Americans for a Safe Israel is pleased to present our longtime partner and friend, Anita Tucker, a survivor of the appalling 2005 Israeli expulsion from Gush Katif.
In 2024, we enter the nineteenth year since Anita was forced out of Gush Katif by IDF soldiers after refusing to leave in peaceful protest. She and husband Stuart eventually built a new roof over their heads in an agricultural community formed by and named for her original Gush Katif neighborhood, Netzer Hazani. Rather than disperse across the country, Netzer Hazani’s residents reconstituted their neighborhood in central Israel.
For those of you who don’t know Anita, a taste of her life and leadership. Before being expelled, Anita had grown 3-foot-long celery in her hothouses in Netzer Hazani in Gush Katif. She often speaks of the spirit of that area, which she says still lives among the former residents. She helped so many with their needs post-expulsion. She stresses the need to deal with the ongoing trauma of the “second generation,” and the yearning to return to their incomparable “golden sands.” When Anita says something needs to be done, she is always in the lead in getting started. She also reminisces about her Arab friends in Gaza, who had welcomed the Jews there and marveled in their agricultural success — but who are all probably dead by now at the hands of Hamas.
With much talk emerging about “re-settling” Jewish communities in “Gaza,” Anita will update us on this struggle and the prospect of returning to reclaim and rebuild communities in the legally owned Israeli land once known as Gush Katif. Is it possible for Israel to reclaim all of Gaza? Why should Arab residents who want to leave Gaza be barred, as they now are, from emigrating? What questions must we ask to arrive at the answers we so clearly need?
AFSI thanks our co-sponsors of this meeting:
Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation (CAEF)
Canadians for Israel’s Legal Rights
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