4 o'clock Saturday afternoon May 21st, the Orthodox Jewish Sabbath, was the day and time that had been meticulously organized for more than half a hundred Israeli anti-"piece" process activists and - it was hoped - members of the international press corps to visit several beleaguered Palestinian families living in the menacing shadow of the small ridge top Hebron inner city settlement of Tel Rumeida. The aim and hope of the "visitations" were that the Israelis and the journalists would carry the story of the settlers' stepped up campaign of ferocious harassment of their defenseless neighbors to a vast poorly informed portion of the world, including, of course, the United States and Europe . The Orthodox Sabbath was picked as a kind of exhibit "A" because that's the day when violent ultra nationalist ultra orthodox settlers very often ratchet up their frightening attacks on their subjugated neighbors. Too true this time. Too true.
The increased malign settler pressure began earlier this spring immediately after the Israeli military announced its intentions to wrest a new for-settlers-only road from soon to be expropriated Palestinian property The Palestinians immediately launched an ongoing legal effort to stop the action. The projected road is to cut about a quarter of a mile downhill through Palestinian gardens, orchards, and a Muslim cemetery in order to link Tel Rumeida more directly to Shuhada Street, the main settler only thoroughfare, along which the other three small inner city settlements of Beit Hadassah, Beit Romano, and Avraham Avinu are situated . Shuhada Street is the broad avenue rebuilt with US AID (Agency For International Development) funds: in other words US tax payer dollars. H2 is the sector of Hebron awarded to Israel by a clarifying post Oslo protocol in 1997. About 45,000 Palestinians live there while about 105,000 Palestinians live in H1, the larger part of the city. H1 was given over to the Palestinian Authority to run, but was later reoccupied The perhaps as many as 450 settler living in H2 year round are protected by about 2,000 to 3,000 soldiers and border police stationed in outposts next to the settlements, checkpoints and on top of adjacent Palestinian buildings. Shuhada street was rebuilt by US AID to benefit both Palestinians and Israeli settlers. But in 2002 the street was ruled off limits to all Palestinians except those actually living in the areas adjacent to the settlements.
It is a sad ironic truth that historically the more convenient the military makes life for settlers on stolen Palestinian land and the more those facts go unreported consistently in the international press the more difficult life becomes for Palestinians living on and around them. Conditions created by this projected road will be no exception. Unreported and unmonitored in the West It will separate, isolate and compound the difficulty Palestinians residents living in the Tel Rumeida area endure each day when they try to leave or return without incident to their strangulated abodes.
So what good is the ceasefire that was negotiated last February if the theft of Palestinian land in order to enlarge the amount of West Bank territory in Israeli hands continues unabated? Not much, of course. But that is what is happening and at a furious pace. So where the occupation and its relentless whittling away of Palestinian property is concerned there's something about attempted truth telling, there's something about trying to shed factual illuminating light into repressive dark corners that inspires and ignites stone walling and rage-embedded resistance to fact finding in the hearts and minds of both the Israeli military and settler extremists it is their duty to protect.
That certainly was the case this time. CPT, other internationals, their Israeli and Palestinian partner organizers, which included the courageous families to be visited, made no secret of their intent to get the word out. So early on - in the fairly extensive planning and arranging stage -- the Israeli army, border police, and local Israeli police became very much aware of the impending event but not its specifics. So they made plans of their own to abort it.
The Israeli activist leaders, many of whom we have worked alongside for years, planned to provide other interested Israelis with the novel experience of breaking the law and venturing far into the West Bank. Israeli law, rules and regulations forbid Israelis who are not settlers from entering Palestinian territory. The plan also was to arrive on scene early, the leaders sensing that they might have trouble even getting near H2. Their motivation to succeed if at all possible was succinctly put by one Israeli activist who said, "We know Israel has pain. But ours is a moral pain and is not like the Palestinians pain of terrible loss. That is much worse. So we must do something about our moral pain to help with their pain of loss."
But despite carefully thought out plans A, B. C. etc. at least one of which it was hoped would ensure success, and despite the Israelis early start, they did indeed encounter impossible to overcome difficulties. Those who tried to get close to H2 in private vehicles found that the entrances to Kiryat Arba settlement through which they hoped to pass had been ordered closed to them. When asked "why" a soldier guard said, "because the leftist are coming. So we must stop them."
Some of the Israelis, however, guided by land savvy Palestinians were able to find ways to get near H2 by driving there on bumpy often jarring back roads and side streets. Other creative Israeli activists drove part way, parked at a major army road block several miles to the north, climbed over it and then rode the rest of the way to town in Palestinian jitneys or taxis.
But even though thirty two Israelis did make it deep into Hebron, they were quickly repulsed and arrested before they could make it all the way into the heart of H2. The military clearly meant business. So by 4pm only a handful of Internationals, their Palestinian organizer colleagues and just a couple of Israelis made it all the way to H2's border. No Israelis, however, made it to a prime visitation destination, a house that is caught between the rock of the adjacent Israeli Tel Rumeida military outpost and the hard place that is a former Palestinian home taken over quite some time ago by Tel Rumeida settler thugs perpetually bent on making life frighteningly miserable for their Palestinian neighbors.
Thugs? Some time ago it was observed to one of the militant settler marauders of Tel Rumeida that none of them seemed to have jobs. He smugly replied. "We don't have to work. We are supported with money from America." As a result there is plenty of time for him to prey on his neighbors. Thugs? One Israeli soldier guarding the entrance to the settlement who definitely does not like his duty, whispered to me. "These settler people are savages."
The old settler-commandeered Palestinian home hovers sneeringly over a stone wall, which separates it from the Palestinians' grape arbor. The dwellings and the outposts are crowded together cul-de-sac-like at the end of Tel Rumeida Street, the most direct route on foot to H1 about a ten minute walk away. However, the Palestinian family living there can't go that way. Their tall heavy metal gate blocking the way into their mini-compound of house, garden, and grape arbor is useless to them these days. It was locked from the outside quite some time ago by the Israeli military. So soldiers can access the Palestinian property when ever they want, while the Palestinians, of course, to get to H1 where all their shopping must be done can't go out the gate anymore. Instead they have to go on foot out an unprotected much longer back way, the first part of the circuitous route over winding rocky uphill downhill paths which however, are not off limits to harassing settlers.
Also making it in was a television crew from Al Jazeera whose presence provoked a series of ever worsening quarrels involving the military, settlers, the family and about ten internationals who along with Palestinian activist colleagues had stealthily made their way in via a variety of soldier-and-settler-avoiding streets, alleys and paths. The one sided altercations began as we sat waiting for more arrivals on a delightfully breezy porch drinking inevitably and politely proffered tea while a CPTer was being interviewed by Al Jazeera. Family members had already told their stories. Then another CPTer received an encouraging cell phone call from three Swedish journalists who said they had made it past Israeli check points to a previously agreed upon rendezvous about two hundred yards downhill from our host's house; but they weren't quite sure how to proceed. Several settlers, they said, whose intentions they could not fathom were hovering about. So it was agreed that two of us would go and lead them back to the house. But as we started to walk out of our Palestinian host's garden a patrol of Israeli soldiers walked in.
(To be continued)