MK Hotobeli: Gush Katif was a Victim of Baseless Hatred

MK Tzipi Hotobeli (Likud) marked four years since the expulsion by paying a visit to the Gush Katif Museum.  During the course of her visit, Hotobeli called for the public to commemorate Gush Katif.  "No one can uproot or break the spirit of pioneership."

"An open wound". These were the two words that MK Holtobelli tearfully used to sum up her visit at the Gush Katif Museum in Yerushalayim. Mk Hotobeli is a young and religious Member of the Knesset from the Likud Party.  Mk Hotobeli was at the museum to commemorate four years since the settlements in Northern Shomron and Gush Katif were uprooted and destroyed, in what was known as the "disengagement plan".

During the last period of time thousands of visitors converged on the museum, which opened last year at this time as a private venture.  Many public figures, including MKs and more, have already visited the museum, which is currently offering guided tours by the museum staff of Gush Katif expellees.  It was hard for MK Hotobeli to conceal her raw emotions as she viewed the video footage of the horrific moment when the Sifrei Torah were removed from the shul in Neve Dekalim.

Mk Hotobeli said the following at the end of her visit: "To this very day people don't understand what exactly took place at Gush Katif.  They are familiar with the orange band, but they really don't know what we lost there. It is imperative to remember the exemplary pioneering undertaking, but also the self destructive process that led to the loss of the dream.  It is fitting that every single person should pay a visit to the Gush Katif Museum during this period of time, and we must act so that every Israeli citizen should have access to the museum, and not only the religious- nationalistic sector."

Mk Hotobeli signed the Visitors Book, and wrote the following:  "Our heroic and holy brothers from Gush Katif.  The expulsion from Gush Katif was a sacrifice in vain, a victim of baseless hatred. 

Those who built an exemplary society in the desert, and made it blossom, were uprooted because of an untruthful faith. 

But that pioneering spirit cannot be broken or uprooted. And, as the disciples of Rabbi Akiva, who, seeing a fox wander from the site of the Holy of Holies knew that the Redemption will spring up from there, I pray that we will merit to see Gush Katif built, and the spirit that was in that place and in those people, channeled for a renewed and internalized building of the Jewish Nation.

"And to the museum staff: thank you for the live documentation of a smarting wound.