Hebron: The
Street
By Am Johal
17 November, 004
Countercurrents.org
A few
months ago walking along Al-Shuhada street in Hebron on a Saturday morning,
it was the Mizrahi Jew among us who was asked to stand against the wall
and be patted down by security forces. It didn't take long to be asked
for our ID. Not far from there, a lineup of Palestinians was standing
by a makeshift checkpoint across the road from the Old City waiting
for approval from the Shin Bet security forces to authorize their right
to walk across the street. They were eventually allowed through, but
on other days they would have had to wait over an hour and pay the serveece
driver more money than they have. In the Occupied Territories, one gets
used to the military presence, but here, it's as if their fingers are
on the triggers of their Kalashnikovs.
They may not call
it Apartheid, but it sure looks a lot like it.
Here, people talk
about the "the land of our people," divine right and promised
lands rather than peace or international law. It is the language that
reigns here.
It's a simulated
reality - as if one is walking on a film set. It lacks authenticity,
the kind of boisterous street life that should come naturally to a community
and a city where life is normal.
In 2002 the Israeli
army fenced off Al-Shuhada Street, not even allowing Palestinian children
the right to cross the street to go to school. Gates were set up on
the eastern exits to the city. All access to the Old City was left to
two checkpoints, creating a barrier from East to West.
There are now plans
to seize Palestinian rooftops and set up a new regulatory and permitting
regime for residents of the Old City. The planned Wall through Hebron
will connect with the Eastern Wall and will begin contruction in 2005.
The Christian Peacemaker
Team, part of the official Temporary International Presence in Hebron,
which has monitored the situation in Area H-2 since 1995 and have had
some of their team on the receiving end of beatings while escorting
Palestinians students to school concluded in a report, "Through
the combined weight of Israeli settler violence, curfews, checkpoints
and walling in the Old City, the two parts of Hebron are now almost
completely separate...they [the Israeli government and settlers] want
all of the Old City to be 'the Jewish City of Hebron.'"
The extended periods
of curfew have decimated the economy resulting in 2,500 small businesses
closing down in the Old City and the adjacent economic zone. Over 5,000
workers lost their jobs, thousands left Hebron and unemployment now
stands at 70%.
4,000 Israeli soldiers
are required to protect the 500 settlers in the four Israeli settlements
in Hebron's Old City. The nearby settlement of Kiryat Arba has 7,200
residents. The Arab population is now approximately 120,000.
The written history
of Hebron can be traced back to 1720 BCE when it is believed that Abraham
purchased the Cave of the Patriarchs as burial place for his wife Sarah.
It is also believed that the Biblical patriarchs and matriarchs are
buried at this site. Hebron served as David's first capital. It was
primarily inhabited by Muslim Arabs following the arrival of Islam,
although it has always had a Jewish presence throughout its history
including the arrival of Jews from Spain in 1492. The Arabs and the
Jews lived in coexistence in Hebron for centuries, sharing the Arabic
language and local customs.
In the 1920's following
waves of Jewish immigration after the First and Second Aliyahs, rumours
reached Hebron that Jews were killing Arabs. This growing incitement
led to the Hebron massacre where 67 Jews were killed and the Jewish
community was driven from Hebron. In 1931, a small group returned but
was transferred out by the British in 1936.
In 1968, following
the 1967 Israeli Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, a group
of thirty Israeli Jews pretending to be tourists celebrated Passover
at the Park Hotel in downtown Hebron under the guidance of fundamentalist
Rabbi Moshe Levinger with the hopes of re-establishing a Jewish presence.
Then Defense Minister Moshe Dayan ordered their evacuation, but they
resettled on a military base which became the first post-Occupation
Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arba. Dayan later described his approval
of the settlement as the greatest mistake in his career. Only one member
of the previous Jewish community supported the establishment of the
new fundamentalist settlement which was distinct from the original Jewish
presence in the City.
