A not particularly vast block of stone-but large enough-stands at an Israeli military check point in Hebron. It helps control access to the area between the large settlement of secular and religious ultra nationalist Jews on Hebron's eastern edge called Kiryat Arba, and the special security zone, established by Israel' s Ministry of Defense in the heart of Hebron's Old City. The security zone surrounds the ancient Ibrahimi Mosque known in Israeli circles as the Tomb of the Patriarchs.
On one side of the sentinel stone these words appear:
"1. Life
2. Short
3. Years
4. What?
...........Ira"
The cynicism was probably inscribed one dreary day not too long ago by a skeptical-or at least terribly confused-Israeli sentry-soldier. And ever since the blood letting events of Friday evening, November 15, I have been pondering trooper Ira's words endlessly-especially the last ones: "4. What?"
For what indeed those "3. Years" of mandatory military service required of most young Israeli men and women!?
Many people over here and back home are insisting that the clearly brave Israelis who died in the fierce gun battle just down the hill from Kiryat Arba's southernmost entrance were killed in an unhesitating defense of their country. That would be strictly true, if one considers the West Bank and Gaza dejure districts of the State of Israel.
However, for those who view Israel's military rule over the territories as an internationally unsanctioned and unrecognized defacto condition-and therefore illegitimate-the best that they can say is that those nevertheless unyielding Israeli deaths were incurred not in defense of their country but on behalf of a colonialist ideological tail wagging a virtually helpless dog-a dog that has been and is being penned and hemmed in by cold and equally unyielding ideologues.
And 4. What?
Contrary to first reports in the domestic and international press, no unarmed civilians were killed or wounded or came under attack. Kiryat Arba's Friday evening November 15th worshippers had already been escorted safely back home. So complaints of terrorism don't hold water; most of the Israeli causalities were either Israeli soldiers or Israeli Border Policemen returning from their successful mission of protection.
However, given the axiom concerning the staying power of first dispatches from the field, Benjamin Netanyhu is having his way, and the skirmish is being remembered massively as a "massacre" of unarmed worshippers by terrorists instead of the military/guerilla engagement, which even Ariel Sharon admits it was.
So 4. What?
Sharon, now in the midst of a reelection campaign, can afford to be big about the difference, because the episode has provided him with a potentially powerful vote winning opportunity to initiate a personally touted land grab scheme in Hebron, which, although hatched by him several years ago, nevertheless has needed a very big pretext to get it going. Now he's got it.
Once it gets rolling it will involve a new wave of home demolitions and land expropriations. The result will be a significant leap in settlement expansion within a to-be-established ulcer-like band of newly expropriated territory in the Old City. It will stretch westward along a route from Kiryat Arba's southern gate to the Ibrahimi Mosque/Tomb Of The Patriarchs structure a quarter mile away and then continue on from there for another half mile.
The enlarged Israeli area will absorb and more securely connect Hebron's ultra nationalist inner city settlements to Kiryat Arba. Isolated behind high thick cement walls the contemporary Carcassone will swallow up scores of Palestinian apartments, homes, and shops long coveted and repeatedly harassed by settlers who, more often than not have been abetted by soldiers and police. The finished project will effectively divide a significant section of the old city into a kind of Buda and Pest.
Again 4. What?
Sharon has described the desired result of this scimitar-shaped multi-gated fortress community as providing the means for "contiguity" between the six thousand residents of Kiryat Arba and the four hundred fifty residents of the several tiny inner city settlements. Of course, throughout the rest of the West Bank and Gaza, Israel has created the opposite condition: a garroting-like discontiguity between every Palestinian village, town, and city-enforced and perpetuated by cement, boulder, and earthen road blocks intended to prevent unregulated entrance or exit. The barricades are augmented where and when necessary by the military.
Does anyone remember that Sharon's current highly and publicly valued notion of "contiguity" with respect to Jewish neighborhoods in the heart of Hebron contradicts Israel's stance at the Camp David separation negotiations in the summer of 2000? Back then Israeli leaders, including Sharon, as well as U. S. officials were highly critical of Palestine generally and Yassir Arafat specifically for refusing to make even a counter proposal to Israel's so-called "generous offer" of bits and pieces of discontiguous land?
Finally 4. What?
Ironically as far as many of the settlers of Kiryat Arba and the handful living in the center of the old city are concerned, Sharon's dream is not theirs. They want the two districts enlarged and contiguous alright, but they do not want the walls. In their view the walls will create an ironic and therefore unacceptable "ghettoized" condition too reminiscent of recent and more ancient Jewish history. However, they would be happy to accept the creation of the Buda and Pest condition described above minus the palisades, which would be replaced by human shields-several thousand more soldiers and Border Policeman assigned to protect them than are in the area now.
Their job would be to banish Hebron's 130,000 Palestinians to their homes in what is becoming almost perpetual curfew. That curfew, by the way, means that school has been "out" for Hebron's education starved youngsters ever since the attack and is not scheduled to resume until the end of the week. Food and other supplies have been running low. And hospitals and pharmacies have been difficult to reach.
In addition to those constraints and restraints-abetted by Sharon and the Israeli Army, despite the differences outlined above-Kiryat Arba's settlers have already been allowed by the Occupation's military rulers to establish and inhabit a heavily protected outpost on newly seized Palestinian land at precisely the spot where the Shabbat assault took place. Each day it is growing larger and considerably more ominous for Palestinian families living within its expanding orbit.
That's 4. What?
Demolition orders have already been issued for the removal of at least ten homes standing in the way of the construction of the new walls. Some date back to the medieval era. So history as well as homes are on the verge of being unilaterally sacrificed in order to provide what is being described as a "promenade" for Kiryat Arba's orthodox worshipers; their religious practice dictating that they walk not ride during Shabbat.
Until now the word "promenade" has conjured up for me such blithe and nostalgically pleasant images as the Easter Parade; sun drenched strolls on the Board Walk at Atlantic City or Central Park; elegant 19th century top-hatted and parasoled boulevardiers relaxing Seurat-like along the banks of the Seine, or Christopher Robin going down with Alice to view the always festive and ceremonial changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. So, I simply cannot reconcile my understanding of the word "promenade" with Sharon's. The thought of anyone actually proceeding gaily along his new corridor-knowing that on either side of it other human beings are being obliged to live like caged animals in a sideshow-is, to say the least, unspeakably bizarre.