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Renzi’s Reassurance and Remembering Gush Katif(50:32)
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Josh is given a briefing by Raoul on Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s speech. Renzi is the first head of state to arrive since the signing of the nuclear agreement with Iran. Raoul says that Renzi made clear that, in spite of a number of policy differences with Israel, the Italian government and its people believe in zero compromises when it comes to the security of the Jewish state.
Then, Josh is joined by Rachel Saperstein, an American immigrant who settled in Gush Katif, only to be thrown out, along with 10,000 other Israelis as part of the 2005 disengagement from Gaza. Rachel says she cannot stop smiling, in spite of the expulsion and the rocket-fire and wars that have ensued since then. She believes she has been sent to Bnei Dekalim in the Lachish area — where she now lives — in order, once again, to become a Jewish pioneer in the land of Israel. She says the “spirit of Gush Katif is alive in Lachish.”