CPTnet
October 22, 2002
HEBRON: Amit and Atta

by Bob Holmes

I met Amit at the mountaintop monastery in Galilee. We were both seeking
respite from the oppressiveness of the occupation - me retreating from
Hebron, Amit from heated discussions with family and friends in Galilee. An
Israeli Jew, Amit lives in France and had brought his French wife Aude, in
her sixth month of pregnancy, to meet his family. He had also brought a
dramatically altered awareness of realities in the occupied Palestinian
territories. I invited them to Hebron.

Four days later in Hebron, Aude confided to me that Amit was very fearful of
the visit - of how he would be received by Palestinians suffering under
Israeli occupation. They were both appalled by the segregation on Shuhada
Street - a main thoroughfare of Hebron now restricted to Israeli settlers
only. They remarked on the bustle and liveliness of the Palestinian market,
Aude smiling and Amit a bit apprehensive that he might be recognized as a
Jew.

We were talking in the CPT apartment when Atta, a Palestinian farmer and
friend
friend of CPT, arrived. He had taken his father to the hospital in Hebron
for treatment. This summer his father had fallen and broken his leg fleeing
stones thrown by Israeli settlers attacking his home. Atta said the Israeli
army had destroyed his own home twice. It was too close to a new settler
highway which had been bulldozed through his vineyard. He told of his
brother spending ten years terracing his land and planting an orchard only
to have the army bulldoze it to make way for a new housing development for
the nearby Israeli settlement.

"Most Israelis don't know what's happening here. I had to go to France to
have my eyes opened. We are taught half truths. And half truths are lies."
Amit went on to tell of his and Aude's plan to travel in a horse drawn wagon
next year with their newborn child from Paris to Jerusalem--a journey of
peace and truth.

Amit looked into Atta's eyes and asked, "Can you forgive me and my
ancestors?"

"You are welcome in my house," Atta responded, "And for more than one
night! The horse will stay outside."