Hebron is incredibly complicated, and I don’t really understand enough of the history to explain things fairly. Suffice it to say for now as background information that in H2, the Israeli-controlled half of Hebron which we visited, there are 500 soldiers guarding 500 settlers from 35,000 Palestinians. I know that that the story I’m about to tell might be one sided (perhaps one day I’ll go back to Hebron on a settler-run tour, to get another perspective), but it’s also my experience. I’m going to try to stay away from politics and analysis as much as I can, and just share some of the impressions that are still lingering with me over a week later.
- There are some roads in H2 which Palestinians cannot drive on, and some which they cannot even walk on (it’s one of the ways the army creates a “buffer” between the settlers and the Palestinians). Here is the thing that is hardest for me to cope with: I walked down a street, which was completely deserted except for my tour group. In a second story window, with bars to protect from settler attacks, a woman looked down at us. Her front door is padlocked shut, because it opens onto the street, and she and her family are not allowed to walk on the street. For the past 8 or so years, if she wants to leave her apartment, she has to climb out a hole in the back of the apartment and down ladders, and then cannot walk on the road. And I walked down the road, because I’m an American. I walked down the road. And she has probably lived there most of her life.
- We saw a video, of Jewish girls lined up along a path on Saturday afternoon, waiting for Palestinian girls to get out of school. When they did, the Israeli girls shoved and kicked them, while down below in the street (where the Palestinians cannot walk), Israeli boys threw stones. The soldiers did nothing, because they’re there to protect to settlers. The police did nothing, because they can’t arrest children under 14 years old. I know that the violence goes in both directions. I just can’t understand how anyone can teach their children to kick and shove and throw rocks at other children, and call that Shabbos afternoon.
- A Palestinian man who spoke to us in his home asked us how a soccer match on the other side of the world could affect his life. “Here’s how,” he told us. “Because soldiers come into my house, to do an inspection. They put my whole family in one room, and we wait there while they watch the match. I’ve canceled all of the sports channels on my TV.”
- In the end, we didn’t get to go to the Marat HaMachpelah (the Cave of the Patriarchs where according to tradition, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob, and Leah are buried). Why? Because the police were worried about settler violence. Usually, the tour guides from Breaking the Silence don’t go in, but the tour participants do. That day, the police decided even that wasn’t a good idea. So other Jews decided that I couldn’t visit my own holy site.
I am still struggling with what it means that I visited Hebron for a single morning, and after that morning I returned to my comfortable life in Talpiot. But for the people who live there, and for the soldiers who serve there, this is their reality, day after day.
I also struggle with what to do with my experience. I am not an Israeli, I am just an American Jew, and I don’t have much of a connection to or voice on the matter. I’m sure that if I went to Iraq or Afghanistan, I would see atrocious things done by my own government, and perhaps those are issues I have more of a voice about. But at the same time, I was there in Hebron, I walked down that street. It impacted me, and I’m not sure what to do about it.
