Dateline: Hebron, West Bank
February 2, 2001
February 2, 2001
posted on vizshun.org and Salon.com
As soon as I looked for a taxi to Hebron outside of Damascus Gate this morning, I got hit by the bad news. "Sorry, boss, Hebron's closed. The roads are blocked. A settler got killed last night."
Another killing. If you believe in non-violence this is a terrible place to be. It is the Palestinians Achilles' heel, this question of violence. For decades a succession of Israeli leaders have clubbed the Palestinians over the head on the international stage, "Arab terrorists killed another Jew". The taxi drivers weren't buying it.
"The settlers are terrorists, not us. There is more blood on their hands than on ours."
"They never report when settlers attack Arabs, when we get killed. Over 400 people have died in the Intifada, less than 50 are Israelis."
"The army shoots us, settlers shoot us. How are we supposed to turn the other check, like your religious leaders say? What about the everyday violence we face?"
The men were angry. The road closures meant they were going to lose money today, but they were more concerned about politics, about the fate of their fledgling, still-born freedom. "You should go to Hebron, see what the army and settlers are doing to us there. When that settler killed 29 people in the Mosque they punished us, not the settlers!"
(They are referring to Baruch Goldstein's murderous attack on praying Muslims in the Mosque at Hebron, the burial place of Abraham and his wife, sons and their wives. It happened in February 1994. The army placed the Arabs in town on a 22-hour a day curfew for 40 days, to "protect them" from the settlers in the area. The settlers did not have a curfew placed on them).
After awhile the taxi drivers cooled down and realized I did want to go to Hebron, to see for myself. Sami said he'd take me, we'd get around the damn Israeli roadblocks, even if we had to drive to the Dead Sea and in the back door to do it. So off we went.
There were soldiers everywhere on the road, armored jeeps, we counted two tanks--one keeping people out of one settlement, one tank keeping people in one refugee camp. Four checkpoints and an hour later, we'd made 20 miles, and were faced with a mound of fresh red dirt across the main entrance into Hebron. I got out and hiked over the barrier into the waiting arms of a new group of taxi drivers from Hebron, who all wanted to know what it was like out there.
They groaned and muttered angrily about the description of tanks, of the checkpoints. When I took out my camera they were insistent upon asking why the city of Hebron was being singled out again.
"Look at this road," one young driver in a New York Yankees baseball cap said, "Last night I drove through here. It wasn't blocked then. Now this pile of dirt will hurt business here for weeks. We're suffocating!"
Once in Hebron, I met up with Bob Holmes, a Catholic priest, and Rebecca Johnson, a Mennonite
lay person, who are part of the Christian Peacemaking Team in Hebron. The CPT is a collection
of Christian folks of all denominations who go to hot spots all over the world, as observers and mediators if they can, using non-violence and steady determination. They arrived in Hebron after the massacre at the Mosque, as part of the negotiated "mini"-peace agreement in Hebron.
After awhile the taxi drivers cooled down and realized I did want to go to Hebron, to see for myself. Sami said he'd take me, we'd get around the damn Israeli roadblocks, even if we had to drive to the Dead Sea and in the back door to do it. So off we went.
There were soldiers everywhere on the road, armored jeeps, we counted two tanks--one keeping people out of one settlement, one tank keeping people in one refugee camp. Four checkpoints and an hour later, we'd made 20 miles, and were faced with a mound of fresh red dirt across the main entrance into Hebron. I got out and hiked over the barrier into the waiting arms of a new group of taxi drivers from Hebron, who all wanted to know what it was like out there.
They groaned and muttered angrily about the description of tanks, of the checkpoints. When I took out my camera they were insistent upon asking why the city of Hebron was being singled out again.
"Look at this road," one young driver in a New York Yankees baseball cap said, "Last night I drove through here. It wasn't blocked then. Now this pile of dirt will hurt business here for weeks. We're suffocating!"
Once in Hebron, I met up with Bob Holmes, a Catholic priest, and Rebecca Johnson, a Mennonite
lay person, who are part of the Christian Peacemaking Team in Hebron. The CPT is a collection
of Christian folks of all denominations who go to hot spots all over the world, as observers and mediators if they can, using non-violence and steady determination. They arrived in Hebron after the massacre at the Mosque, as part of the negotiated "mini"-peace agreement in Hebron.
