Settler harassment in Hebron and At-Tuwani

Blocked street, closed shops, settler trash

Harassment of Palestinians in Hebron is flagrant. The immediately visible signs are blocked streets on which Palestinians cannot ever travel, hundreds of Palestinian shops that have  been closed, and huge nets to catch all the trash and garbage thrown down on the Palestinian shopping  street from the Jewish families in the apartments above.

Sundos Al-Hada

Sundos Al-Hada, a 19-year-old Palestinian in the Youth Against Settlements group, knows at least one case of a person wounded by acid thrown down by the settlers. One settler put a stone in her younger brother's mouth in an attempt to kill him, but was never prosecuted. In a separate incident, a settler tried to run her brother down, then beat him, and told police it  was she who beat the settler. She was arrested for five hours.

Sundos told us there are 5,000 soldiers protecting the 400 Jewish residents in the old city of Hebron, and there are some kind ones and some  bad ones. The latter do anything they want; they  scare school children with sound bombs and attack teachers. The Youth Against Settlements run summer camps for kids who can never get out of their homes, fix up Palestinian homes, and lead non-violent demonstrations for freedom of movement.

David Wilder

I asked David Wilder, the pistol-packing U.S.-born spokesman for the Jewish community of Hebron, to comment on the pattern of persistent harassment identified by human rights organizations. He actually said the reports are not objective and overly exaggerated, because the groups are controlled  by Arabs! With respect to movement restrictions, he complained that he has access to only 3% of the city while Arabs have access to 97%  of it. He said Arabs and Israelis lived in harmony in Hebron before the 1929 massacre of 67 Jews, and that Jews "came home" starting in 1967. He told us Arabs shot into his house from the hills and narrowly missed killing his son. He said they found Arabs had desecrated a Hebron synagogue by using it as a sheep pen, and it took six months to clean it out. (The story reminded me of the appalling desecration of the church in Bassa by Jews using it as a cattle  barn, which we heard about yesterday.)  I welcomed David's comments that "I think we take too much money from the United States," and "I oppose the wall."

Village of At-Tuwani, with new school built by community at left, and Jewish settlement at right skyline

Hafez Hareni

In the sheep-raising village of At-Tuwani south of Hebron, non-violence leader Hafez Hareni told us that every family experiences violence and harassment from nearby Jewish settlers. Every day they harass children on their way to school, and every week there is a house or cistern demolition and cutting of olive trees. Settlers have poisoned more than 100 of their sheep. Hafez says the settlers are the most violent and aggressive of all, and conduct physical attacks on men, women, and children, trying to make life harder so they will leave. His first experience with them was when he was 12: settlers beat up his brother and he ran away. His community's non-violent demonstrations, legal work, and international pressure have had positive results: they stopped a separation wall from being built, and the High Court allowed 13 removed villages to come back. Hafez has been arrested for a month at a time after demonstrations, but he remains committed to the non-violent path. We met some international observers from Italy's Project Dove, who provide a protective presence.

Kefah Al-Ahdra

After we picked a few olives, we heard from Kefah Al-Ahdra that seven women of the village got together nine years ago to form a handicraft cooperative, which is looking for markets for its beautiful hand-embroidered products. She says this opened new horizons for the women, who have few rights, are poorly educated, and had traditional roles of working the land and raising families. Women of At-Tuwani linked arms a few years ago in a successful non-violent demonstration to ensure that an electric power project would not bypass their village. Then the women worked days and the men evenings to build the new school and health center, improving the community's quality of life.

I was impressed by the community's resilience and its non-violent approach, and promised to tell the story to all who would listen.