CPTNet
July 26, 2003
HEBRON: While you were gone.
By Jerry Levin
Every time my wife and I leave Palestine and Israel and head for home, we
hope that things won't get worse here while we are back in the States; but
sadly we know that they will.
And, sure enough, they do.
Similarly, when we come back from the U. S., we hope that things won't get
worse once we get back to the Occupied Territories; but sadly we know that
they will.
And they do.
Trying to characterize what happened here this past winter and spring, a
Palestinian friend said, "While you were gone, this was a time of sadness."
We were surprised that she could term the situation in such a relatively
mild fashion. That's because, despite "roadmap" calls for ending
provocative settlement and other confiscatory activities in the West Bank,
there has been a glut of discouraging events. They indicate that what has
actually been happening is the acceleration of Israel's decades-long,
coercive campaign to convince Arab residentsMuslim and Christianthat
Palestine is no longer a safe or welcome place for them to live.
One example. Since we left Palestine last January, the Israeli Army has
extended its control over H2 by appropriating a piece of H1. The
not-so-surprising absorption quickly stifled a once vital H1 commercial
neighborhood of hardpressed Palestinian small shop proprietors and street
venders, whose businesses had the misfortune of lying just a few hundred
yards up from the "de jure" dividing line between the two zones.
H2, the area of Hebron consigned to Israel after Oslo II, includes an
enclave of small Orthodox Jewish settlements whose militant residents,
backed by the Israeli Army have over the years been
stunningly successful at stifling and closing down most Palestinian
business inside the Old City, as well as spooking more than half the
population into moving away. H1 is the area of Hebron granted by Oslo II to
the Palestinian National Authority but which was totally re-occupied by
Israel last summer.
The perimeter of the extended H2 engulfs the now almost dead but once
boisterous, lively, exhilarating major Hebron marketplace known as Bab
iZaweyya. Before the Israeli Army blocked access to Bab iZaweyya by setting
down huge cement block barricades in the streets
feeding into it, the market was characterized by tightly packed throngs of
chattering but slow moving shoppers on foot, who overflowed into the even
more crowded streets.
Not that anyone was surprised by this latest land grab. The Israeli Army
had been telegraphing its intentions fiercely and meanly for several weeks
late last year. During the busiest part of the day,
tanks would suddenly come tearing into the intersection crushing or
upsetting the portable stands, scattering goods and shoppers as they went.
They would knock over and chase off not just those in the streets, but the
ones on sidewalks too. At other times squads of Israeli soldiers would come
dashing into the area, arbitrarily declaring curfew, gruffly shouting at
shoppers to leave, and
ordering all business to shut down.
The two or three blocks lining the street between the former boundary of
the two zones marked by the Beit Romano checkpoint at one end and Bab
iZaweyya at the other are distinguished by a
dwindling number of shops that are still staying open. Of the approximately
one hundred I counted last week, sixty were closed.
"Why do I stay open?" one shop keeper friend reflected rhetorically. "What
else is there to do?" he finally answered.
But then to me he declared, "I will not leave."
Meanwhile, at the other end of the Old City, in the very center of H2, the
Israeli Border Police have severely restricted foot traffic through the
special security zone surrounding the Ibrahimi Mosque. Now Palestinians who
need to pass through the western half of the zone to the eastern half
can't. That's because to do that they must cross Shuhada Street, which is
closed to Palestinians. So what should be an easy fine minute walk across
the zone is instead a frustrating thirty or so minute steep detour around
the Mosque. Or if one doesn't want to walk, getting from one side of the
zone to the other will require a twenty minute cab ride clear around Hebron.
"The cost can add up," I mentioned to a Palestinian acquaintance. "We
don't count the cost," she said. "We count the time."
Another friend mentioned off handedly, "If we apply, we can get a permit to
walk through."
"Has anyone got one yet?"
"No one will even try," he said proudly and passionately. "What Palestinian
man or woman would ever ask for a permit to walk on their street to their
home?"
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Canada Coordinator
Christian Peacemaker Teams
Tel (416) 423-5525
Fax (416) 423-9213
Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God;
everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
1 John 4:7
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