Hebron

Can you see the illegal settlement in the photo above?

A follow-up on my post from yesterday: On Monday, Sukkot, I visited the city of al-Kahlil, known to us English speakers as Hebron. I knew going in that Hebron is a very different city from the relative calm and openness of the Bethlehem area where I live (if you can call grinding poverty and illegal nightly visits by the IDF into zone A which is supposedly off limits to Israeli’s calm and open which, I after visiting Hebron I would).
So anyway, I went to Hebron. I caught I ride in with a friend of mine who works with a large NGO on the outskirts of the city and spent a few minutes getting to know her colleagues around the office. The receptionist/intern, a young women with a degree in chemistry who has been unable to find any work after graduation except an unpaid position answering the phone in an office, asked me where I was going in Hebron. When I told her that I thought my meeting was near the Ibrahimi Mosque/Cave of Machpelah she expressed serious concern as to whether I would be able to get anywhere near my destination. “It’s a Jewish Holiday today”, was her explanation. And she was right. When I got to the old city I was, fortunately able to get to my meeting but the mosque was off limits, of course the Jewish section was open to the large number of Israeli visitors who flooded the city with a full complement of IDF escorts.
Hebron is a unique example of illegal settlements in the Occupied Territories. The illegal settlements I’m used to (a word here, all settlements are by their nature, Zionist Israeli enclaves inside of the 1967 Green Line, illegal) ring Palestinian communities often occupying the top of hills around the Palestinian city/town in a valley. In Hebron however, the settlements are within the heart of the old city itself. Some 400 to 800 settlers, it’s hard to get an official number live next to and over the homes of Palestinian residents. There is no talk of peaceful coexistence; the settlers stated aim is to drive all Palestinians from the city. To this end they act in a way reminiscent of some white communities in the American south in the 50’s/60’s, openly harassing/humiliating Palestinian residents. Take a look at this telling photo from the NYTimes of a young settler throwing wine on a Palestinian woman: http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/09/13/world/20090913SETTLERS_6.html
This is unfortunately the way it goes in Hebron and such racist actions on the part of the settlers are unconditionally protected by the IDF stationed in H2. Hebron has been divided since 1997 (read: post-Oslo) into 2 zones; H,1 home to over 120,000 Palestinians and H2, home to over 30,000 Palestinians and the above mentioned 400 to 800 Israeli settlers. H2 falls under Israeli control, which means restricted mobility for Palestinians, there are over 16 checkpoints in this small urban area. The main street, beautifully rehabilitated with money from our very own USAID, is off limits to Palestinians. Many Palestinian residents can now only access their homes, which abut the street by ladders going up the back of the house.


IDF on the USAID furnished restricted access street

Economically Hebron has been devastated by these restrictions. Once the most important city in Palestinian commerce, now shops are shuttered, especially on a day like Sukkot. Palestinians who can afford too have been leaving the old city because of how difficult life has been made for them by the settlers and IDF. Amazing organizations like the Hebron Rehabilitation Committee have been working to refurbish abandoned and damaged homes and provide subsides to poor Palestinian families to move back to the city. Solidarity groups like the Christian Peacemaker Team, in Hebron at the invitation of Palestinian residents provide international witness and report abuses. I’d just like to highlight a little of the irony here; the US proclaims that their goal is a two state solution for Israel and a viable Palestine. And yet US money goes towards making a street beautiful (and it is a beautiful street) in the heart of the future Palestine that ends up as being restricted to Israeli use only. While it is a Palestinian organization, Hebron Rehabilitation Committee who I believe as policy accepts no USAID money, that supports Palestinian residents in their own city and Obama chastises Palestinians as the squeaky wheel in his famed speech to the “Muslim/Arab World”?… Forgive me if I remain skeptical about the US’s sincerity in supporting any solution involving Palestinian independence and self-determination.

On a final note, because of the unique nature of Hebron, settlements are literally towering over Palestinian homes and streets. Settlers have unique vantage from which to further torment their neighbors.



The picture you see above is the metal screening that Palestinians have been forced to erect above their streets because of the rain of garbage, everything from plastic bottles to cement bricks from the settlers upstairs. Of course screening cannot protect from liquids thrown down. The settler response? The screening has actually been placed there to protect THEM from items Palestinians throw UP. Take a look at the photo folks. If the Palestinian’s can bend the laws of the material world and throw things through metal fencing then, I mean, wow, they should find some more useful applications for that amazing ability!