CPTnet
11 December 2007
HEBRON UPDATE: 19 November-2 December 2007

Team members during the period included Jessica Frederick, Lorne Friesen,
Christina Gibb, Donna Hicks, John Lynes, and Rich Meyer and Jonathan Stucky.

Monday 19 November

In the afternoon, Jessica Frederick went to an "English Exchange" hosted by
House of Nonviolence/Library on Wheels. She answered questions about
American culture, and listened to Palestinian young adults talk about their
culture. One Palestinian asked if Americans viewed all Muslims as
terrorists, and another commented about Americans' lack of hospitality (but
"some Americans can be nice," said one young man.) At one point, Frederick
said, "My life is not like the movies"--which was surprising to the
Palestinians, who thought American movies gave an accurate portrayal of life
in America. Frederick explained the mixed cultural background in the United
States, her own heritage being German, French, Irish, Italian, and Scotch.
They all laughed while comparing the differences in gender relations in
Palestinian and American culture.

Later, Christina Gibb and Lorne Friesen went on patrol near the Occupied
House (what the team calls a Palestinian house on the road between the
Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arba and the Israeli settlements inside Hebron
that settlers are occupying.) Two young men from the next house up the hill
on the opposite side of the road called to them and invited the CPTers in.
Their father, who lives next door, joined the group. With no common
language, the CPTers phoned translators to ask the family in what ways the
settler presence was affecting them. The father replied that it is worst on
the Jewish Sabbath, when the settler boys have no school. They throw stones
at the houses and at the Palestinian children and adults. The Border Police
constantly patrol the road from Kiryat Arba to the Sanctuary of Abraham and
often detain Palestinians in the street to check their IDs.

On their way home, half a dozen Palestinian boys pursued the CPTers
relentlessly down the hill, shouting and jostling them.

When they reached the mosque gate back into the Old City, they heard a man
shouting from between the turnstiles. He had taken off his belt and emptied
his pockets, but still the metal detector beeped. He was arguing with the
border police, who made him take off his shoes and lift his shirt. The
police told the CPTers to move on or they would lock the gate. Gibb and
Friesen moved slowly through the tunnel until the argument died down.

Tuesday 20 November

Around 11:15 a.m., teammates sitting in the office felt the building shake
for a couple of seconds. Afternoon news reports indicated a small
earthquake had occurred north of the Dead Sea at that time.

While shopping in the Al Manara area, Donna Hicks and a Palestinian friend
learned that the area where the Palestinian vans and taxis to Yatta park
will be renovated into a more formal transportation terminal.

Wednesday 21 November

Frederick and Hicks accompanied Janet Benvie, returning to the Tuwani team,
to the pick-up point for Yatta taxis. They observed a USAID-marked heavy
truck leaving the area loaded with broken-up asphalt paving

Frederick and Hicks walked to the Occupied House around dusk. A group of
Palestinian boys physically and verbally harassed them on an isolated
section of Worshippers' Way as they were returning to the Old City.

Thursday 22 November

During school patrol at the Yatta Road checkpoint one of the soldiers was
searching the backpacks of teenaged boys. Hicks showed the soldier the
letter stating school children's bags should not be searched. He said he
knew about it, and muttered something about having to search the older boys.

At the mosque gate a border police officer was searching school bags,
calling out loudly and teasing boys. Soldiers briefly delayed three
teachers and three senior boys at the checkpoint across from the Gutnick
Center. Gibb and Hicks observed soldiers practicing some maneuvers in the
park area below the parking lot at the Gutnick Center.

Friesen and Frederick went on a late afternoon patrol. At the mosque
checkpoint, Israeli border police stopped and questioned a man carrying a
computer. A civilian police officer examined the computer, took out a couple
of parts, and after five or ten minutes, allowed the Palestinian to go on.

Friday 23 November

Friesen, Frederick, Hicks, and Lynes joined other internationals and Israeli
partners B'nei Avraham and Ta'ayush in digging and planting on the Jabari
land close to the main entrance to Kiryat Arba. Settlers, police, and army
observed the twenty or thirty activists working the land. One settler with
a video camera engaged one of the activists in Hebrew. He thanked them for
working the land for the settlers, according to one of the activists. One
settler, stopping his car, called out the window in Hebrew, translated by
the activists, "I hope God strikes you and your children dead by tonight."

After the other CPTers left, Lynes waited outside Kiryat Arba Police Station
for the release of Jonathan Stucky, who, with three Palestinian farmers from
At-Tuwani, had been taken in for questioning. Stucky and the farmers were
released after about three hours.

Frederick and Lynes went on a patrol around 5:00 p.m. On the way back, a
soldier stopped them as they were about to go through the Bab il-Khan,
telling them that "new orders" specified that only TIPH (Temporary
International Presence Hebron) and those living in the building across the
street could use that gate. He said he would allow the CPTers to pass
through, just for today. Lynes said he was "sorry to be a nuisance," but he
would not be obeying those orders. The soldier said that these were his
commander's orders, and he was only a "small soldier." Lynes said he
understood, that he was a soldier once, too.

Saturday 24 November

Hicks joined the CPT delegation for a tour of unrecognized villages of the
Bedouin in the Negev, inside Israel. Israeli authorities are demolishing
Bedouin homes in these unrecognized villages, part of an effort to force
them to move to urban areas set up especially for them, and off their
ancestral lands. The Bedouin resist these efforts to move them. When some
of the villages petitioned the Israeli authorities for water services, the
authorities told them their problem would be solved if they moved to the
townships provided for them by the government.