For the past three Saturdays I have attended the new wave of weekly Hebron protests in the Casbah (Old City). The protests are intended to disrupt army-accompanied settler tours that pass through the Casbah each week, and demand the re-opening of Shuhada Street and an end to the occupation of the city. Although for the past two weeks the settlers have changed the time of their tour to avoid encountering our protest, we decided to continue with the protests as planned to assert the Palestinians’ right to move freely within their city. So, each week a group of between 50-70 Palestinians, Israelis, and Internationals gather in front of the gate which blocks entrance to Shuhada Street.

We stand with signs in Arabic, Hebrew, and English and pass the megaphone around as different people lead the protesters in a series of call and response chants in all three languages. Some activists take the opportunity to give short impassioned speeches, sometimes by Israelis who speak directly to the soldiers and settlers peering down on us from the Beit Romano Yeshiva rooftop, saying that these unjust policies will not be carried out in our name. In contrast to the first week when the protest ended in a series of unwarranted arrests, the protests now conclude now with a march through the Casbah which is met by an onslaught of dirty water thrown down on us from the settlers’ homes situated above the Palestinian shops. For the past two weeks there has been no direct confrontation with soldiers or settlers, but we always close with a promise that we will continue to protest every week until racism and separation are abolished in Hebron and all of Palestine.

This past week, just a few days after standing in solidarity with the Palestinians of Hebron, I decided to take a step that I believe very few political activists ever take. I put on a long skirt, tucked my dreadlocks away, and joined the settlers on their tour of the Jewish Community of Hebron. After having been to Hebron many times and heard the story of the Palestinians and the ex-soldiers of “Breaking the Silence” I figured it was time to come face to face with the settlers themselves and hear how they justify their presence in Hebron to the many thousands of Jews that they’ve taken on tours there. I came with the intention to listen, to observe, and to maybe understand their conviction.

So on Wednesday morning I found myself sitting on a bullet proof bus with a group of 40 other American Jews about take a day-trip to Hebron, a city that I was assured by the tour guide is just like any other old city in Israel. Even before the tour had officially started, I already began to feel uncomfortable and almost teary eyed due to the realization that all the other tour participants really had no idea (and really didn’t care that they didn’t) about the world beyond this Jewish exclusivity. Little did I know that that this initial reaction of discomfort and sadness was to remain with me and only intensify throughout the course of the day.

Our first stop was the Matriarch Rachel’s Tomb which is just outside, (technically inside) Bethlehem. To reach the tomb we drove through an unbelievably surreal corridor in the concrete wall that circumvents Bethlehem. Since Israelis are not allowed to enter Bethlehem, this access road, entirely surrounded by the wall, has been created for Jews to visit and pray at the tomb. As the tour guide told the story about a time when the grave was closed to Jewish access and how women from Hebron set a precedent by coming anyways and demanding to be let in until the government agreed to re-open the site to Jewish visitors, I realized that all this effort to keep people separate and relegated to only certain areas is futile because people will continue to find ways to be where they believe they ought to be, or at least struggle for that right with all of their being as I’ve seen with the Palestinians in Hebron.

For some reason, being there only made me think more and more about how this land cannot be divided. Of course I don’t mean undivided in the way that the settlers refer to Greater Israel, but rather that in that moment it just seemed so apparent to me that drawing up borders and erecting walls cannot actually lead to real justice or peace; they merely restrict essentials freedoms such as access and movement, and furthermore will never suppress the people’s desire to return to areas that they have been barred from. Religious Jews will never give up their ancestral connection to and right to access these holy sites, and I don’t believe that they should have to, but this privilege must come with the equal recognition of the Palestinian claims to this land and their legitimate right to live here and move about freely.

Loaded with these thoughts I got back on the bus headed to Hebron. I listened as the guide told the familiar story of Hebron that began 3700 years ago when Abraham laid down roots in the city and purchased the Cave of the Patriarchs as a burial site for his wife Sarah, and the forefathers and mothers that followed. Later, King David made Hebron the capital of his kingdom for 7 years before moving it to Jerusalem. The phrase that repeated itself throughout the tour was “this is where it all began”, which later fused into the story of Jewish contiguity in Hebron, and finally the conclusion that the Jewish presence in Hebron will be eternal.

