Hebron Regrets to Inform Jerusalem…
A tour of Hebron with B'tselem, December 2009
Yaacov Lozowick
First posted at Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations
The decision:
One Wednesday, December 2nd 2009, I joined a tour offered by B'tselem to Hebron. There were about 40 of us on the bus. The language of the tour was English, so most were European graduate students or young journalists, though a few were not young, and a few were Israelis. There were also three young Palestinians. Our guide was Oren, a young-looking man who referred at one point to his IDF service in Hebron 20 years ago.
My experiences of Hebron go back to my first visit, in 1967. As a young man I used to commute weekly through Hebron on my way to teach in Arad. In 1988 our family car was shot up there; miraculously no-one was harmed. I haven't been there since the outbreak of the 2nd Intifada in September 2000. Our oldest son Meir served there in 2002 as the IDF battled for control of the town; two of his comrades were killed: the battles were not a metaphor. His stories gave me some profound insights into how the IDF was operating; things I'd never have learned from any external source.
A trip to Hebron was thus long due; joining B'tselem gave me the added benefit of hearing their perspective. I'm always willing to listen to adversarial positions, even if the adversaries rarely reciprocate.
The Road:
There were two things of interest as we traveled south along route 60, the main north-south road of the West Bank. First, I pressed my nose to the window and carefully counted the number of roadblocks and barriers that obstruct the free movement of the local Palestinians. There was one blocked asphalt road, with a nearby detour, and another two dirt roads that were or weren't blocked; it was hard to tell at our speed. There were dozens of local tracks, many unpaved, which joined the highway unobstructed.
When I asked Oren he readily agreed that the roads are mostly open, but attributed this to canny politics by Netanyahu, who's trying to stave off serious negotiations by lots of small acts. I said he doesn't know that, it's merely interpretation, and he agreed: his interpretation. The United Nations Office for the Coordination or Humanitarian Affairs, occupied Palestine territory, tells in its November 2009 West Bank Movement and Access Update that the easing has been happening for 18 months, so before Netanyahu.
The second interesting thing was Oren's introduction. If I'd expected a narrowly partisan editing of the history, I was pleasantly surprised. Oren set up the historical background in the same terms used later that afternoon by a representative of the settlers (David), and by a local Palestinian (Issa): Hebron has been part of the Jewish story since its beginning, millennia ago. The pre-Zionist Jewish settlement had been there for centuries. The Jewish-Muslim relations in the early 20th century were good, and the Jews refused to believe their Arab neighbors would harm them. There was a massacre in 1929 when some neighbors murdered 67 Jews, while others protected Jews and saved their lives. Between 1929 and 1968 there were no Jews in Hebron. Their return, in 1968, was the first act of Israeli settlement in the West Bank. They first settled Kiryat Arba on a hill east of town; in the 1970s small groups settled in Hebron itself. There are currently some 5,000 settlers in Kiryat Arba, no more than 800 in Hebron itself (some are transient students), and about 230,000 Palestinians.
Oren, Issa and David diverged in their descriptions of the violence since the 1970s. David spoke of dead Israeli soldiers and civilians. Oren spoke of dead Israeli soldiers and Palestinian civilians. Issa spoke of dead Palestinians civilians. No-one mentioned dead Palestinian fighters.
Here's a 19th century picture of Hebron (taken from a Jordanian website). The large structure at the center of town is the Tomb of the Patriarchs, Me'arat Hamachpela. It was built by Herod about 2,050 years ago and is one of the world's oldest standing buildings. Unlike its few peers, it still serves for the same purpose it was built for. The minarets were of course added by Muslim builders at least 700 years later.
Maps:
In the meantime our bus had reached Hebron using the Kiryat Arab road. Hardly anyone on the bus knew the region well enough to recognize that we'd left route 60 and taken a longer detour, so perhaps they didn't pick up Oren's explanation: Israelis are not allowed into Hebron and the only way they can reach the part they are allowed into is through Kiryat Arba.
Here's a map to explain.
