabs who live around us. Let us not avert our eyes lest our arms weaken.
This is the fate of our generation. This is our life’s choice – to be prepared and armed, strong and determined, lest the sword be stricken from our fist and our lives cut down.
The young Roi who left Tel Aviv to build his home at the gates of Gaza to be a wall for us was blinded by the light in his heart and he did not see the flash of the sword. The yearning for peace deafened his ears and he did not hear the voice of murder waiting in ambush. The gates of Gaza weighed too heavily on his shoulders and overcame him.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Nahal Oz was, literally, one of the gates of Gaza. It was a link in the chain of kibbutzim and military bases that locked the Palestinians inside the Gaza Strip, as Dayan\u2019s eulogy makes clear. Dayan is also quite clear about both the genesis of the hatred, and the need never to forget that genesis. It was a message taken to heart by many Israelis at the time and subsequently. It would not be surprising if it assumed renewed importance in the aftermath of October 7th.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Nahal Oz<\/a> is no longer a militarised settlement. Privatisation (presumably away from the communal ownership that characterised the original kibbutz movement) began in 1997. It is approached by a more or less east-west road that runs from Sa\u2019ad to the east, north of the town to the Gaza border, which is little more than 1km by road away. Abutting the northern edge of that road, opposite the town, is the Nahal Oz IDF base. During the attack of October 7, 12 residents of the township were killed, and a number taken hostage<\/a> into Gaza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The adjoining IDF base is the headquarters of the 13th battalion of the legendary Golani Brigade<\/a>, which has participated in all Israel\u2019s wars and most major operations. On October 7, 41 members of the Brigade were killed, many at the base; more fatalities than the battalion suffered in the Six-Day War and Yom Kippur combined. According to one report<\/a>, 15 female soldiers of the Combat Intelligence Collection Corps<\/a> were also killed at the base, and six were abducted, one of whom was later rescued. Other reports say 20 of the CICC were killed; perhaps five men died as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Let us not cast the blame on the murderers today. Why should we declare their burning hatred for us? For eight years they have been sitting in the refugee camps in Gaza, and before their eyes we have been transforming the lands and the villages, where they and their fathers dwelt, into our estate. It is not among the Arabs in Gaza, but in our own midst that we must seek Roi’s blood. How did we shut our eyes and refuse to look squarely at our fate, and see, in all its brutality, the destiny of our generation?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Dayan was clear-eyed about the cause of the hatred; just as he was unapologetic about it. His generation has passed in the nearly 70 years since this eulogy, and you will not hear such admissions today. What is still the ideology of \u201chard-line\u201d parties within Israel is his declaration of perpetual war, though without acknowledgement of the cause. This doctrine precedes the creation of Hamas; it precedes the creation of the PLO. Though the Muslim Brotherhood had long been established, its founder was dead, and Sayyid Qutb was in prison in Egypt. But neither the Israeli government nor the IDF is accepting any part in what lay \u201cbeyond the furrow,\u201d or as now, beyond the border surveillance fence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

October 7 was comprehensive failure of the Israeli security state, and the IDF, the most powerful military in the Middle East by its own reckoning and design, was humiliated by soldiers in Toyota utes, on motorbikes, on paragliders and on foot, armed with rifles, RPGs, explosive charges and drones. This concern has been addressed not by looking \u201cin our own midst,\u201d but by misdirection. \u201cDon\u2019t talk about the war.\u201d Focus on atrocities, both the horrifyingly real and the completely invented (40 beheaded babies, for example), and mobilise Israeli society to finally solve the problem alluded to by Dayan, by obliterating Gaza, and \u201cvoluntarily emigrating\u201d the remaining people of Gaza.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Published at New Catallaxy on 5th February 2024) \u00b9 Samson went to Gaza, and there he saw a prostitute, and he went in to her. \u00b2 The Gazites were told, \u201cSamson has come here.\u201d And they surrounded the place and set an ambush for him all night at the gate of the city. \u2026 \u00b3 … Continue reading “The Gates of Gaza”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[65,61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gaza","category-new-catallaxy"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8SCfl-ju","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1200,"url":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/2024\/01\/al-shifa-et-al\/","url_meta":{"origin":1208,"position":0},"title":"Al Shifa, et al.","author":"Me","date":"Wed 31st Jan '24","format":false,"excerpt":"First published on NewCatallaxy.blog on 22nd December, 2023 On the 16th of November, White House spokesman John Kirby said,\u00a0 \u201cWe have our own intelligence that convinces us that Hamas was using Al Shifa [hospital] as a command and control node, and most likely as well as a storage facility. We\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Gaza"","block_context":{"text":"Gaza","link":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/category\/geopolitics\/gaza\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/6pTYHBZVgVQ\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1206,"url":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/2024\/01\/gaza-postmodern\/","url_meta":{"origin":1208,"position":1},"title":"Gaza Postmodern","author":"Me","date":"Wed 31st Jan '24","format":false,"excerpt":"First published on NewCatallaxy.blog on 31st January, 2024 One of the first declarations of intent was reported from an unnamed official. The unnamed defense official told Israel\u2019s Channel 13 that the Palestinian territory, home to more than 2 million residents, would be reduced to rubble. \u201cGaza will eventually turn into\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All"","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/category\/all\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1198,"url":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/2024\/01\/building-hamas\/","url_meta":{"origin":1208,"position":2},"title":"Building Hamas","author":"Me","date":"Wed 31st Jan '24","format":false,"excerpt":"First published on NewCatallaxy.blog on 15th December, 2023 On the 8th of October, an angry article appeared in The Times of Israel.\u00a0 For years, Netanyahu propped up Hamas. Now it\u2019s blown up in our faces, or so ran the headline. One has to read some way into the article to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All"","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/category\/all\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1202,"url":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/2024\/01\/priorities\/","url_meta":{"origin":1208,"position":3},"title":"Priorities","author":"Me","date":"Wed 31st Jan '24","format":false,"excerpt":"First published on NewCatallaxy.blog on 26th January, 2024 For most of 2022, and until the great counter-offensive broke on the Russian defence lines of Zaporozhzhia on mid-2023, it seemed that the greatest priority of the Biden administration, and most of Congress, was promoting and resourcing Ukraine\u2019s proxy war against Russia.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Gaza"","block_context":{"text":"Gaza","link":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/category\/geopolitics\/gaza\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1196,"url":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/2024\/01\/israels-tet-moment\/","url_meta":{"origin":1208,"position":4},"title":"Israel’s Tet Moment?","author":"Me","date":"Wed 31st Jan '24","format":false,"excerpt":"First published at NewCatallaxy.blog on 11th October, 2023 Shortly after midnight on January 30-31, 1968, during celebrations of the Lunar New Year (Tet) , NVA and Viet Cong (VC or NLF) forces launched the Tet Offensive in South Vietnam. 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