This is Hebron, known in Arabic as Al-Khalil, the biggest city in the West Bank and an ugly microcosm of the wider Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This is Hebron, a once great Palestinian city brought to its knees by strife and bigotry. Rolling over a series of khaki coloured hills, the same arid yellowish brown landscape seen everywhere in the West Bank, Hebron is a city of low rise apartment blocks with the occasional mosque minaret jutting out from its drab skyline. At its core lies the old medieval city, a maze of narrow, winding streets and bazaars selling virtually every product Palestine has to offer. Hebron was once world famous for its markets bursting with produce and glassware, but now the heart of Hebron been cut and divided by the conflict, and the centre of the bazaar lies shuttered. Close to the centre of the old city one begins to see curious mesh netting hung over all the streets. This is Hebron, built on top of the Cave of the Patriarchs, the purported tomb of biblical Abraham and his family, thus making Hebron holy to Judaism, Islam and Christianity. In fact Hebron is the second holiest site for Jews and so here dwell roughly 500 Israeli settlers, absolutely convinced they are carrying out the will of God, living alongside 166,000 Palestinians absolutely convinced they are being colonized.
The majority of settlers in the West Bank are known as “economic settlers”; in exchange for agreeing to live in the West Bank they are given subsidized housing, free high quality education and other welfare benefits. Some of the poorest strata of Israeli society are found and these places and I think that most of them would gladly move elsewhere if they could get a similar deal. The settlers who tend to make headlines are of a different nature entirely. These settlers believe that Israel and Palestine are biblically ordained to be settled by Jews alone. In the face of this conviction the presence of tens of thousands of Palestinians in their midst violently infuriates them. Counted among the settlers of Hebron are some of the most racist, right wing and religiously extreme people in Israel, affiliated with the Kach and Kahane Chai movements (both outlawed for encouraging the massacre of Palestinian civilians).
Indeed, to their credit, the settlers are surprisingly quite open about their plans to make the lives of Palestinians so terrible that they are forced to leave. Toward that end the settlers terrorize the neighbouring Palestinians with harassment, vandalism and murder. Keep in mind that this type of virulent hatred is not typical of the general Israeli population; these crimes are the result of an extreme ideology fuelled by religious fundamentalism. The Israeli army solders and police, under orders to protect the settlers, dutifully collaborate and turn a blind eye to all of this although even they have to endure verbal and physical assaults for being representatives of a state the settlers see as not going nearly far enough in aiding their goals. The settlers vandalize mosques as the army bulldozes homes. The settlers throw stones, bottles and garbage down on the Palestinians pedestrians from their settlement blocks (hence the mesh covered streets where the Palestinian and settler areas adjoin) while the soldiers conduct random house searches in the middle of the night. The settlers shoot Palestinians who get “too close” to their settlements and when the police are called it is the Palestinians who wind up in administrative detention, i.e. jail for 6 months or more on no charges. Because of the political power backing them up (Israeli politics have moved sharply to the right over the last decade) the religious settlers of Hebron are effectively in a position of complete impunity above the law.
Yet the most frightening story I heard in this dismal place was of the little settler girls. Having not entered the settlement areas I have not seen this with my own eyes but Hebron residents and international visitors have told me that they travel in groups to and from school and whenever they come across a Palestinian they’ll mob and verbally/physically assault them. I’ve been told that the most alarming aspect of these attacks is the hatred in their screams. It means that the fanaticism that is ripping this city apart is not going to dissipate with the next generation. It means that the children are being taught to hate just as their parents do. And so for the foreseeable future Hebron will remain entrenched in segregation, a decaying tangle of barbed-wire, sniper-posts, roadblocks and broken lives. Where children scream for blood, where hatred is a duty. Where the hearts of Palestinians progressively harden as they bury their dead and sift through the rubble of their ruined homes.
As I travel through the Judean Hills on the last night bus out of Hebron I see the glow of flames and black columns of smoke emanating from a hillside. It’s quite beautiful; the glow looks like a snaking stream of lava and the smoke rises to create a thin shadowy veil over the moon. Some passengers notice my wonderment and tell me another farmer has lost his field to arson, part of the campaign to make life so miserable the Palestinians will eventually choose exile. A pang of guilt pierces my chest for seeing the beauty in this horror, but I can’t keep my eyes off the burning fields.
-Mountain Dread
July 5th, 2009
Posted on August 4, 2009 by Cara
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