Left wing Israelis and Jewish settlers struggled to find some common ground during a heated debate on a sand dune in the Gaza Strip ahead of Israel's planned pullout from the occupied territory. "We don't even get each other's jokes," complained Hagit Bar-Tov, one of about a dozen left wingers who went to the Gush Katif settlements to meet settlers opposed to the withdrawal.
Participants tried to avoid raising their voices during the discussion that was organised by Tsav Piyus, a group founded to try to heal Israeli social rifts after the 1995 assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by an ultranationalist Jew.
"Everyone looks at the same landscape but sees different things," said Dror Arieh of the Kfar Darom settlement.
Israel intends to serve eviction notices to 8,500 Gaza settlers on August 15 and begin removing those who refuse to leave the area's 21 settlements two days later. About 1.4 million Palestinians live in Gaza.
Opinion polls show a majority of Israelis support Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to "disengage" from an area he says Israel has no chance of keeping in a final peace treaty with the Palestinians.
But a deep well of opposition to the move exists among settlers and their supporters, many of whom stake a biblical claim to Gaza and the West Bank - land Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war.
Moderates on both sides worry about what will happen when Israeli troops confront settlers who vow to resist removal and fear violence could widen divisions in the Jewish state.
"If we don't start talking now the social rift could widen to the point where we split into two countries," said Leora Elon, of Tsav Piyus, Hebrew for "Call to Reconcile".
Not too long ago Elon had focused her efforts on persuading Israel's Jewish and Arab citizens to meet.
She said the gap between the bulk of Israeli Jews and ultranationalist settlers now seemed more ominous because they, too, rarely speak to each other.
Tsav Piyus members say the controversy also threatens to reignite a latent feud between Israel's secular Jewish majority and religious Jews, many of whom are either settlers or support them.
Dalia Rabin-Pelosoff, daughter of the assassinated prime minister and a former lawmaker, was among the first to launch talks with settler leaders months ago, after death threats by ultra-rightists against Sharon over the Gaza pullout.
"I am a symbol and I know the responsibility. ... That's why I'm here," she said after a recent meeting with settlers that foundered in disagreement over unsuccessful settler demands to hold a national referendum on the withdrawal.
During the Gush Katif meeting, settlers took the visitors on a three-hour tour in a bullet-proof bus. Palestinian militants have frequently aimed mortar and rocket fire at the settlements and last month, an Israeli couple was killed in an ambush.
The tour was fraught with tension. Settlers were uncomfortable with their guests' frequent questions about how they treated Palestinian neighbours who were in plain view.
Talks held later outside a synagogue in Neve Dekalim, the largest of the Gush Katif settlements, deteriorated quickly as each side hurled accusations at the other.
"I don't understand why you didn't build all of this (inside Israel) in the Galilee or the Negev," said Ofer Baram of Kibbutz Kfar Aza, referring to a hothouse filled with plants.
"It bothers me that you don't care, that you can look at what we have built here and it doesn't bother you at all that this will go .... I feel humiliated," says Shlomo Asraf, 29, a settler from Kfar Darom.
Yehuda Shachor, a 75-year-old farmer, told the settlers: "You want us to support you, but I don't support you. Without Israel, Gush Katif never would have existed, and now Israel has to give up Gush Katif to survive."
Agreeing to disagree, participants said they hoped to meet again once the pullout is over.
"After all, we were all together once at Mount Sinai," Asraf joked, referring to the site where the Bible says God gave the Israelites the Ten Commandments, that included the directive "Love thy neighbour".
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