the exile within

Our trip to Hebron is accompanied by Hagit from Bnei Avraham - Sons of Abraham, an NGO working against the Occupation based on the spiritual and historical commonality of Jews and Muslims.   

We begin our tour in Kiryat Arba, a Jewish settlement next door to Hebron. A skullcap-wearing security guard checks our minibus before opening the gate. Hagit and him exchange weary smiles. 

“So, today you are going to visit Bin Laden?” 

“Bin Laden, sure, Bin Laden.” 

Inside, we stop to see Baruch Goldstein’s grave. He was an American-born Jewish settler who, in the Jewish holiday of Purim in 1994, walked into the Cave of Machpela (or Cave of the Patriarchs), where Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Revka and Leah are all allegedly buried, and sprayed the Muslim crowd with bullets. 29 died and 150 were wounded before Goldstein was beaten to death. On his gravestone is the word ’saint’ etched deeply.  

Out of nowhere appear 4 policemen: 2 in blue and 2 in green from the Border Patrol. “These guys are very kindly joining us”, Hagit explains, “because in the past what would happen is some Jewish settlers would come here and start shoving people around. When the police came, they would accuse the group leader of attacking them. The leader would then be detained, leaving the group on its own. In other cases they would claim to have seen people peeing on the grave.” ”No one pee!”, one of the group members warns. We move on to enter Hebron.  

Hebron is arguably where the Israeli occupation can be seen in its most vivid colours: it is the only Palestinian town that hosts an illegal Jewish settlement in the midst of it. There are around 160,000 Palestinians in Hebron, and 700 Israeli Jews. It was divided into H1 and H2, under Palestinian and Israeli control respectively, following the Oslo Accords of 1993. Once the second Palestinian uprising erupted in 2000, however, control of the whole of Hebron was again in the hands of the Israeli Defence Force. What used to be the main road downtown is now closed for all Palestinian vehicles. Only Israelis are allowed to drive through. The terraces of Palestinian houses there had to be covered with metal cages by the Palestinian Authority to fend off stone-throwing from Jewish settlers passing by. Passage of Palestinian pedestrians is also arbitrarily limited, despite a high court ruling in favour of free movement.  

The streets are not so much empty as they are hollow. This place feels like a film set for a Bergmanesque Western. We walk by the Old City, where the hustle and bustle of weekend activity is now a ghost contained within the stone walls and little alleyways, secured by armed military posts. One day it will surely rise again. “You see this steep climb at the end of the road?”, Hagit asks. “Palestinians are not allowed to drive through that. What this means is that if you’re a family that needs a new gas supply, even shopping, you need to carry it all yourself. This affects infrastructure and sanitation. Some of the water pumps are powered by gas.” 

A Jewish woman in a Subaro car drives by, making a point by revving up her engine loudly as she passes our group. The settlers don’t like us being here.    We walk by a deserted market. There are posters screaming “this is Jewish property” that go on to explain that “the Arabs” stole it after 1929 and that expanding Jewish presence in Hebron is a holy mission. In 1929, during the British Mandate in Palestine, there was a massacre here fuelled by rumours about Jews taking over holy sites in Jerusalem. This was a tragic exception to an otherwise healthy interfaith relationship, whereby 67 Palestinian Jews were murdered. In the following years Jews moved out of Hebron and their property was indeed seized. It was only in 1967, after the 6-day war which stands for Israel’s largest and quickest territorial expansion, that Jews settled in Hebron again. “First a few families just moved into this hotel, and did not leave. The army didn’t know what to do with them, because of course civilians are not supposed to settle on occupied territory according to International Law. But they didn’t want to kick them out either and provoke a violent reaction, perhaps especially in the face of the religious claim to the Cave of Machpela. So eventually there was some kind of compromise, they were put in temporary housing. That was the beginning. Oh, hello to you.” Hagit welcomes a Jewish settler with a video camera who promptly begins to film everyone. “This is just another form of intimidation, don’t worry about it.”  

The expansion of Jewish presence in Hebron is permitted by a strange concurrence of government policy, legal loopholes and security pretexts. “You see these deserted houses? Their Palestinian inhabitants moved out. The lucky ones have relatives in town. You have to understand that during the Intifada, that year there were more days of complete curfew than days when there was none. There was a lot of military violence, people being rounded up, mass arrests, attacks on civilians, you name it. All this stuff was recorded through soldier testimonials (www.shovrimshtika.org). A curfew means you do not leave the house no matter what. You are in there with your parents, your grandparents, your children; you may get an hour every couple of days to go and get something to eat, but that’s it. No excuses. So eventually people move away. The Jewish settlers then move in, do the place up and call it their own. If anybody asks, they produce fake documents that show they have rented the property from its legal owners. They do this because effectively citizens of Israel cannot buy property inside military zones, so they ‘rent’ it instead. When the courts expose this practise and order the Ministry of Defence to evacuate these people and return the property to its rightful owners, it usually goes to waste in a tangled web of bureaucracy. Ultimately, the soldiers just don’t want to mess with them. And the soldiers are the only real authority in these areas.” 

