Sderot: A City in Peripheral

Eight years of rocket fire from Gaza has left a small town in Southern Israel, called Sderot, to fend almost for itself. Although there are continuous Israeli incursions into Gaza Strip, the rocket fire continues and the people have felt little to no change. Many remain because it is, and has always been, their home.

“Sderot is my hometown, it is my land. It is my place, my brothers are here, my sisters are here," says Shay Ben-Yaish, General Manager of a conference designed to confront local and national issues called The Sderot Conference. The town itself looks like any other, it had been bustling in the period just after the war: Markets had reopened, stores restocked their shelves for customers finally out of their bomb shelters, and Cafes were serving. But it was still clear from the decorated bomb shelters and the filled holes where rockets had once struck that this town was one that lived with eyes permanently on the sky. But what catches peoples eyes when visiting this city is the self determination, and solitude in which the city functions. "If we won't stand for us then who will stand for us?" Reads a common bumper-sticker and flier in the area. The town has been advocating action, political, social, and military, since the beginning of the eight-year bombardment from Gaza. For many years, nothing was done and the city simply deteriorated. "We expected the government to do something to make it stop," said Nitai Schreiber, a founder of the Kibbutz Ironi, a communal-living organization in Sderot. "[We] expected one thing: that the nation would supply every home with a proper bomb shelter that we would be able to live in. Even in this house, it's a small compartment, you can't live in here," he said while giving a tour of a Kibbutz home. "Most of Sderot doesn't have proper protection."

"They didn't do anything in the beginning, [and] it became worse," Ben-Yaish confirmed. "People used to think that [Qassams] just made noise; but when [they] killed a small child, they thought about how to respond with power."

Many Israeli's in Sderot feel left behind by their country. "There are two states, and not the two states that Obama speaks of, the center and the peripherals. " says Ben-Yaish. He believes that much of Israeli politics focuses on the well-being of the center of the country; Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and their surrounding areas, while the outlying regions - the Negev, the south, the Golan and Sderot are left largely undeveloped. Sderot itself is surrounded by endless fields, with Gaza City on the horizon. Ben-Yaish, who once held a position in the local government, is lobbying for investment in Sderot's sectors to bring jobs and financial security to the city. "I felt that the local leaders must use the situation to ensure that we would have enough budget and support to invest in Sderot for all the years that it was neglected… to bring Sderot up." Ben-Yaish believed that once Israeli public attention was turned towards Sderot, in the last three or four years, the local governments should use that to their advantage to improve their situations. But many of the expectations that residents had were not met. "We wanted the country to give us peace, either with the army or politically," says Schreiber. That peace is seldom met. "This government is more right-wing, they will be more hard line on doing anything, but there always surprises, it was Begin who brought us peace with Egypt," Schreiber answered when asked about the roles he expects the new government to play.

Ben Yaish had similar views. "Sharon's policy has been a catastrophe for us and for them... Nothing was done until that small child was killed... The death toll in Gaza could have been much lower if we had acted sooner, and not let it build up for eight years."

But Sderot has some optimism, most of which circulates in the youth. "Despite the Qassams, we have to live, be with our friends, go out, live normal lives," says Schreiber's 14 year-old daughter. When asked whether she is scared she replied, "We're used to it." When asked about peace, she enthusiastically expressed a desire to talk to the other side, to find common ground.

Additional Notes: Shay Ben-Yaish renovated the education system in Sderot as a project to supplement government funds. He is General Manager of the Sderot Conference and an ex-employee of the Sderot Mayor's office.

Nitai Schreiber and his daughter both live on Kibbutz Ironi in Sderot. The Kibbutz was founded 22 years ago and has a membership of over 20 families.

Interviews with Nitai Schreiber and his daughter were conducted in Hebrew. Translation was done by Sahar Zivan and Preston Reynolds.

Special thanks to Sahar Zivan for his contributions and support.