ASIA!

The Old City of Hebron stands unique in the Middle East. In the day, when it should be busy with activity, there are neither bustling bazaars nor vibrant exchanges. Most of the shop fronts are shut, with just a few close to the mosque open, selling juices, incense and handicraft to tourists. By Middle Eastern standards, this is a dead town, yet for two days in a week, it would come alive. On Fridays, the Muslims would throng the covered lanes of the Old City on their way to the mosque. On Saturdays, Jewish settlers would make their way through the same alleyways on their holy day of rest.

The deserted Old City of Hebron

For both the Jews and the Palestinians, this is a sacred city. Hebron is where the prophet Abraham and his family lived. Abraham had two sons, Issac and Ishmael, and from the two descended the two races we now know as the Jews and the Arabs. Hence this is the geographical point where the two religions originated. The Palestinians name it “al-Halil”, after Abraham, who was known as the companion or “Halil” of God. Hebron is its Jewish name.

With its significance to both peoples, Hebron seems destined to be a flashpoint in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict here. In 1997, it became the last West Bank city to be turned over to the control of the Palestinian Authority. Under the Hebron Accords signed by Benjamin Netanyahu in his first outing as Israeli prime minister and the late Palestinian president Yasser Arafat, the city would be divided into two zones, H1 and H2. H1 was to comprise of the 80 percent that would be transferred to the Palestinian Authority, while the IDF would remain under the Israel Defense Force (IDF).

The Old City lies within Area H2, where unlike in H1,  Israeli citizens are allowed to enter. Newly-constructed Jewish housing overlook the old Arab shops, most of which have now been closed. Some had been sealed out of security concerns that they were being used as bases for attacks against the Jews, while others have closed down because the tensed situation meant people stopped patronising businesses in this part of town.

An Israeli Defense Force outpost overlooks the Old City, where the IDF is tasked with maintaining security

Above the open-air walkways of the Old City are metal nettings which hold rocks, bottles and garbage strewn from the Jewish houses above. This is a favoured attack tactic here, like in Jerusalem. A similar construct shielded pilgrims making their way along David Street there, as Jews and Muslims threw garbage from their windows on either side down on the thoroughfare that divided Jerusalem's Jewish and Muslim quarters.

Getting rubbish thrown on them was a mild abuse for Palestinians here in Hebron. In 1994, a Jew from New York, Baruch Goldstein opened fire on praying Muslims in the mosque here built Abraham's tomb, and killed 27 Palestinians.

Today, a visit requires a stringent bag-check by IDF soldiers and a walk through not one, not two, but three metal detectors. Just last month, a 19-year-old Palestinian boy was shot, when he ran through the last detector. He had been late for prayers and did not heed the soldiers' commands to stop. They opened fire and he was killed.

A guide from the Palestinian Hebron Rehabilitation Committee explained the security procedure as an example of the oppressive controls imposed by the IDF on Muslims heading to the mosque. It should however be pointed out that these security measures only serve to protect Muslims, since Jews are  barred from the mosque, except on ten Jewish holy days.

This is not to say that the Palestinian grievances are unfounded.

It is now harvest season and international volunteers have been accompanying Palestinian farmers to their plantations to protect them from attacks by settlers. British and American faith-based groups have also been escorting children to school, especially where their routes require them to pass by the four Israeli settlements that surround the old city of Hebron.

There is a video taken in 2005 of Israeli settler children throwing rocks and shoving Palestinian children and teachers on their way to the Qurtaba School which is situated between two settlements. The Palestinian children cowered behind one another as their teachers attempted to shield them and ward off the attacks.

I brought up this incident at a meeting with David Wilder, spokesperson of 15 years for the Jewish community in Hebron. Born in the US, he moved here in 1974 when he was just 19. He later married an Israeli woman and is now the proud father of seven and grandfather of ten.

“Our children are not bashful and shy. If someone throws something at them that doesn't belong to them, they want to give it back,” he said.

He acknowledged there was “no love lost between the Jewish children and the children of the Arabs.” But there was “a difference between kids fighting with each other and shooting.”

Wilder had his own stories of being attacked by the Palestinians. Two of his children had narrowly missed bullets shot at them through their window.

 

Bicycles and prams lie outside an apartment in the Jewish part of Hebron

“Before the Second Intifada (late 2000- 2002), there was traffic in the streets. Then they were shooting at us from the hills.”

“There were times of tremendous tensions,” he continued. “There had been a number of provocations. When we were being attacked, and an enemy flag is flying, expressing their desire to expel you from your home, that's provocation.”

Wilder turned and show me the map pasted on the wall behind his desk. Behind him was a map from the Palestinian Tourism Ministry printed in Bethlehem. It was titled, “Tourism Map of Palestine”.

“You see what it shows. This is not the map of the West Bank or Gaza; it is the map of Israel, ” he said.

Wilder believed this was just another shred of evidence that the Palestinian authorities wanted to take over the entire country. He was also convinced that the Palestinians were trying to kill the Jews and to rid the city of them.

