Part One of the Series: Eyewitness Report
Part Two: Interview with Ghassan Andoni

Published April, 2004

Our guide in Hebron is Arthur G. Gish, an Ohio farmer and Church of the Brethren lay peace activist with a white beard, who has waged peace with the CPT here for five years. Gist says that Hebron (population: 120,000), 20 miles south of Jerusalem, has a rich history and is one of the oldest cities in the world. When David was king, his castle was in Hebron. A Yeshiva school here is named Cordoba in honor of Spanish Jews who fled from the Inquisition in 1492 and were welcomed by their Muslim neighbors. Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob and Leah are buried here. And Hebron, in both Hebrew and Arabic, means "friend."

But friendly it is not. Many battles have been fought here over the centuries and the latest is still going on. With the arrival of 400 ultra-Orthodox settlers since the 1980s, it is one of the most tense and violent places in the West Bank. The IDF has stationed 1,500 soldiers in Hebron to protect settlers. The place is a public relations disaster for Israel.

One of the most notorious settlers is Miriam Levenger, 72, an American. For months she would scream at Gish that he was a sinner, and when he finally asked her how he could repent, she replied "Drop Dead." A Jewish law student from Hebron killed Rabin in 1995 and was sentenced to life imprisonment (Israel has no death penalty). Baruch Goldstein, an American settler, killed 29 Muslims and injured 200 in 1994 in a Hebron mosque, where he was beaten to death. The settlers regard Goldstein as a martyr. Gish says that the settlers built a big Yeshiva here and the adult men study the Torah and few work.

The settlers' party is part of the Likud government and plays a disproportionately strong role in the Knesset. While we were in Israel over 100,000 settlers demonstrated against Ariel Sharon after he announced plans to close down settlements in Gaza. A suicide bomber killed some settlers here recently and Hamas sometimes shoots at settlers. Gish estimates that 80% of the settlers in the Occupied Territories are there for economic reasons and only 20% for ideological or religious reasons. But the settlers in Hebron are regarded as the most fanatic religious ones in Israel. Their hate is palpable. They say they hate the Israeli government more than anyone because they don't support them.

Gish takes us down Daboya Street, a busy narrow downtown street where Israeli settlers live ten feet away from Palestinian apartments. It is the site where 67 Jews were killed by Muslims in 1929. Some Jews were saved by their Muslim neighbors and their shops are now owned by Muslims who, since 1929, have paid rent to the Jewish victims' heirs.
All of the Palestinian homes on Daboya street have screens to protect them from the garbage that settlers throw at them. As we walk down the street, Mr. A, a Palestinian shoe store owner, chats us up and then invites us to his apartment across from his shop. We accept his invitation and he tells his story over glasses of hot tea.

We told Mr. A that we were American Jews who are opposed to the Occupation and he did not seem suprised. He told us how Jews and Muslims lived here peacefully side by side for years until 1992 when American ultra-Orthodox Jews came to Hebron [Gish says that most are Brooklynites]. He said that during the 1929 massacre of Jews in Hebron his parents and their neighbors saved many Jews by hiding them in their homes.

Although IDF soldiers protect the settlers, they cannot arrest them; under Israeli law, only the police and border police can do that. Mr. A said that when settlers' children attack an IDF soldier nothing is done but when Palestinian kids throw stones at the IDF, they are shot. The IDF arrested a respected non-violent Palestinian leader and deported him. Yet when a settler murdered a Palestinian, he was sentenced to one minute in prison and fined one cent. The law is not enforced equally.

Three months ago a curfew was lifted and Palestinians were allowed to leave their homes a few hours each day. Kids were allowed to go to school during the curfew but on a few occasions, when the settlers were harassing them, the IDF tear shot gas canisters to force everyone to flee. CPTers ignore the curfew and walk around freely in Hebron.

The CPT came here in 1985: some were deported, some were arrested and charged with destroying military property. Gish was imprisoned and kept in solitary confinement but was well treated. Gish says that "CPT is on the side of the people where guns are pointed. After the bombing of a Jerusalem bus (No. 18) by Hamas, we told Hamas publicly that we were going on that bus." CPTers stood in front of Israeli tanks and bulldozers that were demolishing Palestinians houses and they were arrested. They stood in front of a Palestinian woman with a knife who wanted to attack an IDF soldier. If she had not stopped, she probably would have been killed. Gish says that CPT is a faith-based group and acts out of a spiritual center. It respects everyone, no matter how hateful they may be, because they are creatures of God. CPT relates to many of the Israeli and Palestinian peace groups we have met and Gish urges us to visit the Peace Oasis, a village nearby where about 2,000 Israeli Jews, Muslims and Christians intentionally live together.

Gish takes us to meet Ata Jabber, a farmer who lives outside Hebron. We stay overnight at his house and share a wonderful dinner and breakfast with his family. In December 2002, the IDF demolished four rooms and a kitchen in their house. The IDF said they lacked permission to build the rooms and, in addition, the house was too close to the settlements. Gish says that the Kafkaesque Israel bureaucracy denies housing permits to Palestinians but routinely gives them to Israelis.

Jabber says that his family has 2000 members in Hebron, Jerusalem, Ramallah and Jordan. His immediate family includes two grandparents and three girls, two to twelve years old. Despite the near freezing temperature, the younger ones play on the porch with bare feet. Their mother serves us tea and draws water from a well on her half-demolished front porch. Their small, unlit kitchen is a hollowed out cave which is attached to the house. The women sit on their haunches preparing the evening meal. We are chilled to the bone as the house has no central heating.

Jabber said that a few years ago settlers came to his house with guns, broke his windows, told them to leave and screamed that this is their land. Although Jabber showed them deeds to the land dating back to the Ottoman Empire, they would not listen. During the attack his youngest daughter's eye was injured by flying glass. She had to have several operations in Jerusalem.

After the settlers took his land he called the police and hired lawyers but nothing could be done. Although he received no help from the UN's relief agency, UNWRA, Hamas or the Palestinian Authority, friends, family and the CPT helped him rebuild his house. He still has some grape vines and olive trees and grows cauliflower and other crops but most of his land was confiscated by the IDF to build by-pass roads for the settlers. He has not received a penny in compensation.

He said that even with the troubles he has had he is not bitter and does not hate either the IDF or the settlers because he is a Muslim and, despite everything, God has been generous to him.

After we returned to Hebron we walked to the city to buy souvenirs. We were stopped by IDF soldiers and told that Jews cannot enter through a gate leading to the Muslim quarter. They said that only Muslims and Christians could go through that gate and since we are Jewish, we must go through a gate in the Jewish part of town several blocks away. They said that this was a closed military zone and told us to obey their orders. We protested and told them that we went through the gate yesterday and had no problem. But they walk briskly to the gate and lock it. Now, for a time, even Muslims or Christians won't be able to pass through. Later that day we say goodbye to Arthur Gish and take leave of the friendly city of Hebron.

--Charles Horwitz

Part Four: With Physicians for Human Rights to a Refugee Camp