When we arrived in Hebron we were greeted by our tour guide for the next leg of the journey, Rabbi Simcha Hochbaum, originally from New York but for the past 14 years he has made his home in the Hebron Jewish community. The tour started in Tel Rumeida, a hilltop overlooking the heart of the city of Hebron where a few of my Palestinian friends/colleagues live. The guide explained the way the city had been divided in the “Y Accords” which created H1 (80% of the city under Palestinian Authority control) and H2 (20% of the city under Israeli military control and Palestinian municipal control). He continually referred back to the 80/20 split to emphasize what he believed to be inequality and discrimination against the Jews who are not allowed to walk or drive in the majority of the city. In fact, after reading a pamphlet I picked up later in the tour which purports to give the “real facts…in contrast to the false anti-Jewish and anti-Israel propaganda,” I was expected to understand that Jews are only allowed to enter 3% of the municipal area; never mind that that 3% area was once the center of Palestinian social and economic life and the gateway to the rest of the city, and never mind that that statement is actually inaccurate because it is not Jews but Israelis that are prevented from entering H1 (according to the Oslo Agreement) and Israelis are in fact allowed to be anywhere in H2 (the 20% mentioned above). This important distinction between Jews and Israelis was intentionally blurred by the tour guide in order to stress his point that anti-Semitism is what lies at the root of all criticism towards the Hebron Jewish community. In reality, the disputes in Hebron are entirely political and not based on religious identity.

Israeli soldiers patrol H2 constantly, practicing the official policy of “making their presence felt,” and it is certainly felt as they are seen constantly peering down, guns at bay, into Palestinian neighborhoods from rooftops (sometimes Palestinian homes that have been taken over and converted into army posts) and pillboxes throughout the city. Of course, this is all information that I learned on the “Breaking the Silence” tour and was not dealt with in any capacity on the settler tour. The tour guide praised the soldiers for their incredible self-sacrifice, but the impression of the soldiers that I get, from starting directly into their eyes as they push my friends and I during protests and from the many testimonies that I’ve heard from members of “Breaking the Silence”, is one of a group of painfully confused and uncomfortable 18-21 year olds who are stuck in positions of power and aggressiveness that throw their concept of right and wrong into a blender, leaving them hardened and numb.

Back on the tour, I was told that I would experience holy people in Hebron. The 1000 Jews that live there believe themselves to be the ones who have taken on the essential responsibility of carrying the eternal Jewish flame in Hebron in the name of our ancient historical connection to the city. Of course learning about and appreciating this history is important, but Hebron especially is a place that cannot be understood separately from its current political context. Referring to the 80% of Hebron that is under PA control as land that was “given away” and the remaining 20% as land that “unfortunately is shared with 15,000 Palestinians” is simply a  tactic to confuse the tour participants and make them forget that Hebron is (and has been) a city of several thousand Palestinians living under military occupation. Throughout the tour, the only time Palestinians are mentioned or even acknowledged as part of the story is when they are referenced as “unfriendly neighbors”, murderers/terrorists, or hookah-smoking couch potatoes. Furthermore, talking about the restrictions on further building and expansion in the settlement cannot simply be received as a baseless effort to discriminate against Jews, but rather must be situated in the context of the larger West Bank settlement issue, namely that the settlements are illegal under international law, some (especially Hebron) are notorious for violence and extremism, and they are a growing thorn in any attempt towards a peace agreement.

Perhaps the most interesting and telling part of the tour for me was when we went into the settlements themselves, which basically consist of just a few blocks of buildings that families have made into living spaces, synagogues, and a museum documenting the presence of the Jews in Hebron. In all my previous tours in Hebron I had never had the opportunity to actually go into their community so I was quite excited to step just a few more meters from where I had always stood, on the Shuhada “ghost street” and see how Hebron looks from this vantage point. On my other visits I was not allowed into the settlements because the large police escort that is mandated to accompany Breaking the Silence tours (supposedly to protect us from settler harassment and prevent friction) had placed strict restrictions on where we can go and when. But this time, with not a single police officer in sight, I found myself on the other side of barriers that I previously had only peeked into through cracks in walls and metal gates.

The museum, located on the ground floor of the former Beit Hadassah hospital, was quite impressive and most importantly, effective in conveying the message that Jewish groups respond to best: the message of ultimate victimhood. As I looked at the pictures on the wall depicting the infamous massacre of Jews in Hebron in 1929, I felt a sort of déjà vu sensation and realized that the story being told was the nearly the same story that I had heard countless times growing up and visiting holocaust museums. It was the fear-mongering story of anti-Semitism, complete with the moral imperative “never again.” And in that moment, instead of being able to let myself grieve for all the bloodshed in Hebron, I found myself shaken by the realization that this story is entirely believable for a Jewish American audience and, had I not been exposed to other credible accounts of Hebron, I too could come away from this tour thinking that the settlers really are the ones in need of my sympathy.

