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Hebron – the city of the patriarchs – has become the cradle of occupation

On Shabbat of Nov. 7, in synagogues across the Jewish world, the parsha (portion) of “Chayei Sarah” (“Life of Sarah”) was read from the Torah.
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November 11, 2015

On Shabbat of Nov. 7, in synagogues across the Jewish world, the parsha (portion) of “Chayei Sarah” (“Life of Sarah”) was read from the Torah. It tells the story of the first real estate purchase by Jewish patriarchs in the Holy Land — Abraham’s acquisition of the Cave of the Patriarchs as a tomb for his wife and family. In many ways, Hebron is the cradle of Jewish civilization. Nonetheless, today, 48 years after Israel started its military occupation of the West Bank, Hebron is where the settlement enterprise manifests itself in a very ugly fashion. 

More than anywhere else in the West Bank, Hebron is where the reality of a discriminatory system divides the privileged tiny minority of a few hundred Israeli settlers from tens of thousands of Palestinian residents. The settlers enjoy all the rights that Israeli democracy grants its citizens, while the Palestinians live under a harsh military law that imposes heavy restrictions on their basic rights.

[DUNNER: Hebron and the potential for Israeli-Arab coexistence]

Historically, Hebron was one of the first places where the Jewish and Palestinian national movements collided. The massacre of 67 Jewish residents of Hebron in 1929 led to the evacuation of the Jewish community from the city. It was the first of many bloody clashes. 

In 1967, Israel captured Hebron during the Six-Day War. Nearly 50 years later, it remains occupied by Israeli forces. The Jewish settlement in Hebron was one of the first steps in the settlement enterprise, an enterprise that clearly violates international humanitarian law. While most Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank were built outside Palestinian towns and villages, Hebron was a unique case in which an ideologically motivated group of Israeli Jews settled in the midst of a large Palestinian city, around the Tomb of the Patriarchs. 

To protect this group, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) allocated many troops and resources and placed restrictions on Palestinian residents. 

In 1994, Baruch Goldstein, a physician living in the nearby settlement of Kiryat Arba, massacred 29 Muslim worshipers who were praying in the Tomb of the Patriarchs. Goldstein was killed in the attack, making him one of the first suicide attackers in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. His grave is outside the city, featuring a large tombstone and a garden, and is a place of pilgrimage for many of the city’s settlers and their supporters. 

Ironically, it was the large Palestinian population of the city who paid the price for Goldstein’s act of terrorism. After the attack, the IDF closed the Palestinian market adjacent to the settler compounds and imposed severe restrictions on movement of Palestinian vehicles and people. These restrictions remain in place today, 21 years later. Palestinians living in that area are banned from roads used by settlers and instead are forced to walk on separate streets. Palestinians must prove their residency in the city to enter the area, and are not allowed to have guests. Many of the Palestinian homes close to where settlers live have had to cover their windows with netting to protect against projectiles thrown by settlers and other harassment, making the residents essentially prisoners in their own homes. 

Palestinians have also used violence against settlers and Israeli military forces. One of the most notorious cases was the death of a 10-month-old Israeli baby, Shalhevet Pass, who was shot by a Palestinian sniper in 2001. 

With the new wave of violence that the region is experiencing these days, Hebron is once more a flashpoint where the most severe clashes occur, leading to Israeli and Palestinian casualties. 

Hebron has become an amplified microcosm of the occupation. Israel has allocated enormous resources to protect a group of 750 settlers living in the midst of tens of thousands of Palestinians in the Israeli-controlled part of the city. Clashes are inevitable, and they usually result in ever-growing restrictions on the movement of Palestinian residents. 

The city has become a bleak case study in segregation on the basis of ethnic background. Like the rest of the settlement enterprise, the settlement in Hebron should be ended, not just for the sake of Hebron’s Palestinian residents, but also for the sake of Israel.


Uri Zaki is Israel advocacy and public outreach consultant for Human Rights Watch. He wrote from Tel Aviv.

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