CPTnet
25 November 2006

HEBRON: Crime and helplessness in the Old City

by Jerry Levin

A Hebron municipal official, Nidal Tamimi, sadly acknowledged "the
municipality is helpless to stop crime and the sexual harassment of women
-including younger CPT women -in the streets near and in the Old City."

"This behavior," he said, "is not against CPT. It is against all women. It
is a sign," he said sadly, "of the deterioration of family life since the
collapse of the Palestinian Authority. No Palestinian family will allow its
daughters to live in the Old City." He told of how a young man accosted a
Palestinian girl in the market last summer. "A shop keeper tried to stop
the boy, but he killed the shopkeeper and escaped."

Tamimi also reported that, "all crime is increasing in Hebron but
especially in the Old City. So, more people are continuing to move from it
than are coming in."

Part of the problem relates the division of Hebron into areas H1 and H2. H1
is the Palestinian-administered section of Hebron. H2 is the Israeli
military-controlled and patrolled part of Hebron where four small Israeli
ultra-nationalist ultra-orthodox settlements are located. According to
Tamimi, H2 is a kind of stay-out-of-jail-free zone, a safe haven from
Palestinian police for Hebron's young toughs and members of a large,
notorious crime family that lives in a neighborhood near Kiryat Arba
settlement. So when a member of the crime family flees to H2, Palestinian
police can get him out. Israeli occupation authorities do not let them
bring firearms into H2. "If the Israeli soldiers find even one bullet in
one of their pockets," Tamimi said, "they will be stopped."

"So this problem," he continued, "like so many others has to do with the
Occupation. The Israeli police and the soldiers don't care what we do to
each other. Also," he added, "the crime family is better armed than our
police."

While on the subject of occupation-caused distress, Tamimi cited the
increasing number of days each year during which the Israeli authorities
close the Ibrahimi Mosque and the heavily guarded mosque security zone to
Palestinians. "On these days," he complained, "Israel allows Jewish
weddings and other events to take place in the mosque itself. Also more and
more they are holding loud parties in the day and the night in the grounds
by the mosque." These often lavish affairs last for many hours.
Particularly obnoxious to Muslims is the serving of alcoholic drinks to the
celebrants in such a sacred precinct.

Mindful of a potential for reprisals against Palestinians quoted directly in
its news accounts, the CPTers asked Tamimi if citing his name would be a
problem for him. "No," he said. "When CPT first came to Hebron in 1995 I
was quoted in an article. So, after that the Israelis wouldn't let me go to
Jerusalem. They still will not. Even so, I did not mind that you did it
then. I will not mind it now."