Subject: [PCUSANEWS] Israel leaves Gaza synagogues intact after withdrawal
 

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.