But then I remember the accounts of settler abuse and complete disrespect for Palestinian human and civil rights and I start to feel ill. I understand that this mentality does not exist in a vacuum, but rather is steeped in real and troubling consequences that play out on the ground, such as the closure of roads and shops, the disproportionate army presence, the lawlessness of the settlers, and the will of the Israeli government to continue supporting the settlers perhaps for fear of being perceived as part of the cycle of Jewish persecution. I think about the Jewish residents of Hebron pre-1929 who once lived relatively peacefully alongside their Palestinian neighbors, unlike the settlers of today who make every effort to create a situation in which Palestinians essentially cease to exist. I happen to know that some of the survivors of the 1929 massacre or descendents of the former Hebron Jewish community have actually disassociated themselves with the Hebron settlers and do not support their efforts to reclaim the city on their behalf. Yet this Jewish lineage continues to justify the settlers’ presence and forceful methods of establishing themselves in the city.

The tour continued with a visit to the guide’s home, the old Sephardic temple, and a final stop at the Tomb of the Patriarchs where we were given time for prayer. After spending the day in what often felt like an alternate universe I didn’t feel quite able to ascribe the proper holiness to the site and submit myself to any prayers aside from my deep yearning for universal empathy and for at least some of their tour participants to feel confused enough to then seek more information, step outside of their frame of reference, and think beyond the simplistic rhetoric of pamphlets espousing hatred and resentment. I went on this tour out of genuine curiosity and a desire to understand a people that are often (in my circles) written off as crazy and irrational. But after participating on the tour, it wasn’t so much what they said that troubled me, but rather they way that the story fits into a worldview based in fear that is held by so many Jews and that has only resulted in generations of bitterness and divisiveness. I want to believe that Hebron can again live up to its name (which means “friendship”), but this tour gave me no such illusion.

By Avital Aboody

On April 24, 2010 at around 15:45 a group of approximately 50 Palestinian, Israeli, and International activists gathered in Hebron next to the checkpoint gate separating Shuhada Street from the Casbah. The protest was organized by a Palestinian group in Hebron called “Youth Against Settlements” and the organizers hope to hold these protests every week with the intention of disrupting the army-accompanied settler tour that goes through the Casbah (Old City) every Saturday. The Casbah is within H2, an area that comprises 20% of the city of Hebron and is considered Zone B, meaning that it is receives Palestinian municipal services but is under Israeli military control. Both Palestinians and Israelis can access the Casbah, but Palestinians are restricted from walking just a fewer meters further, beyond the imposing gate/checkpoint to the sight of the former marketplace, Shuhada Street.

The protestors stood in front of the gate where the settlers’ tour usually enters, holding signs and chanting slogans in Arabic, English, and Hebrew.; this continued for some time without any disturbance. Soldiers and Israeli police looked onto and videotaped the protest from pillboxes and rooftops nearby and eventually, when the settlers and soldiers never showed up, the protest was declared over. However, within minutes, the protest was suddenly reignited with news that the settlers had managed to enter the Casbah through another entrance. The protestors then began to advance through the marketplace alleyways to where the tour was said to be but they were met by a line of soldiers who blocked their path. They continued chanting and tried to push past the soldiers claiming that it should not be a crime to walk through their own city. Protestors also tried several times to run around to different entrances into the market to prevent the tour from progressing, but each time they were met by a chain of soldiers and the face-off /pushing began again.

Amidst the chaos of running back and forth, one Israeli activist was arrested for no apparent reason. When the protesters re-grouped at the original location alongside the checkpoint gate, they formed a human wall in front of the soldiers by linking arms. The soldiers stood in front of the protestors, blocking them, in order to create a clear path for the settlers to exit the Casbah and pass through the gate back to Shuhada Street. Some Israeli protestors tried to speak with the soldiers, saying that this was not what they were raised to do and that they can refuse and join us. The soldiers know very well that the settlers are fanatic and that the Palestinians have every right to be there, yet they too are trapped within this insane reality that effectively strips them of their ability to think and feel and act in the way that they know to be right.

