Yesterday, we went to Sederot.
Sederot is one kilometer from the Gaza strip, built in pre-1967 Israel from scratch by immigrants. Today it is a beautiful community, filled with simple but nice homes, extensive roads, and schools and other intstitutions. It is a nice place to live.
Except for the rockets. More than 3,500 have fallen on Sederot since the Palestinians responded to the offer of a state in 2000 with a barbaric war. More than 1,000 have fallen since August of last year, after Israel vacated every square inch of Gaza.
The pace of the rockets accelerated with the withdrawal from Gaza (accompanied by the self-destruction of all 21 Israeli communities in Gaza), as Palestinians — having obtained all of Gaza through terror — vowed to make Sederot a “ghost town” by using the same method.
We met with Eli Moyal, the mayor of the city. As he walked in, all of us rose to applaud, but the mayor immediately waived us back into our seats, saying "oh please, come on." He went to sit at the head of the long conference table, looked around and asked one of his aides to tell him who this group was. Then he proceeded to give a remarkable talk, which Atlas has recorded and transcribed here.
His theme was that the proper response of Israeli civilians to terror was to stay put — that to see Israelis leave their homes and cities was exactly what the terrorists wanted. He was proud that the population of Sederot had not decreased since the Palestinian terror campaign began in 2001. "What do we plan to do in September if the rockets are still coming? Do we plan to close the schools? We will do nothing. We will keep on living our lives here, because if we leave, they will simply find us wherever we go."
In the conference room outside his office, the Mayor keeps a large display of the citizens of Sederot who have been killed by Palestinian rockets, a memory of lost friends and a reminder of the constant threat against the city, the fundamental fact of life there:
In the courtyard outside his office, there is a rocket put there originally as a protest at the Israeli inaction ("restraint") in the face of thousands of rocket attacks upon its citizens.
He is satisfied with the current government efforts to stem the rockets in Gaza, and is worried only that the U.S. will force Israel to stop its campaign against Hezballah in the north. But in any event, no one in Sederot is leaving.
In his most famous Cold War speech, John F. Kennedy addressed the citizens of a besieged Berlin and told them that:
I am proud to come to this city as the guest of your distinguished Mayor, who has symbolized throughout the world the fighting spirit of West Berlin . . . .
There are many people in the world who really don’t understand, or say they don’t, what is the great issue between the free world and the Communist world. Let them come to Berlin. There are some who say that communism is the wave of the future. Let them come to Berlin. And there are some who say in Europe and elsewhere we can work with the Communists. Let them come to Berlin. And there are even a few who say that it is true that communism is an evil system, but it permits us to make economic progress. Lass’ sie nach Berlin kommen. Let them come to Berlin. . . .
I want to say, on behalf of my countrymen, who live many miles away on the other side of the Atlantic, who are far distant from you, that they take the greatest pride that they have been able to share with you, even from a distance, the story of the last 18 years. I know of no town, no city, that has been besieged for 18 years that still lives with the vitality and the force, and the hope and the determination of the city of West Berlin. . . .
All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words "Ich bin ein Berliner."
There are many people in the world who think that Israel will waver in its determination to resist terror. Let them come to Sederot.
Not only Jews, but all Americans, and all free people everywhere, should come to Sederot. We are far distant from them, but they are fighting our fight. We are all citizens of Sederot.