CPTnet
January 10, 2003
HEBRON: No candy if you are bad

Jerry Levin and Art Gish responded on January 2 to a call that there was
trouble in Beit Ummar, a town between Hebron and Bethlehem, near the Israeli
settlements of Karme Tzur and Gush Etzion. Upon arrival, Israeli Border
Police prevented the CPTers from entering the town because they said it was
a closed military zone.

One of the soldiers, seeing Gish's bushy white beard, called him "Santa
Claus" and asked for candy. Gish responded by saying, "No, you have been
doing bad things, so you don't get any candy." Another soldier asked for a
CPT hat. Gish responded, "If you go through a month of nonviolence training
you can have a CPT hat."

After meeting a friend at the edge of the town, Levin and Gish learned that
at 2:00 a.m. Israeli soldiers and three bulldozers entered Beit Ummar and
took over the town of 12,000 Palestinians. Soldiers demolished one home at
the edge of town, arrested six people, and injured five. They put the whole
town under at least forty-eight hours curfew and closed all roads into the
town with piles of dirt or ditches dug across the roads. One family
reported that soldiers stole 6,000 shekels when they raided their house.
Bulldozers tore up and cut water and telephone lines on some streets. Part
of the old
cemetery was damaged.

A friend led Levin and Gish through fields and back roads into town to view
the damage and visit the mayor. The mayor said he did not know why this had
happened, except that Israeli soldiers had told him that they were punishing
the town because some boys in the town had thrown stones and a Molotov
cocktail at Israeli vehicles on the main road at the edge of town. Soldiers
distributed leaflets saying any disturbances would be dealt with "with an
iron fist."

Town officials said they do not know how they will pay to repair this damage
or for all the lost water, for which they pay a high price to the Israeli
water company, because the town has no money. The town receives no revenues
from Israel or the Palestinian Authority.

In response to questions of why this happened now, various people said this
action was preparation for "the wall" which they expect to be built around
the town. The wall will separate the farmers in Beit Ummar from their land
outside the town. Seventy percent of the families in Beit Ummar are
dependent on income from their land.

One resident said, "Sharon doesn't want peace. He wants our land."