Anita Fast of CPT told me that originally the agreement was the settlers would be moved out, and the CPT would be there only 3 months. Six years later, 8 people live in a small 4-room apartment and daily patrol the streets, inserting themselves in between settlers and Palestinians, Palestinians and soldiers, and working with the town leaders to fight back against Israeli land confiscation's and house demolitions.
And it turned out, lots had been happening in Hebron over the last few days. Bob showed me the spot where on Wednesday a bomb was discovered in the souq (marketplace), near several Palestinians shops. The army blew it up with a bomb robot so no one or thing got hurt, then immediately placed Hebron on curfew for two days. No Palestinian could go outside until this morning.
This was a relatively mild curfew by Israeli standards--after the Intifada started in October, Hebron was under curfew for 90 days. 90 days when Palestinians couldn't go outside of their homes except for two hours a day to shop. Imagine being in your house 22 hours a day for 3 months, with your kids asking you why they can't go outside to play. Or go to school. Or pray at the mosque.
Of course, the Israeli settlers weren't under curfew. Rebecca asked a soldier why would the Palestinians place a bomb in their own market. He had no answer. Bob hinted darkly at a settler scheme. "They want the market gone, so they can expand the settlement. So they disrupt the market, get the army to close it down as a security risk."
We walked about town, and immediately met an old shopkeeper who when he saw my video camera wanted to show me the bullet holes in his shop. This has happened in every Palestinian community I've been in; the first thing they show you is where the Army has shot at them. Buildings are pockmarked with dozens of holes, and rocket holes I can put my head in, punched through metal and concrete. The shopkeeper told me the whole story in Arabic as I followed him around the shop, then going outside to look at the seven bullet holes in the windows. He was angry, and defiant. He, like most other Hebronites I met, could not see a peaceful future if the settlers or the Israeli army remained in Hebron.
The barbershop across the street was the same way, the chair backs blown apart, mirrors shattered. A Palestinian journalist from one of the TV groups in town, who asked not to be identified, said that usually it starts with a rock being thrown, or a sniper bullet. Then the army controls the rooftops and all of the highest points in town, confiscating them from Palestinians or merely encamping on people's rooftops.
Several people told me the soldiers shit on the roofs, and urinate in the Palestinian's water tanks. Hard to imagine, but I heard it from multiple sources. Maybe it is popular mythology, urban legend. Maybe not. The army returns fire-sometimes for hours. And into the night. Often people say they start shooting and shelling the town without provocation. Some buildings are riddled and walls blown apart, water tanks are shattered. I'm shown where one ten year old was killed by falling shrapnel, and others talk about a man killed by an Israeli bullet fired from the next hillside, 800 meters away, as he sat down to dinner.
Hebron, I'm told, has 500,000 people in the region, easily the biggest area on the West Bank outside of Jerusalem. Qiryat Arba, the large Israeli settlement 1km from the center of town, has 25,000 residents, scattered about in homes and large apartments with lawns and swimming pools. Qiryat Arba has twice the water Hebron has. Hebronites cannot build new homes (when they do, the army comes and bulldozes them, and charges the resident for the cost of destroying his new home. People refuse to pay of course, and rebuild. One man has built 8 times, and been bulldozed 8 times, all on the same small piece of land on the edge of town).
There have been no demolitions in more than a year now. Meanwhile, settlements sprout all around the region, beginning to spread southward towards the Dead Sea.
The real problems, the Palestinians claim, come from Beit Hadasseh, the 200-person settlement in the middle of town, next to the souq. The 200 settlers live next door to where all of Hebron comes to buy their meat and vegetables, and Israel has posted 3000 troops in Hebron to protect the settlers. The street in front of the settlement is blocked off to Palestinians and heavily guarded. Palestinians cannot drive cars within four blocks of the settlement buildings and the yeshiva school--formerly a Palestinian high school confiscated by Israel and turned over to the settlers. The CPT says the settlers often go on rampages through the market on Saturdays, overturning tables and carts and vandalizing shops. The Palestinians start throwing rocks and fists, and the army wades in, defending the settlers, firing tear gas and rubber bullets. I didn't see any such activity in my two days there, but I heard the story from about 10 different people--journalists, CPT'ers, and locals.
