Segregation In The West Bank: The Case of Hebron

The lively marketplace of Hebron resembles the souqs of other Palestinian cities, with people crowding the narrow streets, stands selling shawarma and falafel every twenty feet, kids running around, and friends meeting for tea and argeelah in cafes. You would think you were in the old city of Nablus or even some parts of Ramallah—until you look up and see metal nets installed above the market, a constant reminder of the segregation in the center of Hebron.

Layers of trash sit upon the metal nets. “Sometimes, they throw feces and urine down at us as well,” my friend and tour guide Abdallah, who lives in Hebron, tells me. The acrid smell lingers.

“They” refers to the small community of settlers who live within the city lines of Hebron. Israeli settlements—civilian Jewish communities illegally built upon the West Bank territory which is ostensibly under Palestinian control—typically overlook major Palestinian cities from geographic high points. But the story is different in Hebron, where settlers reside in the city center alongside the Palestinian citizens.

According to tradition, Hebron houses the tombs of biblical patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as well as matriarchs Sarah, Rebecca, and Leah. Because of these figures’ great significance in Judaism, Hebron was actually home to a small Jewish community before the 20th century, constituting about three percent of the city’s population. According to the Jewish Virtual Library, this small Sephardi Jewish community had peacefully lived alongside their Arab neighbors for centuries.

However, demographics changed in the early 1900s. Ashkenazi (native European) Jews started to arrive in Palestine, separating themselves from the Arabs and even the Sephardi Jews who already lived there. As the Zionist agenda advanced, more Ashkenazis sought to annex the territory, and the Palestinian residents of Hebron grew angry.

In 1929, members of the Palestinian community began a riot in Hebron. Many Palestinian families did try to help by providing shelter to their Jewish neighbors, saving around two-thirds of the community. By the end of the riot, however, 67 Jews had been murdered. In response, the British (who were in charge of the Mandate at the time) evacuated the surviving Jewish community to Jerusalem. For many Zionists, this massacre exemplified, if not proved, the persecution they faced from Arabs, and fueled their desire to retake Hebron.

The population became relatively homogenous in Hebron, and tensions died down in the following decades—until 1967. In the beginning of June of that year, Syria and Jordan attacked Israel under the pretense that Israel was about to strike Syria. After six days, Israel gained control of the West Bank from the Jordanians (who annexed the territory in the 1948 War), East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. These seizures began what we now call the Occupation, and triggered the Israeli settlement movement.

After the 1967 War and the beginning of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, a group of Jewish fundamentalists rented rooms in a hotel in the city center of Hebron and refused to leave. Israeli authorities then established a settlement in Hebron, and in the following years, more and more settlements were built, including several in the busy downtown area. To protect these settlers, heavily-armed Israeli soldiers were assigned to the city.

In 1994, a settler from Brooklyn massacred 29 praying Muslims in downtown Hebron at the Ibrahimi Mosque (the mosque is said to be built over the tombs of Abraham and his family and is known to Jews as The Cave of the Patriarchs). Prior to the massacre, the murderer, Baruch Goldstein, had apparently already assaulted Muslim worshippers in the mosque and poured acid on prayer rugs. Muslim authorities alerted then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, but his office never responded. Following the massacre, Israeli authorities took drastic measures to protect the settlers from Palestinian retaliation. They closed the major street of the city center and forced Palestinian shopkeepers on that street to close their shops, which were then physically blocked by the Israeli army. A “round-the-clock” curfew was imposed on Palestinian residents; Israeli authorities regularly enforced these long curfews when a settler attacked a Palestinian. They established military checkpoints throughout the city center. Today, there are 18 permanent military checkpoints and, according to the Institute for Middle East Understanding, there are over 120 obstacles hindering Palestinians from moving around freely.

These restrictions “encouraged” Palestinians to leave the city center. With the center abandoned, more settlers arrived. In 1997, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Israel signed the Hebron Agreement, which divided Hebron into two areas: H1 and H2. H1 was placed under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority, while Israel was responsible for the security of H2 (which included the city center). At the time, 35,000 Palestinians and 500 settlers were living in H2.

