The Logic in Madness
Column of October 27, 2006
Zev Galili
Makor Rishon [Primary Source - An Israeli Weekly]

Requiem to the Basketball Tournament at Netzer Chazani

The film "Home Game", tells the story of the destruction of Gush Katif, whose central theme is basketball and whose stars are the youth * "We wanted to make a movie, so that the most secular leftist of Tel Aviv would want to see without changing the channel" - says the producer, Avi Eblo[?] * The film's pivotal character is Einat Yefet, born in Netzer Sereni, who filmed for Channel 10

The movie opens slamming you with a blow equivalent to a ten kilo sledge hammer.  You expect to see a movie of the destruction of Gush Katif, replete with scenes of ruins and destruction, of violent struggle, of weeping and protest - of tears that have long since dried up.

The opening scene of the film is a torrent of music, almost wild, with bursts of youthful joy, showing the struggle of two competing basketball teams. As the crowd cheers enthusiastically, the camera pans the attractive teenagers, and the cute children.  For a moment you think you've come into the wrong stadium.  And then appear the pastoral scenes of the homes with the tiled roofs, of children playing in the sand at the seashore, or surfing in the waves, scenes of trees, and flowers, and lawns.  You suddenly realize that all this no longer exists, that you are witnessing the last days of Netzer Chazani, one of the 22 settlements of the Gush that were destroyed.  Then come the scenes of the IDF soldiers, wearing vests decorated with the state flag and the symbol of the Menorah.  You see the breaking hearts, and find that one of your eyes may be laughing but the second, still retains tears to weep for the destruction.

The Destruction as a Tournament

The film proceeds on two levels.  On the basketball court the Netzer Chazani team battles against her sister team from Gush Katif in the championship tournament.  The final game was set for the tenth of Av, 5766, the day on which the destruction began.  The second level depicts the struggle for the life of the Gush from the viewpoint of the youngsters -  both the basketball players and the spectators, most of them barely past puberty.

The star of the film is Einat Yefet.  She is young, intelligent, good-looking, and highly articulate.  She had been given a camera by Channel 10 so as to serve as a reporter who would present the struggle from within.  She accompanies the film with poetic text.

At the end of the showing, we asked her and her companions:  "How did it feel to see yourselves a year later?"

"We were gang-raped" [Hebrew= 'Oh-ness K'vutzati' literally group rape which apparently by play of words in this context means rape of the group, rather than by the group.  Compare 'Oh-nesh K'vutzati' which means collective punishment.]

Einat: "I have a profound feeling of yearning, a longing that is difficult to describe, a feeling that is even liable to bowl you over.  You say [to yourself]: Wow, there was never a better place in the whole wide world.  Besides the houses were razed, and this lovely place where we had lived all our lives was no more.  So many of our friends are gone as well.  And we have parents who have to face up to the grief [of loss].  What we experienced there was 'gang rape'.  They prettified it with all kinds of words, but open a dictionary, and you will see that expulsion is expulsion.  And I thought: If the film will make others understand what we went through, and that's only a drop in the ocean, I'm ready to give it my all.

A Stranger and Estranged in the Land

"The film, however, ends with the good feeling of laughter, but, if before the expulsion, we had great ideals to act and change things, then, after the expulsion, all these ideals were gone.  All I care about now is my family and my friends; what is happening to them and how after all these events stay sane.  You've seen your friends fall apart before your very eyes, friends who lost their sanity in the full sense of the word.  In the midst of all this you have to grasp some sense of stability in your life and to know where to go and to what end.

There is the feeling that no one understands you.  You go about the country a stranger and estranged.  I was overseas a month ago and didn't want to return.  What would I come back to? I have no home.  A mobile home is a transient thing.  All of them there live with a sense of frustration.  You no longer have a future, since even if you make the attempt to build a future, you don't get any help to build one.

The bureaucracy intentionally mistreats us.  When my father came to request the compensation he was required to bring a document that his daughter Einat had been in first grade at Netzer Chazani.  When the soldiers came to us they had maps - [showing] who lived in each house, where everyone could be found, and which room was whose.  And now they want me to bring them a report card from first grade."

"We are No-Accounts"

 "I worked in the media, and I saw what they said about us.  They represented us in such a filthy manner.  After that you understand that you are 'no-accounts'.

I began to become aware that our Israel is different than the other Israel outside [the Gush], even before the expulsion.  When I started in communications, I could not believe that people were capable of reaching such a high level of hate for something they knew nothing about.  I would wander around the Channel 10 studios, and they could see I was a settler.  How did they know? They saw that I was barefoot.  After years of being accustomed to walking barefooted, it is difficult to wear shoes. Also, I didn't let myself be touched.

The expulsion matured us in a crazy way, and I say this in sadness.  You look several steps ahead, and then you say to yourself:  We were there; the Israeli public didn't understand why, but they will come to understand.  The ways of history are tortuous.  During the [Second Lebanese] war we were in the north to help people.  The people there didn't understand.  They said to us: Who are you?  Are you inviting us to be your guests in your trailers?  When they evicted you, it didn't matter to us at all.  So they removed you from your homes.  O.K., that's far away from us.  It's in the south.  And people understand that the wheel [of fortune] turns."

Einat Yefet's Path of Life

"One day I got up the courage and I filmed the house, the mangoes, the flowers, the trees, and the slide.  Suddenly there was a kind of flashback of all the stages of your life, from the time you are walking on the sidewalk and find yourself growing from an early age to the present.  This is like the path of life.  You look at the path and suddenly you see yourself.  I see myself as a little girl with a backpack going to kindergarten.  Then I go to first grade, then the Bat Mitzvah, and then the Shabatot. All your life suddenly passes by in front of you, and you say: Will this path not continue?  I always dreamt that I would walk on this path as a bride, I would tread this path in a wedding gown."

I Wanted to Push 'STOP'

Einat:  "I was against the entire process of this documentation with the camera I got from Channel 10.  I didn't film everything and I am sorry about that.  During the filming, I often wanted to press the Stop button, hoping that if I would halt the filming, I would be able to stop what the lens was seeing."