Israel's Leftist youth do something good, but would they do it for 'settlers'?

The Jerusalem Post reports that a conglomeration of 'Zionist' youth groups has been collecting winter clothes and blankets for Syrian refugees.

The items have been taken to a collection point, a representative confirmed to JTA. From there, a partner aid organization is facilitating the delivery of the goods to the refugees, who won’t know their country of origin. The representative said the delivery date and method could not be revealed due to the sensitive nature of the situation.

Because if the Syrians found out they were coming from the 'Zionist entity,' they'd probably burn them, even if they didn't really want to turn them away, because... 'Palestine uber alles.'

 “I thought people would be reluctant to support an effort they would not get credit for,” Gilad Perry, Dror Israel’s international collaborations director, said in a statement. “I was amazed to see how wrong I was. The generosity of people just caring for those who suffer from the cold winter on the other side of the border, in an ‘enemy country,’ overwhelmed me.”

Amazing. Leftist Israelis willing to do something for which they won't get any credit except in an article in the JPost.... Oh wait, how do you know they're Leftist? Well, if you're an Israeli, you recognize two of the three names of the groups involved, and there's a hint at the end of the article.

HaNoar HaOved VeHaLomed (Youth Who Work and Learn) is a sister movement of Habonim Dror, long affiliated with the Labor Zionist movement.

So please forgive my cynicism. I'm all in favor of helping out Syrian refugees with clothes and blankets (but not with letting them unvetted into Israel, the US or any other western country). And there ought to be a lesson from the fact that Israelis are helping these poor people while they get nothing from any of the oil-rich Gulf countries.

But I have to ask another question. Suppose - just suppose - that there were Jewish revenants (known in the international media as 'settlers') who were expelled from their homes in Judea and Samaria and Gaza, who were out in the cold and the rain today who had no warm clothing and no blankets. Would the Leftist Zionist movements be willing to take up collections for them too? They'd even say thank you. You wouldn't have to cut out all the Israeli labels for them. And you could even get credit for helping them. So would the Labor Zionist movements help them?

Sadly, I think we already know the answer to that question. This is from a post I did in May 2012, citing statistics from the summer of 2011 - six years after the Jews of Gush Katif in Gaza were expelled from their homes. Hint: There were no Labor Zionists lining up to help the Jews of Gush Katif, with or without credit.

Perhaps this is the time to look at some statistics regarding the Jewish refugees from Gaza, who were expelled from their homes seven years ago this summer. This is from a United Nations report(!) from June 2011.

About 230 of the 1,450 families from Gush Katif (16 percent) have moved into permanent homes, according to a December 2010 report released by the Gush Katif “committee”.

Unemployment among former Gush Katif residents is running at about 18 percent, while under-employment is 20 percent, said the “committee”. Before the withdrawal, unemployment was 5 percent, with 85 percent working in Gush Katif, according to JobKatif, an NGO created to help former residents rebuild their livelihoods.

While unemployment is much worse in Gaza, the unemployment rate among the evacuees is about double the rate of the general Israeli population. Children have faced adjustment issues and the divorce rate increased, along with financial problems, say former residents. Government compensation that was received, was lower than the value of the land and did not allow farmers to re-establish their farms, according to the “committee”.

Shilat Kahalani, spokesperson for the Mateh Binyamin Regional Council which covers 42 Israeli settlements in the West Bank (known as Judea and Samaria to Israelis), told IRIN that many former Gush Katif residents wanted to rebuild their homes and lives in the West Bank, but were prevented from doing so by a building moratorium which was only lifted in September 2010, having been in force for 10 months.

About 380 farms existed in Gushi Katif (of which 240 were operational), but only 28 percent of the owners of agricultural land have resumed farming. Most business owners, too, have not returned to their trade and were not appropriately compensated, according to the “committee”.

“Disengaging a community is not something that can be rebuilt easily, and many families never received promised full financial support,” Kahalani said.

A June 2010 report on the findings of the Israeli “State Commission of Inquiry into the Handling of the Evacuees from Gush Katif and Northern Samaria by the Authorized Authorities”, placed blame on the state of Israel.

“The State of Israel failed in its handling of the evacuees,” it said. “Five years after, most of the evacuees are still living in temporary caravan sites; the construction of most of the permanent housing has not yet commenced; and the decisive majority of the public structures in the evacuees’ new settlements have not yet been built.”

“It was a mission of the government to settle people in Gaza,” said former Gush Katif resident Debbie Rosen, and “there must be a solution for every settler”. She received half the value of her home in Gush Katif, and she and her six children are still waiting for their new house to be built, she added.

And for those who think that the Ulpana neighborhood is going to be 'evacuated' quietly with the soldiers called in to do the job embracing the residents in tears, consider this.

“People in my community are unwilling to be evacuated because on a personal level they witnessed the awful outcomes of such a disengagement on the lives of the Gush Katif evacuees,” Binyamin council spokesperson Kahalani said.

That might have something to do with the violence in Amona during my last trip to the US a couple of weeks ago (violence that I did not have time to cover).

If only the Labor Zionists cared as much for their own as they do for the other....