Hebron became a
stronghold for extremists in the settler movement due to its religious
significance. Gush Emunim ('Bloc of the Faithful') and semi-underground
organizations such as Kach and Kahane Chai ('Kahane Lives') played a
major role in building settlements in Hebron including building support
for Israeli government subsidies. The leaders of these movements were
heavily influenced by Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Kook, the founder of Yeshiva
Merkaz ha-Rav where many of the leaders of the original settlement lobby
were educated and developed their support for 'Eretz Yisrael' - a Greater
Israel incorporating Judea and Samaria, the present West Bank. While
settlements in general are a controversial topic amongst Israelis and
Palestinians, the radicalism of Hebron's settlers further escalated
the tensions. The settlement lobby became affiliated with the Israeli
right including the National Religious Party and Likud.
In 1983, individuals
affiliated with Gush Emunim carried out an attack against an Islamic
college in Hebron, had attempted the assassinations of three West Bank
mayors and had detailed plans to blow up the Dome of the Rock on Jerusalem's
Temple Mount complex.
Rabbi Moshe Levinger,
who initiated the first settlement in Hebron once said, "This town
will become yet again a Jewish city. Tens of thousands of Jews will
be living there within the next ten to twenty years."
In 1994, Dr. Baruch
Goldstein, a former Brooklyn doctor and Kach member, killed 29 Palestinian
Muslims in the Ibrahimi Mosque and injured 125 others. Although there
was no evidence that Kach was involved in the attack, both they and
Kahane Chai were designated as terrorist organizations and had their
offices closed.
In 1995, Yitzhak
Rabin made overtures to dismantle the settlements in Hebron as part
of a final status agreement before being assassinated. In 1996, new
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu signed the Hebron Protocol with Yasser
Arafat which divided the city into Palestinian controlled H-1 and H-2,
which included the Old City under Israeli control.
Israel, even since
the Oslo Accords, have applied four different methods of land seizure
in the Occupied Territories according to the Alternative Information
Center report, "Occupation in Hebron,": the seizure of land
for military needs, the designation of land as 'state land,' the designation
of land as 'absentee property,' and expropriation of land for 'public
needs.' Since 1993, Israel allocated $200,000 for the construction of
additional floors in the settlement of Beit Romano and $3,000,000 in
September 1998 in Tel Rumeida to accomodate 75 illegal settlers, all
in violation of international law.
Since the Israeli
Occupation in 1967, Israel has followed the Fourth Geneva Convention
and has regularly invoked clauses for 'security needs' including the
imposition of curfews and home demolitions.
Hebron has been
under curfew for over 320 days since the recent outbreak of violence
in 2000. Even the World Bank has cited these kinds of movement restrictions
as one of the main contributing factors to the economic situation in
Hebron. 74 homes in Hebron were demolished between September 2000 and
April 2003 for 'security needs.'
What is perhaps
most revealing is the settlers preferential status before the law. Palestinians
living in the Occupied Territories live under a system of military law
which is far stricter than the Israeli penal code which applies to settlers.
This has resulted in disproportionate sentences between settlers and
Palestinians. As well, there are legitimate concerns on the part of
Palestinians that the military is there to protect the interests of
settlers first and foremost. From the Palestinian vantage point, it
is as if they get fear instead of justice.
In 2002, extremists
in Islamic Jihad killed nine Israeli soldiers in Kiryat Arba. Ariel
Sharon, known as the father of the settlements, responded with a plan
to build a wall and to reduce the Palestinians in the Israeli controlled
section of Hebron from 45,000 to 2,000. A recent suicide bombing in
Beer Sheva was carried out by a Hebron resident. Any Palestinian response,
especially one of violence by the extremists is met with a hardline
Israeli response which makes the situation worse.
What to do - suffer
the daily humiliations of checkpoints, of harassment, of not being allowed
to walk across the street, of having your freedom taken away and then
to endure the responses of the military when one of your own resorts
to violence.
This is the Palestinian
dilemma.
Desperate, helpless,
unable to act. This kind of collective punishment is dehumanizing for
those who want a just peace.
Al-Shuhadah Street
has the kind of story, the pathos, the metaphor and the collective damage
that this conflict metes out in its daily humiliations. It's the story
that needs to solved.
There won't be peace
between the Israelis and the Palestinians until there is peace in places
like Hebron.