Hebron Round Two: The Old City

We decided to re-visit Hebron, having not had the opportunity to see much during our last visit. Our Japanese co-volunteer introduced us to a Palestinian woman who showed us around the religiously significant and old city Hebron. We're told that the Old City of Hebron was once a flourishing city full of markets and shops. But most of those shops are now empty with doors barred shut. The once flourishing market has now been confiscated by the settlers and the entrance blocked to Palestinians.

Jewish settlers began immigrating to the city in the early 1980s. At first, they were but a small band of Jews coming to worship in this Holy City. But overtime, as Hebron became a more desireable location for Jewish immigration, and as the Israeli Government made way for settlement expansion, the Jewish presence in Hebron became synonymous with Palestinian restrictions.

Israeli soldiers not much older than ourselves watch the every move of Palestinian residents. Watchtowers peer over the city, checkpoints lie at every corner, and bands of soldiers roam the streets. Living literally in the upper-level of Palestinian homes, settlers have turned the streets into trashdumps, as they toss their garbage on Palestinian residents living and walking below. Netting has been hung above Palestinian walkways to prevent concrete blocks dropped by settlers from hitting Palestinians below. Entire rows of shops have been shut down to accomodate the Yeshiva, military bases and settler compounds.

We were taken to the roof of a Palestinian home right next to the Yeshiva. A soldier peering from a parallel rooftop less than thirty feet away watched our every move. A room on the top floor remains charred and blackened; the result of a molotov cocktail thrown in by a Yeshiva student. On the roof, there are multiple water-storage devices filled with settler-fired bullet holes and emptied of their water. It's hard to believe that those filled with such zest of their religion could commit such heinous crimes against their neighbors.

We commonly hear that Palestinian hatred is a result of propaganda present in nearly every segment of their society. But in Hebron, it's clear that the real reason for this hatred is the actions perpetrated by settlers. The settlers have drawn a correlation between their actions and Judaism by spraypainting Jewish stars on Palestinian homes and businesses along with violent and racist Hebrew slogans: as if to 'mark their territory.'

It's often said in the West that Muslims must stand up against the extremism existant in certain sectors of their communities. Maybe it's time that the worldwide Jewry takes action against those who distort the name of their religion as well.

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Note: The Jewish settlement movement within the West Bank started in 1968, when Moshe Levinger brought a group of Jews to a hotel in Hebron during Passover. They refused to leave, and they were moved to an army base. They began to build up the base, and it eventually became what is now Kiryat Arbah. (Thanks to Howard for the info!)