I found myself standing mere inches from the young soldiers, looking directly into their eyes to catch a glimmer of their discomfort and their acknowledgment of both my humanity and that of the Palestinians who held my hands. They could not return my gaze and continued to use their guns and thick vests to push us back and “do their job”. The police then arrived and arrested two more Israeli activists as well as a Palestinian activist and well-known resident of Tel Rumeida, Hebron. One of the arrests was particularly violent as the protestor, a former soldier who had himself served in Hebron during the second Intifada, was pushed to the ground and then dragged/carried away. The protest ended shortly afterward; the Israeli arrestees were held for approximately 8 hours while the Palestinian arrestee is still being held in the Kiryat Arbah police station, nearly 24 hours later. The protestors will return to the scene again next Saturday and all the Saturdays thereafter until the occupation of Hebron ends and its residents are free to live without constant harassment.

Video of the protest:

A Member of the Palestinian Legislative Council joins the protest

In preparation for the protest, members of the democracy activist community in Israel discussed how to successfully bring groups of Israelis to Hebron to support the Palestinian residents of Hebron in this action. The organizing was characterized by the standard anxiety about the possibility of tapped phones and email accounts, the chance of being stopped and detained before reaching the protest sight, and the likelihood of facing arrest and/or a violent repression from the army, police, or, even more threatening, the settlers. The use of such tactics, intended to silence voices of dissent and prevent activists from exposing the truly undemocratic features of our beloved “Jewish democracy”, are not uncommon practices in the constant struggle for legitimacy within the Israeli public discourse. There is an element of irony in the fact that a country promoting itself as the beacon of freedom of expression in the Middle East is so entrenched in monitoring the activities of human rights activists, that they find their speech limited to such an extent that they are forced to communicate in codes or not speak at all in order not to sabotage their efforts to participate in the creation of a true democracy that ensures the civil rights of all peoples in Israel-Palestine.

Somehow, despite reports that the army was patrolling the main road between Jerusalem and Hebron (Route 60) with the aim to prevent Israelis from reaching the protest, several groups of dedicated activists were able to successfully enter the city, assist in making posters that espoused messages of justice, shared humanity, and equality, and then proceed to march in the rain waving flags, linking arms, and chanting slogans in Arabic, Hebrew, and English. The protesters remained true to their commitment to nonviolence, yet they were met by a very heavy army presence which was quick to deploy harsh crowd dispersal techniques that included a heavy amount of tear gas and stun grenades. Tear gas canisters were fired into the crowd from all directions, often coming very close to hitting people. A few elderly protesters fainted and were evacuated by ambulance. Some protestors sustained some minor injuries, including temporary loss of hearing due to proximity of the stun grenades which produce a very loud and frightening blast. Protestors scattered and ran to avoid the clouds of tear gas that caused a burning and choking sensation, but the soldiers were surrounding the protest and shooting from all angles. The soldiers continually tried to hold the protesters further back by creating a human wall and physically pushing the protesters who, in response, formed their own wall to withstand the pressure. This pushing back and forth, which continued for nearly an hour, looked like a childish fight between rival groups on the playground, except in this scene one group carried guns and had a mandate from the government, while the other group came without weapons and was denied their rightful protection by that same government. Three Israelis were picked out the crowd at random with no stated or apparent cause and taken away by the police and detained temporarily. One international activist was arrested, also without just cause, and then released several hours later. The clashes between the military, police, protesters, and a few notorious settlers continued for about an hour and 45 minutes until a final barrage of tear gas caused everyone to retreat and run up the hill or into the nearby cemetery where, in Hebron, it seems that people go not only to bury their dead but also their dignity, which perishes at the hands of the occupation.

As the sun set on February 25, 2010, Palestinian and Israeli organizers of the day exchanged affectionate glances and handshakes and returned to their separate lives in Hebron and Jerusalem, respectively. The two cities are a mere 45 minutes apart yet the reality of life for these allies is unequivocally different. Despite all the struggles that Israeli activists face as a minority voice in Israel, they still go back to homes that are not defaced with hateful graffiti, are not blocked by a series of checkpoints, are not raided by the army at any given moment, and are not caged up to shield against the onslaught of rock throwing from hostile neighbors. This is the reality of life for residents of Hebron who have the great misfortune of living in an occupied city. This is the reality that the Israeli government supports through subsidies for settlements, heritage preservation funds for holy sites beyond the green line, and a general unwillingness to acknowledge the suffering it inflicts on the Palestinian population by controlling every aspect of their lives.

This global day of solidarity and action demanded that the stories of the Palestinian residents of Hebron to be heard and considered, and we hope that this widespread coordinated effort can be a catalyst to the creation of more alliances which together will challenge the status quo and bring about necessary changes in Israel-Palestine.

Here again is a short video clip of the event.

Here is a short video clip of the event.

Protest in Hebron February 25, 2010 from Open Shuhada Street on Vimeo.

Thank you all for your courage and support.