Animals

Last Sunday we went to Hebron.

Hebron is the second oldest city in the West Bank, as well as the largest, at 170,000 residents. It is the southern West Bank's commercial hub, bustling with shops and lights and falafel.

What makes Hebron particularly remarkable are the 600 or so Israeli settlers that have moved into the middle of the city. Normally settlers are given economic incentives to settle militarily strategic hilltops or valuable territory above the water table in the West Bank -- land outside of existing Palestinian cities. The settlers in Hebron, though, are ideological settlers, settling entirely of their own accord in order to claim the entirety of the Biblical land of Israel for the Jews so as to accelerate the coming of the Messiah.

You'll find many Christian fanatics support the State of Israel for the same reason -- only after Temple Mount, currently a Muslim holy site in Old Jerusalem, is cleansed of its heathen monuments (namely Al Aqsa Mosque), can the Messiah come/return.

Oh man.

Hebron is particularly important to such fanataics, as it happens to play host to the second most holy site for Jews, the Cave of Machpelah (a.ka. the Cave of the Patriarchs, i.e. the burial place of Adam, Eve, Abraham, Isaac, Joseph...you get the idea -- if Judeo-Christian mythology is anything it's geographically economical). With this in mind, several hundred of these ideological settlers have decided to take over the Old City, once Hebron's commercial center, by building houses on top of Palestinian shops. Literally. Like directly on top of them. First floor Palestinian fruit vendor. Second floor Isreali settler.

Of course the Muslims are not about to just hand over the city. Not only is Hebron a major economic capital, but the Cave of Machpelah itself is known to Muslims as the Ibrahimi Mosque, their fourth most holy site after Mecca, Medina, and Al Aqsa Mosque. Some slight tension over this site, as you might imagine. So much so that in 1994, one of these ideological Israeli settlers, Baruch Goldstein (American-born, like a significant portion of settlement population), entered the Ibrahimi Mosque on a Friday (the Muslim sabbath) during Ramadan (their holiest month), and opened fire, killing 29 and injuring 300 before the surviving worshipers took him down. Rumor has it that the settlers have built him a memorial, though Gabriella and I didn't get to see it.

It should be noted that before 1994, Hamas had sworn only to target military infrastructure and personnel. After the Goldstein massacre, Hamas declared the Israeli civilian population fair game, and began its infamous suicide bombing campaigns. Of course, despite Hamas' blatant targeting of civilians, the IDF still achieves a higher ratio of civilians vs. combatants killed -- 3 Palestinian civilians for every one combatant killed by the IDF, compared to 2 Israeli civilians for every one soldier killed by the Palestinians, according to the major Israeli human rights organization B'tselem.

Memorial or not, Goldstein's violent fanaticism still echoes in Hebron. Not only have the settlers built their own houses above Palestinian shops, and are continually taking over buildings left empty by the Second Intifada (which are supposed to be off-limits to all by IDF military order), but they are also known to be hugely violent, throwing stones at Palestinian children on their way to school, dumping garbage and feces from the windows of their homes onto the heads of Palestinians in the marketplace below, etc. This latter problem has become so great that the IDF had to construct metal netting over the Palestinian markets, in order to protect the Palestinians from everything the settlers were throwing at them. Even this hasn't deterred them, though. As Gabriella and I walked through the souk and looked up at the wire grid above our heads, we saw it was still littered with countless beer bottles, cinder blocks, and other would-be deadly trash.

Under the auspices of maintaining order, the IDF have divided the city into two areas, H1 and H2. H1 is technically under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority, an Area A classification according to the Oslo Accords, though the Palestinian police force is only allowed to be armed in an area about a 10th the size of the city and the IDF make multiple incursions each day, technically a violation of Oslo, but who's counting. H2 is under the direct authority of the IDF, Area C classification, meaning no Palestinian police force exists there. This portion of the city is home of course to the settlers, but also to 30,000 Palestinians, leaving them with basically no one to go to when settlers attack. The IDF are charged with protecting settler and Palestinian alike, but are known to generally stand around and watch in most instances.

