Note: The following piece was in fact posted May 30 but evidently became
temporarily stuck in the system along the way to you. When it arrived
in your box the message lacked the article. - CPT
CPTnet
May 30, 1998
HEBRON: PROVOCATION, VIOLENCE, SECURITY
by Sara Reschly

"They beat my cousin three hours ago," said Jowaad, a 20 yr. old
Palestinian living in Hebron (West Bank). Jowaad explained that he
was on his way home from work on Tuesday, when he saw an Israeli
settler man (about 35 yr. old) punching his cousin in the chest and
throwing him into a fence. Jowaad, whose family lives near the
Israeli settlement of Tel Rumeida said such incidents are common.

Jowaad was among 50 Palestinians present on a street lined with Arab
shops and homes that leads up to Tel Rumeida. Also on the street
were 15 settlers standing on the sidewalk in front of a Palestinian
house. One settler told journalists that they were holding a
nonviolent protest because they do not have "adequate security."
Palestinian eyewitnesses stated that settlers entered the property of
the Palestinian house earlier that evening.

As Israeli soldiers and police patrolled the street, the Palestinians
(many of whom live in the neighborhood) sat on the sidewalk drinking
coffee, eating cookies and smoking sweet tobacco through a water
pipe-- holding a counter demonstration. At one point, a few words
were exchanged, and a fight nearly broke out between the settlers and
Palestinians. "They [the settlers] want us to use violence, so they
can say 'Security!, Security!'", explained a Palestinian whose
brother lives in the house in front of which the settlers were
protesting. While CPT stood in the area between the Palestinians and
settlers, some of the adult settler men called CPTers "Nazi" and
mockingly referred to two CPTers as "Mr. and Mrs. Squalor".

While walking home from the incident, CPTers conversed about the
settlers' demonstration. If violence is narrowly defined as physical
assault, then the demonstration was indeed nonviolent. But if a
person recognizes that violence can be perpetrated on a spiritual and
emotional level, then the authenticity of the settlers' nonviolent
demonstration must be questioned. The presence of the settlers on
this particular street was very antagonistic, given that they were
seen on the neighboring Palestinian family's property earlier that
evening, and also given the context of the wider settler presence in
Hebron, which can be characterized by the graffiti that settlers often
write on the doors of Arab shops: "Death to Arabs; Kill the Arabs;
The Arabs must leave to Jordan, Hebron is a city for Jews." Even at
the demonstration, hostility enveloped the atmosphere.