Last weekend I participated in a group tour of Hebron. The tour was organised by Israeli youths banded together under the name of B’nai Avraham
in conjunction with “Shovrim Shtika”-- . I believe that we must observe the situation in the Territories first hand in order to appreciate and comprehend it. So I had previously participated in tours organised by “Leftist” organisations
I returned from the Hebron tour unable to believe what I had seen with my own eyes: a brutal and systematic ethnic cleansing of the Arab residents is being carried out there. This is taking place in the area under Israeli –sorry, settler -- control under the patronage of Israel’s government and its army, all in the name of a blatant racist-nationalist messianic religious fanaticism.
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Every pathway between the area occupied by the settlers and the souk is shut and blocked with barbed wire or more often welded metal hoardings. (We were told that some of these obstructions are designed to protect the few Palestinians who remain in their houses from being harassed by the settlers.) The residents have to use improvised backyard entrances away from the street. Soldiers with their weapons drawn stand on every corner and at every intersection. The whole area has been declared “sterile” – no Arab is allowed to enter. They cannot even cross the road on the way home from work. A roundabout trip of several kilometres, circumnavigating the settlers’homes, is needed just to get home, which is literally a stone’s throw away. Schoolgirls who have to traverse about a hundred metres around the fringe of the sterile area to get to the border crossing the Palestinian area (H1) need to be escorted daily by international volunteers or the youngsters of B’nai Avraham lest they be harassed by the residents of Beit Hadassah and their neighbours.
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Our guides managed to talk the authorities into letting us enter Tel-Romeida. In other words we were allowed to walk about 100-200 metres down an alleyway bounded on one side by a row of caravans and a new large building that was only opened last Passover. That building’s construction received the imprimatur of the then Defence Minister Binyamin (Fuad) Ben-Eliezer. By the way the building was made “Kosher” in another way as well. Being built on an archaeological site, it was put up “on stilts” in order to provide a (dubious) solution to the ban on building on such a site. At the end of the alleyway is another Palestinian house that Israelis have taken over. The alleyway was bounded on the other side by an army encampment assigned to ensure the safety and security of the lawbreakers.
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Original Hebrew Version
Related Article: Days of Awe: Hebron 5766
Still distracted by the goings-on in Gaza? Good.
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