What I saw was the daily clash that occurs two blocks from Beit Hadasseh, just past the market, where five soldiers huddled under tin canopies while a cascade of rocks came sailing over the buildings, crashing into the street and above their heads. An occasional Israeli rubber bullet gets fired off indiscriminately into the air. Mostly the soldiers just stood there patiently, guns trained on civilians two blocks up the street. During pauses in the bombardment groups of men went up the street, then the stones came again. A molotov cocktail crashed into the street, followed by another that splashed up alongside the stone wall of a grocery store long since out of business, it's façade scarred by bullet holes, rocks, and prior burnings.
Later we walked around to where the stones were being hurled--again, we found mostly young boys standing around, building up arsenals of loose stones for the next assault. Because the boys were in a Palestinian Authority controlled area, the soldiers were not allowed to go after them (although last fall a patrol did enter PA territory, shot a man, drug him bleeding profusely back to Israeli controlled territory, and tried to claim he was shot and killed there--until they realized about 6 TV crews videotaped the whole incident). Although the clashes seem pointless, there is a constant message from all over Palestine--you are an occupying army, go home. And take your settlers with you.
(This is a good time to remind all that according to the 4th Geneva Convention in 1949, for an occupying army to insert civilian settlers in an occupied territory is illegal under international law. The United States signed the 4th Geneva Convention, but supplies the Israeli army with bullets and other materials and weapons to defend the settlers.)
The difference today in this clash was that suddenly a Palestinian policeman appeared on the street. The rocks stopped. People dispersed. The policeman approached the army patrol, and the patrol leader cautiously stepped out to meet him. They talked for a few moments, then the policeman offered his right hand. After hesitating the soldier shook it, walked back to his squad, and they prepared to depart. Just when it seemed to be over, a cascade of stones crashed into the streets again, and the soldiers returned to their positions. So much for peace. Hours later, dusk fell to the sound of stones and rubber bullets flying through the night air.
A group of us tried to head back to Jerusalem in a taxi. The driver drove all over town, up one hill and down another, looking for a road out not blocked by dirt and stones or closed by Israeli checkpoints. Finally he skirted over a rough hill on a dirt track that no one would call a road, slid past a boulder in the middle of a paved road, bumped down a small gully, and came out on the highway to Jerusalem.
And it turned out, lots had been happening in Hebron over the last few days. Bob showed me the spot where on Wednesday a bomb was discovered in the souq (marketplace), near several Palestinians shops. The army blew it up with a bomb robot so no one or thing got hurt, then immediately placed Hebron on curfew for two days. No Palestinian could go outside until this morning.
This was a relatively mild curfew by Israeli standards--after the Intifada started in October, Hebron was under curfew for 90 days. 90 days when Palestinians couldn't go outside of their homes except for two hours a day to shop. Imagine being in your house 22 hours a day for 3 months, with your kids asking you why they can't go outside to play. Or go to school. Or pray at the mosque.
Of course, the Israeli settlers weren't under curfew. Rebecca asked a soldier why would the Palestinians place a bomb in their own market. He had no answer. Bob hinted darkly at a settler scheme. "They want the market gone, so they can expand the settlement. So they disrupt the market, get the army to close it down as a security risk."
We walked about town, and immediately met an old shopkeeper who when he saw my video camera wanted to show me the bullet holes in his shop. This has happened in every Palestinian community I've been in; the first thing they show you is where the Army has shot at them. Buildings are pockmarked with dozens of holes, and rocket holes I can put my head in, punched through metal and concrete. The shopkeeper told me the whole story in Arabic as I followed him around the shop, then going outside to look at the seven bullet holes in the windows. He was angry, and defiant. He, like most other Hebronites I met, could not see a peaceful future if the settlers or the Israeli army remained in Hebron.
The barbershop across the street was the same way, the chair backs blown apart, mirrors shattered. A Palestinian journalist from one of the TV groups in town, who asked not to be identified, said that usually it starts with a rock being thrown, or a sniper bullet. Then the army controls the rooftops and all of the highest points in town, confiscating them from Palestinians or merely encamping on people's rooftops.
