Middle East: Facing Up to the Last Retreat

Israeli settlers already mourn the loss of the Sinai

In little more than a year's time, Israel will transfer to full Egyptian sovereignty the remaining third of the wedge-shaped 23,622 sq.mi. Sinai Peninsula that it has occupied since the Six-Day War of June 1967* That final withdrawal, which must be completed by April 25,1982, is already making waves. Last week Israeli settlers in the area blocked local roads in protest, while sympathizers in Jerusalem threatened to demonstrate in front of Prime Minister Menachem Begin's office. In Washington, meanwhile, Secretary of State Alexander Haig revived a controversial proposal that could station more than 1,000 U.S. peace-keeping troops in the buffer zone that will guarantee the security of the two countries after the withdrawal. TIME Jerusalem Bureau Chief David Aikman last week traveled across the much-disputed area. His report:

To outsiders, the very name Sinai conjures up wilderness and desolation. But to some 5,000 Israeli settlers, the startlingly beautiful desert has offered tempting development possibilities, from innovative agricultural communes among the sand dunes near the Mediterranean to the tourist centers along the superb beaches of the Red Sea coast. For them, giving up the last of the Sinai will be a traumatic experience. Many are already bitter and confused. Says Sara Feifels, 40, a Sinai settler since 1974: "When we heard about Camp David, it was like someone saying our child was dying. I went through a period like mourning." Feifels and her husband Chaim run the general store in Yamit, an ambitious Israeli development town begun seven years ago near the Gaza Strip. Today Yamit is less than one-quarter complete. The stores in its tidy shopping center are gradually closing.

The tenacious 2,500 people still at Yamit have all been offered generous Israeli government compensation for leaving, and most have accepted. But some are still obdurate. Students at the town's yeshiva have hinted that they may barricade themselves inside their dormitory when the deadline comes. Says Tsuriel Biblil, 24: "I won't kill any soldiers, but I won't let anyone take me from here."

Barely a mile from Yamit, at the cooperative farm of Moshav Sadot, the Sinai's sandy hinterland has been transformed into a verdant cornucopia. Tomato, eggplant and pepper plants, mango and lichee nut trees are nourished in long rows by painstaking drip irrigation. Collective farmers like those of Moshav Sadot are demanding at least half of the estimated $2.2 billion—or 13% of the 1981 national budget—that Israel has set aside as compensation for the Sinai settlers. But even that will not console all of them. Says Ella Weizman, 31, who sits tensely with her husband Vito in the comfortable living room of their farm home: "We came to nothing, and we made something out of it. You can't pay for the soul and the dreams we put into this place."