In 1997, when Israel ceded control of Hebron to the Palestinian Authority, it retained control of the eastern edge, designated H2, while the PA controlled most of town, H1. Israelis aren't allowed into H1, so we came in not on the road marked "Jerusalem" but through Kiryat Arba to the east. Some 10% of the Arab populace lives in H2, but as this B'tselem map shows (original here), they're restricted only in a small sliver of H2.
Settlements are blue; areas of restricted Palestinian movement are violet. Beyond the violet-shaded area the Palestinians live their lives and even build large office buildings with green glass facades.
Truth be told, however, that tiny area of restricted Palestinian movement is at the heart of town, and the restrictions of movement are heartbreakingly severe.
The Ghost Town:
This used to be a main street. The Arab shops are closed and wielded, the street is empty.
Shuhada street, once the main artery of Hebron, empty. At one point it's even worse than empty: the right (north) side of the road is reserved for Palestinians, who hurry through under the watchful eyes of IDF soldiers at each end.
This picture is from Jo Ehrlich's essay here. My photo didn't come out as clear. Ehrlich's interpretation of what we saw together is radically different from mine. My reading of hers is here.
Sometimes merely seeing is not enough, however; you need perspective and context. Take this photo, at what used to be the central junction of Hebron:
A ghost town, and two Golani soldiers without combat gear wandering by with a broom. Lots of people on both sides were killed here. This was as much a battle zone as Baghdad. Now the battles are over and no-one is dying. Yet surely no reasonable person could wish things to stay this way?
B'tselem Sees Violations of Human Rights:
Oren did his best not to discuss politics. Asked how the situation could be resolved, he refused to answer: "B'tselem is here to talk about human rights, not politics; we want to show how the rights of the Palestinians are being violated. Their movements are restricted, owners of stores have been forced to shut them, families have moved elsewhere in town so as not to be effected, and as you saw, Palestinians wishing to cross the restricted area must do so on clearly marked paths". He was scrupulous in allocating precisely equal time to the two men he introduced us to, David the settler and Issa the local Palestinian.
Issa, center, tells his tale; Oren is behind him in a blue sweater. Issa added an ironic note, telling that his wife's great grandfather saved a Jewish family in 1929, "so my connection to that event is actually stronger than David's, who moved here from New Jersey".
Yet human rights are not all created equal. The right to life is greater than the right to own a store; the right to think and talk freely is greater than the right to walk wherever you want, especially if the latter conflicts with political decisions. Oren noted that Israelis aren't allowed into most of Hebron (H1), yet didn't seem to think this was a violation of the human rights of Israelis – and correctly so. It isn't a violation: it's the result of a political decision to partition the land between two nations who both have legitimate claims to it all.
Consequences of War:
Most of our group were convinced they were seeing the result of Israeli settlement policies. Then again, so far as I could tell, most of them didn't know much history. Had I asked, they'd probably have said the harsh measures were created to protect expanding settlements. This is not true.
Follow this link and you'll see the official map on which the Israelis and Palestinians demarcated the division of Hebron in 1997. Look closely and you'll see the same five points of Jewish settlement that appear on B'tselem's map. The B'tselem map indeed has one additional point of settlement, called "The New Settlement" (Beit Hameriva), but it isn't really there. There was a brief attempt by settlers to create a new toehold, it was removed by the Israeli government, and B'tselem added it to their map.
Think what one may about the Jewish settlement in Hebron, it hasn't grown since the 1980s. Moreover, the present no-movement restrictions don't appear on the 1997 map. Nor did they exist in 2002, at the height of the 2nd Intifada. They were put in place, or rather they evolved, as part of that war. Eventually Israel won, in Hebron and overall, but not before thousands of people died. Israel won by combining civilian resilience, extraordinary military intelligence, and construction of barriers that separated the warring sides. On the roads of the West Bank Palestinian movement was severely constrained, and these constraints are now slowly and carefully being removed. In Hebron the two populations were physically separated.
During the tour I thought I was seeing how Israel had enforced the separation along the H1-H2 line; only later did I study the maps and realize the separation had in reality happened only in the immediate vicinity of the settlements, no-where else.
Sucking the bustling life from the heart of Hebron and transforming it into a ghost town was not a result of the settlements, which were all there a decade before the 1997 partition. The destruction of central Hebron is a direct result of the Palestinian insistence on waging war between 2000-2004.
