Behind the Headlines a New Answer to an Old Question

Israelis will have a sadder answer than usual this year when they reply to their youngster’s query on seder night: “Why is this night different from all other nights?” And the answer will be even sadder to a similar question asked a month later, on Independence Day.

For Israelis will this year be telling the Pass-over story of the Biblical exodus from Egypt just a week after the date fixed by the Israel government, at the end of March, as the last date for civilians to be living in the Sinai.

And April 26, the date fixed by the Israel-Egypt peace treaty as that on which the last Israeli soldier should have left the Sinai, comes on the very eve of Memorial Day, the day before independence Day.

Since 1967, when Israeli forces captured the Sinai peninsula after Egypt declared sudden war, Israelis have gradually come to regard the vast triangular desert area as part of Israel itself.

CHANGING FEELINGS AND ATTITUDES

At first, the feeling was largely based on the security and defense aspects of the region, a large empty area forming a security belt between the populated sections of Israel and Egypt. But as the years passed, feelings towards the region fumed more, in the minds of the civilians, at least, to the recreation and playground aspects of Sinai, especially its coastal areas.

Lately, as the withdrawal date approached, a religious tinge has been given, especially to the northem Sinai coastal area, as members of the Stop the Sinai Withdrawal movement, almost all of them members of the religious and ultra-nationalist Gush Emunim group, have begun squatting in the town of Yamit and surrounding villages.

The religious veneer is purely artificial. There are no religious links between Jews and the Sinai as there are between Jews and the West Bank. Even Mount Sinai itself has no religious significance for Jews, as the actual site of the Biblical granting of the Torah to Moses is a matter for speculation and arguments between archaeologists.

When the late President Answar Sadat of Egypt suggested construction of a church-mosque-synagogue complex at Santa Katerina, there was no Jewish response to his proposal. No Orthodox Jew even acknowledged his suggestion. The Gush Emunim – Stop the Withdrawal enthusiasts are probably more worried by the implications of the Yamit withdrawal on any possible West Bank withdrawal demand than they are on the actual sanctity of northern Sinai.

A MATTER OF RECREATION AND ECOLOGY

For the average Israeli, however, the sorrow of the Sinai withdrawal, apart from sadness at having to give up on area won at the cost of blood and toil, is a matter of recreation and ecology.

Scores or even hundreds of army camps and bases which grew up in the Sinai wastes have had to be relocated in the far smaller Negev area, with inevitable harm to beauty spots and rare sites of unusual flora, founa and geographic areas of interest.

And for vacation-seeking Israelis, the loss of the Sinai is a severe blow. No longer can Israelis merely get in their cars and drive south for a holiday or weekend rest at beauty spots and deserted stretches of beach between Ellot and Sharm El-Sheikh, without having to obtain a visa and go through the problems of a border crossing.

Both Israeli ecologists and local tourism officials are concerned by the effects of the closure of Sinai to Israelis seeking a local vacation spot. The hundreds of thousands of Israelis who for the past 15 years have grown accustomed to driving south for a brief holiday, will henceforth have to find camping and recreational grounds in other areas.

And this means that they will be packed like sardines around Eilat and its narrow coastline confined to the few miles between Jordan and Egypt, or around Lake Kinneret. At either spot, the masses expected there will probably prove to be too many for their own comfort, or a severe hazard to local ecology.