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Our semi-annual AFSI Chizuk ("Strength" or "Support") mission to Israel took place May 16-23, 2004, with a group of 25 participants from all over the U.S., including Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Oregon, Maryland, New Mexico, Texas, and Hawaii. The purpose of this trip was to lend support to the Jewish residents of "Yesha" (the collective term for the Jewish communities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip). We arrived on a beautiful sunny Monday morning at Ben Gurion airport and took off immediately for our first stop at Yad Mordecai, a town just north of the Gaza Strip, where Dror Vanunu, the Public Relations chief for Gush Katif (the generic name for the Jewish communities in the southern Gaza Strip) and our very special friend, met us to take us into the northern Gaza strip.
About 8,000 Israelis live in 21 communities in the Gaza Strip, most of them in the southern part of the Strip. Our first meeting was with Avi Farchan in Alei Sinai, a community in the northern Gaza Strip. Avi told us of his fight to hold onto his home in Yamit in the Sinai in 1982. After the Israeli government expelled the Jewish residents as part of its peace treaty with Egypt, Avi made his new home (shown here) in the Gaza Strip, less than two miles from Ashkelon's electrical plant that supplies Israel with most of its electricity. He believes that removing the Jews from Alei Sinai will simply move the front line closer to Israel's sensitive areas, making them even easier targets for terrorists. Avi reminded us that in 1994, Prime Minister Sharon admitted making a mistake in evacuating Yamit. The same mistake today could be disastrous to Israel.
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