Disturbed...

Last Saturday was perhaps the most difficult day I’ve had here so far. A major takeaway that I hoped to gain from this experience was a better understanding of hate. Up until now, I had questioned the need for peace in this region – mostly because everyday life seems to run normally here, despite the extreme inconveniences of checkpoints, house demolitions, etc. Overall though, I didn’t think many people in this region lived in fear of leaving their homes or felt that their safety was constantly at risk. In essence, there was a need for piece – clear boundaries needing to be set so that Palestinians can carry on with their way of life as can Israelis free from injustice and massive military spending. Unfortunately today, I saw how hate (and perhaps feelings of entitlement) have led people to jeopardize the safety of others and I can say that it is beyond disturbing.

We began the day touring Hebron, a city in the West Bank where Abraham, Isaac, Joseph, Jacob and their wives are buried beneath the Ibrahimi Mosque and a conjoined Synagogue. As you can imagine this is a holy site for Muslims, Christians, and Jews. The tombs lie below the Mosque and Synagogue with Jacob, Leah, and Joseph ‘s tombs being in the Synagogue, Abraham and Sarah’s tombs being accessible to both, and Isaac and Rebecca’s tombs on the Mosque side. Christians are granted access to both sides (with the exception of the Mosque on Friday and the Synagogue on Saturday due to the respective Sabbaths), but Jews and Muslims are not allowed in each other’s half except for a few days a year. Muslims and Jews used to be able to move freely through the houses of worship until 1994 when Baruch Goldstein, a Brooklyn-born physician entered the mosque on the Jewish holiday of Purim during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan with an M-16 and killed 29 Muslims and injured tens of others as they prayed in the mosque. Bullet holes are still apparent in the mosque and bulletproof glass has since been installed to protect the Muslims. Despite this being an extremely disturbing act of terrorism, in a settlement nearby, there is a memorial tribute to Goldstein and as one woman is quoted in saying on a YouTube video “it’s a shame he didn’t kill more Muslims.” There are theories of him having an accomplice as doors to the mosque were locked, barring anyone from leaving at the time shooting started and after the crime scene was investigated, more bullets were found than Goldstein was said to have had. It still remains a mystery.

After the Mosque, we walked into the Jewish zone of Hebron an area that is only accessible to Jews and Christians, to observe the checkpoint and the ultraorthodox Jewish settlers. Rabbi Moshe Levinger began colonizing the center of town after Israel seized the West Bank in 1967. Though these moves were against Israeli law, they ultimately garnered endorsement, even after a settlement of Kiryat Arba was established nearby to draw the settlers out. As a result, the city is quartered up into zones. Each armed settler in the Old City is protected by as many as four armed soldiers stationed on rooftops and street corners, allowing the 600 Jews there to roam freely in the streets, carrying machine guns and hurling anti-Arab chants. Clashes break out between settlers and soldiers regularly, not to mention repeated violence and terrorist activity towards Muslims. It was a very weird sight, male orthodox Jews looking like they just came from a Gap commercial suit with white shirts and khaki pants, carrying machine guns across their shoulders walking home from Synagogue.

After observing the settlers, we went to the Old City to shop. Like all of the old cities here, they are comprised of stone buildings and streets that are close together. Above the narrow streets was fencing with garbage and other random items caught in it. When I asked our tour guide about the purpose of fencing he said that Jewish settlers often throw things down onto the vendors including garbage, feces, and bleach to destroy their product. After shopping in the Old City, we met with a Palestinian family who lives on the border of the Palestinian zone and the Jewish zones. Though they are not accessible to each other by ground, they are by rooftop.

The Palestinian family has nine children who are now forced to live entirely within one room because it is the only place they can feel secure. They used to have two rooms for the entire family to fit comfortably, but settlers burned it down killing one of their children. The doors are without locks as settlers have repeatedly shot them out. Furthermore, the settlers shot holes into the family’s water tank, making it impossible for them to get water. A new tank costs around $100 (a great sum for this family) but cannot be installed without a building permit from the Israeli government. Palestinians unfortunately, are not allowed to have building permits, so the current water tank they have is there illegally, which if discovered could cost them their house.

The irony of all of this is that in order to provide a secure area for the Jewish settlers, the IDF has stations on rooftops watching over the properties. As we went to the rooftop of the Palestinian family we were visiting, an IDF station was about 20 feet away, in clear view of a soldier. Under laws of occupation, the occupier must protect both the citizens of its country and in the land that they occupy, obviously this isn’t happening.

I thought that this would be the most upsetting part of the day, but unfortunately, I was wrong. We left Hebron for the small village of At-Tuwani, a primitive subsistence village with the great misfortune of being with 200 meters of Ma’on, a settlement full of ideological Jewish settlers. The settlers began moving to the area in the early 1980s and have been terrorizing the community ever since. It started with attacking shepherds with sticks, then settlers began stealing, poisoning, and killing Palestinian livestock. At one point they poisoned a Palestinian barley crop that was planted for a resident’s goats to graze in, they could not drink the milk for months for fear of drinking poison and dying.

Attacks on adults are one thing, but settlers have been targeting children for years. At-Tuwani houses the only school for miles. Children from surrounding villages walk to school in the morning are often met by harassment from adult settlers of Ma’on. Harassment can be as minor as yelling obscenities to throwing stones and stealing money and backpacks, to beatings. The Christian Peacemaker Team was approached to help accompany the children as they walk to school. Within two weeks, three CPT volunteers had been hospitalized as they were met by settlers with bats and chains. Now the IDF accompanies the children to school, yet they are still subject to harassment and terrorism.

The list of attacks truly goes on and doesn’t show any sign stopping (for a more detailed list of attacks you can read here http://www.cpt.org/hebron/documents/Tuwani_media_packet.htm). Although many of these attacks have been caught on tape and turned into the Israeli police and IDF, nothing is done. I question how residents like the settlers benefit the state of Israel. Certainly the mentality of lawlessness would or should be of concern. It’s puzzling.

Obviously after learning this, it brings an entirely different dimension to the notion of peace and piece. I still don’t have all of the answers, but there must be a better solution than the status quo.

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