Reflections on Hebron
Throughout the West Bank Hebron has the reputation of having the most in-your-face examples of Israeli settlers attempting to stamp Palestinian society into the ground. We spent four days here, seeing examples of settler brutality and Palestinian resistance. It was simultaneously heart wrenching and inspiring.
We were hosted by Youth Against Settlements (YAS), the dynamic organization that has led the Palestinian popular resistance in Hebron. The YAS Community Center is watched constantly by Israeli soldiers, who have taken over a building just a few dozen yards away. And troops have no compunction about gathering by the dozen in the vacant areas adjacent to the center.
A few of us stayed at the home of a neighbor, and on two the of four trips on the narrow dirt trails between the home and the YAS center, we had to brush by armed Israeli soldiers who were patrolling the area. Because they could do very little to us as Internationals, there was no confrontation. But imagine being a family, or a group of children walking those trails, being intimidated (or much worse) by soldiers on a regular basis.
Israel continues to illegally build settlements adjacent to and in some cases, on top of Palestinian homes and businesses. In the Shuhada Street area, Israeli settlers who live above the street throw trash on to the Palestinians below. When I last visited six years ago, the Palestinians had built a mesh net to protect themselves from the falling debris. In the wake of a recent acid attack (yes an Israeli settler threw acid out of the window on to the street below) they had to supplement the mesh with a steel canopy.
How do people live with this kind of intimidation year after year without going crazy? Well at least among the Palestinian activists at YAS, Hebronites are not going crazy; they are resisting.
In the wake of the Israeli government’s decision to expel the International Observers who had been there since the 90’s, YAS members have been patrolling the streets while wearing “observer” jackets, focusing on protecting schoolchildren from the constant problem of harassment by Israeli settlers.
This week was the 25th anniversary of the massacre at the Ibrahimi Mosque/Cave of the Patriarchs where the American-Israeli Baruch Goldstein opened fire on Muslims praying inside the famous mosque, killing 29 and wounding many more.
Today as in past years YAS led a demonstration near Shuhada street chanting in Arabic and English, slogans such as “Israel is a fascist state,” and “End the occupation now.” YAS founder Issa Amro made a brilliant speech about Goldstein; that the idea that he was a lone gunman was clearly false, that he had been a symptom of the Israeli settlers’ sickness and backed to the hilt by the Zionist regime. And with Netanyahu just this week publicly embracing representatives of the Kahanist movement (Goldstein was a follower of the fanatical American Rabbi Meir Kahane) as they move into the pre-election period, Amro pointed out how the Israelis were continuing to show their true colors.
Our experiences in the rural areas in the South Hebron Hills were equally powerful. Palestinian residents of the herding village of Susiya, have successfully stalled the demolition of 48 of their homes in the courts, but an appellate court’s decision to destroy them could come down any day, and every morning they wake up wondering if today will be the day.
Existence is tough. The Palestinian villagers have been forced to buy water and have had erratic electricity for years until a recent donation of solar panels by the European Union. Nonetheless, they stay, determined to hang on to their ancestral land and the affirmation of their right to live in dignity and freedom.
In Al-Tuwani, we were told that Israel has turned off the water in several nearby villages, claiming the villages weren’t properly registered, even though they had existed for many decades.
One of the Palestinian activists in the Women’s Collective we were scheduled to meet with sent her apologies, but she had to be in court that afternoon, helping the campaign to protect the village water; water, which, by the way, is taken by the Israelis from the Palestinian aquifer and then sold back to them at prices much higher than what Israelis pay.
When people hear stories such as these, they often ask “how long can this situation go on?”
Since the primary funder and champion of Israel is the United States government, the answer is partly in our hands.