Several people told me the soldiers shit on the roofs, and urinate in the Palestinian's water tanks. Hard to imagine, but I heard it from multiple sources. Maybe it is popular mythology, urban legend. Maybe not. The army returns fire-sometimes for hours. And into the night. Often people say they start shooting and shelling the town without provocation. Some buildings are riddled and walls blown apart, water tanks are shattered. I'm shown where one ten year old was killed by falling shrapnel, and others talk about a man killed by an Israeli bullet fired from the next hillside, 800 meters away, as he sat down to dinner.
Hebron, I'm told, has 500,000 people in the region, easily the biggest area on the West Bank outside of Jerusalem. Qiryat Arba, the large Israeli settlement 1km from the center of town, has 25,000 residents, scattered about in homes and large apartments with lawns and swimming pools. Qiryat Arba has twice the water Hebron has. Hebronites cannot build new homes (when they do, the army comes and bulldozes them, and charges the resident for the cost of destroying his new home. People refuse to pay of course, and rebuild. One man has built 8 times, and been bulldozed 8 times, all on the same small piece of land on the edge of town).
There have been no demolitions in more than a year now. Meanwhile, settlements sprout all around the region, beginning to spread southward towards the Dead Sea.
The real problems, the Palestinians claim, come from Beit Hadasseh, the 200-person settlement in the middle of town, next to the souq. The 200 settlers live next door to where all of Hebron comes to buy their meat and vegetables, and Israel has posted 3000 troops in Hebron to protect the settlers. The street in front of the settlement is blocked off to Palestinians and heavily guarded. Palestinians cannot drive cars within four blocks of the settlement buildings and the yeshiva school--formerly a Palestinian high school confiscated by Israel and turned over to the settlers. The CPT says the settlers often go on rampages through the market on Saturdays, overturning tables and carts and vandalizing shops. The Palestinians start throwing rocks and fists, and the army wades in, defending the settlers, firing tear gas and rubber bullets. I didn't see any such activity in my two days there, but I heard the story from about 10 different people--journalists, CPT'ers, and locals.
What I saw was the daily clash that occurs two blocks from Beit Hadasseh, just past the market, where five soldiers huddled under tin canopies while a cascade of rocks came sailing over the buildings, crashing into the street and above their heads. An occasional Israeli rubber bullet gets fired off indiscriminately into the air. Mostly the soldiers just stood there patiently, guns trained on civilians two blocks up the street. During pauses in the bombardment groups of men went up the street, then the stones came again. A molotov cocktail crashed into the street, followed by another that splashed up alongside the stone wall of a grocery store long since out of business, it's façade scarred by bullet holes, rocks, and prior burnings.
Later we walked around to where the stones were being hurled--again, we found mostly young boys standing around, building up arsenals of loose stones for the next assault. Because the boys were in a Palestinian Authority controlled area, the soldiers were not allowed to go after them (although last fall a patrol did enter PA territory, shot a man, drug him bleeding profusely back to Israeli controlled territory, and tried to claim he was shot and killed there--until they realized about 6 TV crews videotaped the whole incident). Although the clashes seem pointless, there is a constant message from all over Palestine--you are an occupying army, go home. And take your settlers with you.
(This is a good time to remind all that according to the 4th Geneva Convention in 1949, for an occupying army to insert civilian settlers in an occupied territory is illegal under international law. The United States signed the 4th Geneva Convention, but supplies the Israeli army with bullets and other materials and weapons to defend the settlers.)
The difference today in this clash was that suddenly a Palestinian policeman appeared on the street. The rocks stopped. People dispersed. The policeman approached the army patrol, and the patrol leader cautiously stepped out to meet him. They talked for a few moments, then the policeman offered his right hand. After hesitating the soldier shook it, walked back to his squad, and they prepared to depart. Just when it seemed to be over, a cascade of stones crashed into the streets again, and the soldiers returned to their positions. So much for peace. Hours later, dusk fell to the sound of stones and rubber bullets flying through the night air.
A group of us tried to head back to Jerusalem in a taxi. The driver drove all over town, up one hill and down another, looking for a road out not blocked by dirt and stones or closed by Israeli checkpoints. Finally he skirted over a rough hill on a dirt track that no one would call a road, slid past a boulder in the middle of a paved road, bumped down a small gully, and came out on the highway to Jerusalem.
It took us less time to get to the Holy City than it did getting out of Hebron.