Hebron Without Jews?
There was never any Jewish settlement in the heart of Jenin, say, or Tul Karem, so the war never caused Israel to suck the life from their centers. What made Hebron so vulnerable to violence, and precipitated such a drastic resolution, were the settlers. Remove them and central Hebron will revert to the bustling city it was – Judenrein, of course, but exuberant. Or so, I expect, most of my fellow travelers would have argued, had we discussed it.
While this might be true at the far western end of H2, near Tel Rumeida, it wouldn't be true anywhere else. The reason there's a Jewish presence in Hebron is because of the Tomb; the settlers are merely an added complication. Remove them all, and you still need to address the Jewish right to worship at the oldest Jewish structure in the world; a structure which stands in the center of Hebron not by coincidence, but because for 2,000 years the town has revolved around it. A solution which merely replaces a violation of Palestinian human rights with a violation of Jewish ones is not a goal champions of human rights ought to be striving for; and anyone who does strive for it automatically remove themselves from the human rights discussion.
This is not to say there must be Jewish sovereignty over Mearat Hamachpela. I join most Israelis in thinking that once we can agree with the Palestinians on a better solution, we should do so; Israeli governments have proposed dismantling the settlements there in 2000, 2001, and 2008. Yet the historical facts are that no Muslim rulers ever enabled free Jewish worship at holy sites. In Hebron prior to 1929 Jews were allowed only up to the seventh step below the entrance to the Tomb. The massacre of 1929 was the result of Muslim fury at the Jews of Jerusalem who brought benches to the Western Wall. Jews were refused any access to their holy sites in Jerusalem prior to 1967, in spite of an international agreement which promised it. The story of Jewish rights of worship under Arabs is sad and ugly, and has been for centuries before Zionism.
From Hebron to Jerusalem:
Hebron in 2009 is a desolate and depressing place. It is what happens when Israelis and Palestinians agree to divide a city, but can't agree to live together in peace. The blame for lack of peace is irrelevant: each side will doubtlessly say it's all the fault of the other, but the result won't be any nicer thereby. The myriads of observers, pundits, politicians, dreamers, visionaries and true believers who all know for a certainty that dividing Jerusalem is the key to peace in the Middle east, need urgently to visit Hebron. The complications there are mild, concentrated in an area the size of two football fields, and ultimately the whole place is a side show. The complexity of Jerusalem is a thousand fold greater, the stakes are immense, and it truly is the heart of the conflict.
If you're of the irrational belief that following the signing of a peace agreement, which by definition will be wrenching and painful for both sides, Israelis and Palestinians will straightaway fall on each others' shoulders and weep with relief and brotherly love, then perhaps you may be forgiven for advocating the division of Jerusalem. If not, it's hard to see how you can observe Hebron and wish the same for Jerusalem. Ultimately, no matter what the position of the outsiders who have no dogs in the fight, the leaders, decision makers and especially the citizens of Israel would be irredeemably reckless to agree to the division of Jerusalem, now that the small scale experiment of Hebron has so gone so dramatically wrong.
Postscript: B'tselem
The small group of Israelis who populate the dozens of so-called "Israeli Human Rights Groups" insist their positions are not politics. True, they all congregate on the political Left, mostly at its far edge, but this is coincidence. Their agenda is human rights, and they call on Israel to preserve the human rights of the Palestinians no matter what form the conflict may be taking.
I know many of these people personally, and have never accepted their conceit. Oren of B'tselem was one of the least strident I've encountered, to his great credit. Yet his gentle and moderate demeanor couldn't hide the fundamental flaw in his argument. At one point he told that: "there are bits of these Israeli violations of Palestinian human rights all over the West Bank; the reason we bring you to Hebron is because here they're all concentrated in one spot".
To which a reasonable response would be: If this is the worst you can show, the Israeli occupation must be quite reasonable in its respect of Palestinian human rights. The one place in the entire West Bank which is worse than all others, according to you, can be walked from end to end in ten minutes. It's surrounded by a thriving Palestinian city, in which there are no Israeli human rights at all, because there are no Israelis. Your insistence on casting this as you do is pure politics.
Yaacov Lozowick
Jerusalem, December 2009