Nearing our final destination, we walk by sites made famous by YouTube. “This is where those videos were shot, you know, Jewish girls throwing stones at Palestinian schoolchildren.” Those familiar-looking staircases are now fenced off. The school nearby has since changed its schedule to evade any collisions with groups of Jewish youth. 

Hani Abu-Haikel greets us outside his house. He is a Palestinian with the questionable privilege of having Jewish settlers as his direct neighbours. “They wanted me to leave. They said, take 20 million dollars! Go to Spain, go to Italy, go to America, wherever you want. You think I will leave my house? This was my grandfather’s house! When I was a boy I carried the stones that you see here in the wall. My father mixed the cement himself because we were saving money. And my grandfather, he told stories, when I was young. He talked about 1929, how he helped to hide Jewish families in the house because it was not safe for them. How he stood on the roof with a gun to protect them, his friends. And I thought, ‘he is an old man, they are just stories’. But then I found out that the Jews here have a Book of Hebron, where they keep a list of all the families who helped Jews during the massacre. And number 17 on the list, I find my grandfather. And now, look,” he kicks a small pile of rocks collected at the wall of his house, “this is just from last night! Every night, every night they throw rocks. Especially on, what you call it, Shabbat. Yes? A day for prayer, a day for family, for meditation. Here, it is their celebration. To make our suffering. One day I catch one of them in my garden, he is taking grapes, stealing. I tell him ‘why? Why are you doing this? You can just come to my door and ask, I will be happy to give you some of my grapes!’ And you know what he told me? He said: ‘God told me to do it!’”  

Hani is waving his arms dramatically. From afar, the telling of his narrative may seem like an impromptu Shakespeare in the Park performance, but the felt presence of the settlers next door who burst into song every few minutes (it is Friday, after all) plants his words firmly in the realm of immediate reality. The road leading to the concrete parking space we are sitting on has long been blocked by the IDF. Hani now has to park his car 7km away from where he lives, and even then his car has been put on fire by settlers 4 times.  

“One night, my wife, she is pregnant, she is giving birth. I have to carry her all the way. It was January, it started to snow on us. And I have to carry her 7 kilometres. If I want ambulance, I have to wait 3 days to get special permission. Then it can take 10 hours for the ambulance to pass through checkpoints. If they need anything, no problem. It comes immediately. But not for us.”  Hani goes on and on, temporarily lending us the weight of his worries. Once, during the Jewish holiday of Lag Ba’Omer, when it is customary to burn bonfires, his new wooden doors were stolen from his back yard and his son’s leg was broken by Jewish youngsters. Another time, when he tried to go by the official channels and complain about his neighbours, the municipal police made him wait 3 hours before letting him in, and then merely recorded the event and handed him a receipt, doing absolutely nothing. I look around - everyone seems weary and dispirited. Where, I start wondering, where does this man get his energy? Where does he keep his hope? Maybe in the empty house adjacent to his, a house that still belongs to the Bakri family who have moved out for the same reasons that seem to only strengthen Hani’s will to remain.  

“We are now working together on building a centre in this house. It will be a meeting place for Israelis, Palestinians, Jews, Muslims, Christians, Internationals - actually, it will be for everyone. To share stories, to talk about peace. To see what is happening here in Hebron. We already had our Israeli friends coming to help us, we painted and cleaned, we slept inside the house. We took turns to guard in the night, 2 each time, like soldiers. Just like soldiers. Because you know, do you think I care if my neighbour is Jewish or Muslim? What do I care? It is the same god that everyone prays to. But don’t tell me that God told you to steal from me. That is not my god, because my god told me to build my house and love my family and love my work. I just need my neighbour to be human, like me.” 

Inside the Cave of Machpela, I look at Abraham’s tomb through a thick metal grid. The stone is covered by a deep green cloth sewn with a pattern of hexagons. On the other side of the small chamber there is another window, affording a glimpse into the Muslim section, called the Isaac Hall. They are not sure this is in fact the actual burial place, so there is a sign that says “grave mark”. Not a bad metaphor, I think. A shade of a promise given a long time ago, its origin lost, its intention distorted, exploited, then handed down, shielded. At all costs. Somewhere along the line we have turned from caretakers into takers. From sharers into opponents. For Jewish settlers in Hebron, there is now no going back.