CPTnet
9 February 2006

HEBRON UPDATE: 20-29 January 2006

Team members serving during this time were John Lynes, Grace Plieman, Jerry
Levin, Art Gish, Bob Gross, Tracy Hughes, Barbara Martens, Dianne Roe,
Bourke Kennedy, Sarah MacDonald, and Kathie Uhler

Friday, 20 January

CPTers walked along Shuhada Street and Haret Jaber (called by Israeli
settlers, "Worshippers Way") without incident. They also visited Tel
Rumeida without hindrance.

Saturday, 21 January

John Lynes and Art Gish spent several hours between Kiryat Arba and Hebron,
interacting with Jewish worshipers. They watched soldiers trying to stop a
ten-year-old Israeli settler boy from throwing stones at Palestinians in the
area. An adult reminded the boy to not throw stones on Sabbath.

Lynes and Gish got into a long conversation with a Kiryat Arba resident who
complained that CPT has a bias for Arabs. He steadfastly maintained that
the problems in Hebron are all because of the Arabs. He allowed that Arabs
could live in Hebron if they accepted Jewish rule, but Arabs should not
become citizens of a Jewish state.

Tracy Hughes and Sonia Robbins patrolled near the Ibrahimi Mosque/Cave of
Macpelah. They had a lengthy conversation with an American Jewish man from
Jerusalem visiting Hebron to pray. Conversation included topics about
Abraham Avinu, the upcoming evacuation of eight families, and the historical
claim of the Jewish community in Hebron. He could not think of Israeli
settlements as illegal, but expressed the hope that Israeli Jews and
Palestinians could live together in peace in Hebron.

A group of about six Palestinian boys joined the conversation, communicating
with the Jewish man in Hebrew. After the boys left, other settlers
confronted the two CPTers and called them naziim. When the man responded to
the settler and said, "They are not naziim and I can't be; I am Jewish," the
settler continued to say that all CPTers want all settlers dead and only
help the Arabs and even once hid a knife used in a stabbing. Hughes
responded, "We do not want you dead. We do not want the Jews to be harmed or
killed." The settler responded, "Yes, you do," to each of Hughes's
responses. Robbins asked the Jewish man not to defend them because doing so
would only exacerbate the situation. They informed the man that what he had
witnessed was typical of settler behavior toward CPT.

Monday, 23 January

Adel Samu', a Palestinian friend, visited the CPT apartment late in the
evening. He reported that he heard his family home had been damaged by
Israeli soldiers earlier that evening around 6:00 p.m.

Tuesday, 24 January

Roe and Robbins went to Samu''s home, near Qurtuba Palestinian Girls
School, to document damage from evening of 23 January. They met with TIPH
and AIC and Musa Abu Hash Hash from B'tselem for documentation and
translation. Samu' gave a brief history of daily settler violence that
included stoning. His family left the home two years ago because of concerns
for the psychological health of his children, which settler harassment has
affected.

Samu' proceeded up to his house with a soldier and saw significant damage
to windows, faucets broken, bedrooms ransacked etc. (See
http://www.cpt.org/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=hebron&page=4 .) He
called Israeli police who came and saw damage. He was advised to report the
incident to the Israeli police. Samu' still does not know whether soldiers
damaged the house or if settlers were also involved in this incident. He
asked CPT- Hebron to stay in his house or move the office to his home. [See
4 February release, "Soldiers or Settlers? Palestinian's Hebron home
sustains severe damage."]

Wednesday, 25 January

CPTers patrolled near schools that were serving as voting locations. Jerry
Levin and John Lynes attended Mordechai Vanunu's hearing in Jerusalem. [See
4 February release, "Mordechai Vanunu trial eclipsed by news of Palestinian
elections."]

Saturday, 28 January

Ex-ambassadors Edward Peck and Robert Keeley, Eugene Bird, Peter and Liz
Viering and Chris Belcher, from Council for National Interest (CNI) visited
the CPT office. After the meeting, CPT intern Sonia Robbins took the group
on a tour of the Old City and Shuhada Street. They saw a high concentration
of police at all checkpoints.

Sunday, 29 January

Dianne Roe and Bourke Kennedy went to Beit Ummar for a meeting with Farhan
abu Mousa, the newly-elected mayor. He asked Roe and Kennedy to assist in
organizing an action with Ta'ayush to help local farmers plant their crops.

Roe and Kennedy also spoke with an acquaintance about Hamas. He said that
the Palestinians voted for Hamas because of corruption in the present
Palestinian Authority. He said that the Hamas agenda was to work for the
Palestinian people, to make changes in health, education and jobs and make
the government, his local government in particular, accountable to the
Palestinian people. He said that the United States and Europe talk a lot
about human rights but they mean human rights just for the people who agree
with them but not for those who think and act differently. He asked, "What
does Israeli see as its benefit (from) this Occupation? How does it really
benefit Israel?"

Kennedy asked whether there were women on the city council. Their man
answered, "There are two. I believe that women should share the public arena
with the men. They have as much to offer as the men." He also added, "We
are all brothers in our humanity."

The team learned about the new video aired on Al-Jazeera (an Arabic language
news network) showing Tom Fox, Harmeet Sooden, Norman Kember and Jim Loney.
The Hebron team members worked on securing translation of the CPT statement
on the video as well as contacting local Palestinian friends to begin a new
media campaign of support for the missing CPTers and the 14,000-16,000 Iraqi
detainees.