“Under the 1997 Accords, we gave them the South Hebron Hills and they used it to shoot at us.”

He reminded me of the Arab neighbours Israel was surrounded by, of which only Jordan and Egypt were friendly to the Jewish state. Even then, he emphasised, Jordan was comprised of a majority population of Palestinian refugees and that Islamic extremists could take over after aging Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak died.

“We are going to give them another state from which to kill us? You have got to be crazy. If since (the) Oslo (Peace Accords) were signed, and there were no terror attacks, I may believe what I believe what I believed then.”

 

The office of David Wilder, spokesperson for the city's Jewish community

Wilder's office in the H2 area is just a stone's throw from the mosque. Where most would have photos of loved ones displayed, he had pictures of Israelis who had been killed by Palestinians here in Hebron. On his waist, he carried a revolver which he said he did not like carrying, but had to because “they are trying to kill us.”

Of the IDF which is ostensibly here to protect the Israeli citizens, he said, “Sometimes they do what we want and sometimes they don't.”

In this conflict, the IDF soldiers manning the over 100 checkpoints in Hebron seemed to be finding themselves in a dubious position as an occupying force.

The 1997 Hebron Accords state that:

Israel will retain all powers and responsibilities for internal security and public order in Area H-2. In addition, Israel will continue to carry the responsibility for overall security of Israelis.

 

On paper it seemed fair, but the situation in Hebron meant that more often than not, the soldiers would find themselves caught between Israeli settlers and Palestinians who accuse them of taking the settlers' side.

For these soldiers, this was a decision they had to make on the spot, and usually, maintaining “internal security and public order” and “overall security of Israelis”. In reality, neutrality in tensed situations – while not impossible – was a tall order demanded of these soldiers, many of whom may be in their late teens or early twenties. Were the Palestinians ingrained into their consciousness as the enemy?

Layla tends a shop in the Old City selling handicrafts made by a Palestinian women's cooperative. IDF soldiers used to raid the shop frequently. Six months ago, as the fighting in Gaza broke out and tensions were rife, she got a visit from the soldiers. she had a t-shirt with the Palestinian nationalistic cartoon character Handala on it. The problem the soldiers had was that Handala – usually depicted with his hands behind his back – was carrying a rifle.

A soldier removed the t-shirt and when Layla's sister Nawal came, she demanded that he returned it. The soldier agreed to do so, if she did not put it up again. Nawal agreed.

A few days later, the soldier came back with six others. By then Nawal had made another 100 similar t-shirts.

“You encourage fighting with this,” said the soldiers, referring to the t-shirt. Nawal denied, saying it was “to make money, just for business.”

The exchange soon escalated into one soldier pointing a rifle at her head and threatening her, while the others verbally abused. Nawal only counted on being acquainted with various international groups and volunteers to be let off in the end. Others less well-connected had found themselves arrested and beaten.

 

An IDF-manned checkpoint guards this barricade that separates the Arab from the Jewish part of Hebron

Accounts of heavy-handed actions and bias on the part of the IDF soldiers against the Palestinians abound, and it perhaps just underscored the unrealistic expectations that the Israelis and Palestinians can co-govern as set out by the 1997 Hebron Accords. Accordingly this throws the future of the West Bank into deep crisis.

Between the Jewish settlements – established by previous Israeli governments – that nestled within and next to Palestinian cities, and contentious disputes over control of territory and religious sites common to both Jews and Muslims, there doesn't seem to be much space left over for peace to maneuver.

What hope then is there for the Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank?

One. The 1929 massacre of 400 Jews in Hebron.

The grand mufti or Muslim spiritual leader in Jerusalem had been inciting anti-Jewish sentiments. According to one account, he had declared falsely at Jews had tried to conquer the Temple Mount which holds the al-Aqsa mosque. Incensed, the Palestinians began attacking Jews in Hebron, killing 67.

Wilder and the Palestinians may find little in common, but this is the one point they agree on. The death toll could have been much higher. The reason it wasn't was that Palestinians then had risked their lives to hide Jews in their homes from the angry mobs. One woman even stood on the roof of her home, tearing off

her headscarf, declaring to the crowds gathered below that the Jews she hid in her home were not there.

After 1929, the Jews were expelled from Hebron and they only returned after it was captured by the IDF in 1967.

As Wilder put it, “We didn't conquer a foreign city, we came back.” Jews like him are adamant they were not abandoning or leaving the second holiest city in Judaism after Jerusalem. And they should not be expected to.

Talking to Palestinians here in the Old City, they took pains to remind you how less than a hundred years ago, their grandfathers here had lived side by side, befriended and done business, with Jews sharing their city.

Facts on the ground now point to this as being almost an impossibility, but at least there is the knowledge that a peaceful co-existence of Jews and Muslims had been a reality in Hebron. It remains a narrative handed down from one generation to the next, a memory kept alive, and a sign that in this holy city, there are those living here with faith that this may again come to pass.

 

This is the second of a three-part series on the divided of city of Hebron, where Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs are living segregated in close quarters to each other, creating a largely tensed situation for both sides in the West Bank.

 

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