In the areas of H2 where the settlers live, Palestinians are not allowed to travel by car, putting a severe crimp in the economy there. In some places, they aren't allowed at all. These areas, including what used to be the main street in the Old City, now resemble a ghost town, shops closed down (1,829 shops closed total), their merchandise locked inside, untouchable, with Jewish stars spray painted on storefront after storefront by the settlers. I know the comparison is forbidden, but seeing them we were reminded of the swastikas Nazis would paint on Jewish stores in Germany in the weeks leading up to Kristallnacht. Sure enough, amongst some of the other graffiti we saw was, "Gas the Arabs."

Twenty checkpoints surround the city of Hebron, and 100 can be found within it. IDF posts have been built on the corner of literally every street and building surrounding the settlements -- you cannot walk more than 100m without seeing a soldier peering out from behind his concrete barricade, or peering down from his camouflage nest, reminders of the terrible violence of the Second Intifada which once raged here. Hebron was hit hard.

On one street in this ghost town area, the only sign of life was an off-duty IDF soldier out jogging in shorts and a t-shirt. It was perhaps the most beautifully ironic and symbolic image we've come across on our trip so far.

We were able to see and learn so much about the situation in Hebron thanks to a tour and info presentation given to us by the lovely people at TIPH -- the Temporary International Presence in Hebron (www.tiph.org). This organization was created in 1994 as part of the Oslo Accords, partially in reaction to the Goldstein Massacre. Its mandate comes dually from the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the State of Israel. Both parties, under the supervision of the six other nations who sponsor the organization -- Italy, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Turkey, Switzerland -- renew the TIPH mandate every six months, which is to observe the IDF, settlers, and Palestinians in Hebron, and make reports to the six nations, the PA and Israel about anything that needs to be addressed. These reports are not public, but serve to aid in the peace process. They are completely impartial. Indeed TIPH staff have been attacked by settlers and Palestinians alike. And they're awesome. I love the Swedes.

After our tour with TIPH, Gabriella and I were anxious to get back to the Old City and talk to the settlers and the Palestinians they daily harass (TIPH has made over 14,000 reports since 1994, an average of three per day). We were also starving. Unfortunately, by this time it was already about four or five o'clock, and most of the shopkeepers in the Old City were closing up and getting ready to go home to break the Ramadan fast with their families. Muslims aren't allowed to eat or drink all day this month, until the evening when they have a feast of sorts. This is bad news for us tourist types, though, as few restaurants are ever open. And since everyone was packing up to go home, there were fewer and fewer people to interview as well.

All but defeated, stomachs empty, Gabriella and I found ourselves walking up one nearly deserted street, when a white minivan with an ice cream cone painted on the door pulled up beside us. The Palestinian at the wheel shouted at us, "Hi...are you...do you need any help?" I replied, hoping perhaps to get directions to a restaurant somewhere, "We're trying to find a place to eat." He stopped the van and said, "Oh, well hop in, you can come home with us and eat at our house?"

"What??? No...."

"Yes! Of course.

"No...."

"Why not?"

His elderly mother smiled at us invitingly from the back seat, while his brother in the front passenger seat nodded in encouragement.

Gabriella and I looked at each other. Okay...adventure part 89.

The man behind the wheel we would later learn is named Rafat. He's 30 years old, and helps run his father's ice cream factory. He loves ice cream. He has book after book on it, on freezing processes, on recipes, on ice cream marketing. He's gone back to school at Al Quds University to get his degree in Food Sciences. He loves ice cream.

Rafat also loves his two beautiful children, a mischievous two-year-old boy named Ahmed, and an adorable eight-month-old girl named Batul. And Rafat loves his wife, May, who is already a month pregnant with their third, bless her heart. When Rafat learned that Gabriella and I didn't have plans for children any time soon, he quickly whisked me away to the master bedroom of their house and slipped me a bottle of some of his favorite cologne, which I think he believed would readily fix our barrenness.

Rafat lost his best friend in the 1994 Goldstein Massacre, 18 years old at the time. He said he did not cry, he did not become sad. He only became angry. After fourteen years, it was still difficult for him to get even that much out.

Rafat fought in the Second Intifada, though luckily he wasn't hurt, aside from a day's hospital stay for gas inhalation.

Rafat now wants nothing more than to make ice cream. His only questions for us about New York was how far was it to the nearest ice cream factory, and did we happen to know any special American ice cream formulas. I told him I had no idea where the ice cream factories were, but my best guess was that maybe they were four hours outside of New York City, upstate somewhere perhaps, or in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, etc. He was appalled. "Four hours! That's like from here all the way up to Jenin!"