[su_pullquote align=”right”]When I asked Abdallah how many soldiers there were, he replied, “10 to every 1 settler.”[/su_pullquote]As I walked through the city center (alone, since Abdallah, a Palestinian resident, was forbidden from accessing this area), I realized why the neighborhood is called a “ghost town.” This formerly vibrant commercial center of the southern West Bank has been abandoned, with all the shops lining the streets welded shut. I encountered only a handful of individuals on the street—settlers, some openly carrying firearms. I avoided the stares of soldiers watching my every move. (When I asked Abdallah how many soldiers there were, he replied, “10 to every 1 settler.” While I don’t know if this is an accurate number, there were certainly more soldiers than settlers). I stopped to read the many plaques fastened to buildings explaining the history of Judaism in Hebron and the discrimination they face. Almost all discussed the 1929 massacre and none mentioned the 1994 massacre.

[su_pullquote]These policies are painted as a security issue, but they actually seek to force the Palestinians out and erase their claims to the land.[/su_pullquote]Yes, there is violence from both settlers and Palestinians living in Hebron, which should be condemned. But the settlers chose to occupy a Palestinian city, whereas the Palestinians were forced from their homes. These settlers didn’t come and inhabit abandoned houses. They invaded and still continue to invade homes and evict the families living there. Now, the few Palestinian families who live in the downtown area are afraid to leave their houses, in fear that settlers will take them over. The IDF have set up checkpoints and fences, effectively locking up the Palestinians, and open them according to their moods. Palestinians have to take roundabout routes in order to get to their homes if they live around the center. These policies are painted as a security issue, but they actually seek to force the Palestinians out and erase their claims to the land. For Palestinians who have managed to stay in the center of Hebron, their lives have been disrupted by the settlements, and they now face harassment and discrimination every day.

In the settlers’ perspective, they have a right to live around the tombs of some of their most revered religious figures. The settlers feel they need to be protected. They argue that they are living in a ghetto, because they cannot visit other areas of Hebron. I think it is reasonable to want to live in peace in a religiously significant place, just as the small community of Jews did for centuries before the 1900s. However, their framework of occupation is an unacceptable method by which they have inserted (and continue to insert) themselves into the city.

The international community considers settlements such as the one in Hebron illegal under international law. The Geneva Conventions, which were established and accepted after World War II, state in their fourth convention that an occupying power is forbidden from “deporting or transferring parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” This rule primarily functions to guarantee that an occupation is temporary and allows for a solution to the conflict.

One of the major issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is borders. For a two-state solution to be possible, clear borders need to be delineated. In the 1949 Rhodes Armistice Talks, Israel and Jordan decided on the Green Line, which separates Israel from the West Bank. Most demands for a Palestinian state focus on the “borders of 1967”—the Green Line (this is still a concession, however, since the State of Israel would keep 70 percent of Mandate Palestine). But the Israeli settlements throughout the West Bank, beyond the Green Line, have complicated the situation. The dispersal of these settlements has made it impossible to draw clear, sensible borders. The settlers refuse to move and the Israeli government would, seemingly, never force these settlers to relocate. And thus, tensions remain high. And these tensions are clearest in Hebron, where settlers and Palestinians clash every day.

[su_pullquote align=”right”]Their oppressive and illegal (under international law) policies and actions neglect the human element; instead, they serve to create “facts on the ground” that sustain their repressive occupation and encourage a “forced transfer” of Palestinians.[/su_pullquote]Israel continues to allow the construction of more settlements in the West Bank. The settlement in Hebron is unique but also poignantly represents how Israeli authorities disregard Palestinian lives for the sake of their own agenda. Their oppressive and illegal (under international law) policies and actions neglect the human element; instead, they serve to create “facts on the ground” that sustain their repressive occupation and encourage a “forced transfer” of Palestinians. And as long as these hegemonic structures exist—in Hebron, settlers make up 1 percent of the city’s population, yet they wield an inordinate amount of political power—the coexistence and peace that existed before the 1900s (or even a fraction of it) cannot be restored.

Anjali Vishwanath ‘19 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at anjali.vishwanath@wustl.edu.