We sat down to dinner with Rafat and his wife and kids and his two firecracker sisters, who constantly said I looked like the Turkish TV star Mohanned (riiiiight...), which despite its ridiculousness made Gabriella rather jealous. They insisted Gabriella and I eat the entirety of the only chicken they had, and stuffed us with rice, salad, pickles, olives, beans, soup, bread...and later fruit, soda (they bought a bottle of Sprite just for Gabriella), tea, and coffee. They insisted that we come back the next evening to eat dinner at Rafat's mother's house (sadly we wouldn't be in the area anymore), and that we stay the night even (sadly we needed to get back to Jerusalem to pack). We exchanged email addresses, and Rafat said to me as we were leaving, "John, I want you to know, here, when someone eats at your house, this person is like a brother now. You understand?"

They were perhaps the nicest people we've ever met. I couldn't imagine ever being taken into anyone else's home like that, out of nowhere. I couldn't imagine myself taking in a stranger like that, either. Though that attitude toward others of complete generosity and brotherhood is something we've found to be true of just about every Palestinian we've come across. Shop owners who, in failing to be able to give us directions somewhere in English, just take us themselves. Or who close up shop entirely to show us the Wall. Tour guides who treat us to coffee and tea in their home. Students who offer to bring entire meals into class. Our Arabic teacher who personally makes us Arabic coffee every class so that caffeine withdrawal doesn't dull our intellect. Such good people.

It reminded me in a way of a story told to us by one of our latest interviewees, a founding member of Combatants for Peace (www.combatantsforpeace.org). He recounted for us a story told to him by one of the Palestinian members of the organization.

This Palestinian man had been sent to Iraq to fly in Saddam Hussein's airforce during the Iraqi bombings of the Kurds. He was given a mission to fly over a Kurdish area and drop some sort of chemical or biological weapon. Fly that way, press a button, fly back. Simple. Easy. A video game.

Nevertheless, as he approached his target, the Palestinian man radioed base and notified his commanders that he would refuse to carry out his orders.

He was charged with treason and sentenced to death while still in the air.

Fortunately Yassir Arafat, president of the Palestinian Authority at the time, was able to bargain for the Palestinian pilot's life, and he lived to tell the story.

The ex-IDF Israeli who told us all this was particularly affected by it because his father was an IDF airforce pilot, and the man he looked up to most in his life. Yet he could not imagine his father doing that, knowingly sentencing himself to death in order to save others, when all he had to do was click a button. He couldn't imagine himself doing it either. As a soldier in the IDF he had carried out countless orders he didn't agree with, when the penalty might have been maybe a small fine, a court marshal at best. Meeting this Palestinian, an enemy combatant, who had running through him a deeper moral fiber than he himself could conceive of, was almost too much for him.

And, to a much lesser extent of course, I think I sort of know how he feels. I walk around all these cities and meet all these people and I can't help but think that they are in many ways simply better human beings than I, better than I know how to be. Despite the settlers, the checkpoints, the poverty, the war. Resilience doesn't begin to describe it.

As we were leaving Hebron, we encountered a fairly long wait at one of the checkpoints on the way back to Jerusalem. Enter a caged area, maybe three at a time, have your bags x-rayed, take off your belt, step through the metal detector, flash your visa or Jerusalem ID at the 18-year-old blonde IDF soldier behind the bulletproof glass when her disembodied voice beckons you over the loudspeaker. Wait again for her to remotely unlock the other side of the cage. Proceed to another long line -- maybe a dozen stations but only one soldier manning them, creating a bottleneck. If you're Palestinian, scan your hand on some fingerprint identification machine. Flash your visa again. This time the soldier is talking simultaneously on the station phone and her cellphone, ignoring you for several minutes before she bothers to glance at your paperwork. Finally receive permission to proceed onto Jerusalem, which the paper you hold in your hand says you've had all along.

The Palestinian on line in front of us turned as we were leaving and said, "Like animals they treat us. Like animals. Why?"

After Hebron we spent a couple days in Eilat, Israel's version of Miami, on the tip of the Red Sea, followed by a couple days in Petra, Jordan. Now we're in Tel Aviv for about a week. More interviews. More later.

Much love,
John