Shuhada Street: Perspectives

By Doron Isaacs

Below is a debate on Shuhada Street in Hebron. The first article is written by Daniel Mackintosh and Karla Green. They are both members of Open Shuhada Street, a description of which is given in their article. The article's depiction of the current reality is as I experienced it on a few visits to the street. The second article is by David Saks, associate director of the SA Jewish Board of Deputies. Below the two articles you will find my comments on Saks' piece which point out basic errors of fact and logic, as well as a few tricks of the propagandist trade. If you've already read both articles, scroll to the bottom now.

Contents

• Shuhada: The road less travelled by Daniel Mackintosh and Karla Green in Times newspaper
• Response by David Saks of the SA Jewish Board of Deputies in Times newspaper
• Reply by Doron Isaacs to David Saks

Shuhada: The road less travelled

Reopening Shuhada Street will be just one step on the path to peace in the occupied West Bank - but an important one, write Karla Green and Daniel Mackintosh

The Nelson Mandela Anti-Apartheid Archive notes that international solidarity for democracy in South Africa "was arguably the biggest social movement the world has seen".

Leading up to 1994, almost every country had some anti-apartheid activity ranging from sports and cultural boycotts to arms embargoes and economic sanctions.

While academic debate on the extent that these actions played in bringing down apartheid differs, there is consensus that non-violent, non-racial, human rights-based protest founded on a concern for the future of all South Africans played an important part in isolating the apartheid regime and strengthening pro-democracy forces.

Many groups attempt to create simplistic analogies that portray Israel and the apartheid regime as mirror images of each other. Often, the ensuing debate ends up distorting the historical experience of Jews and Palestinians and serves to deflect attention from the real human rights violations that occur on a daily basis in the West Bank.

The violation of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, however, which includes house demolitions, illegal land expropriation, separate roads and unequal access to water, is systematic and carried out with the tacit or active support of the Israeli state.

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel, one of Israel's largest human rights organisations, has the following to say about Israeli policy in the West Bank in their State of Human Rights in Israel and the Occupied Territories Report 2009: "Within the same territorial boundaries and under the same regime, two populations live side by side, with entirely separate infrastructure and bound by two systems of justice which are entirely separate and fundamentally dissimilar."

Shuhada Street in Hebron used to be the most important commercial road in this city of 170000 people.

It was closed following a massacre on February 25 1994, when Dr Baruch Goldstein, an Israeli immigrant from the US, walked into the Ibrahimi Mosque and opened fire, killing 29 people and wounding 150. In response to fears of revenge attacks, the Israeli army instituted its official policy of separation throughout Hebron, including the closure of Shuhada Street to Palestinian vehicle and pedestrian traffic.

To this day, the street remains open to Israelis and tourists but closed to Palestinians. In a video on YouTube, local resident Zlikha Muhtasseb describes how her home has been repeatedly stoned by Israeli settlers.

In order to visit the cemetery on the other side of the street, Zlikha has to take a 30- minute detour, because the army will not allow her to exit through her front door.

Other Palestinian residents of the street are forced to climb over their rooftops to go to the local market.

Badia Dwaik, who lives in Hebron, refers to the importance of Shuhada Street in the daily life of Palestinians - it used to house the main bus and gas stations, and support agricultural markets for the whole area, including the villages surrounding Hebron. Badia recounts that more than 600 shops were closed by military order when the street was shut down.

In 1997 the Hebron Protocol divided Hebron into two areas: H1 under Palestinian control and H2 under Israeli control. H2 has a population of approximately 30000 Palestinians and 800 Israeli Jews. The Jewish settlers are protected by 500 Israeli soldiers.

Ever since the start of the second intifada in September 2000, Palestinians in H2 have often lived under curfew enforced by the Israeli army. As a result of sustained harassment of locals by the army and settlers, many Palestinians have decided to leave.

According to video footage released by B'tselem, an Israeli NGO documenting the human rights abuses in the OPT, fundamentalist settlers view this exodus as part of a broader strategy to empty the West Bank of Palestinians and establish Jewish settlements in their place. This would make an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank (and hence a two state solution) near impossible.

When Israeli leaders defend the occupation in the name of all Jews and attempt to silence voices of dissent, it is detrimental to efforts to build bridges and combat all forms of racism, including anti-semitism.

We know that many Jewish people have close family and personal ties to Israel and feel attacked when Israel is criticised, but the root of this pain is the ugly reality on the ground and until this changes, the criticism will intensify.

Aggressive rhetoric is not unique to Jewish organisations, however. Extreme Islamic groups have actively supported suicide attacks on Israelis through media and financial campaigns and it is incumbent on all people who shun racism to vigorously oppose anti-semitism, Islamaphobia and incitement to violence.

Missing from the current discourse around Israel/Palestine is an international movement that sidelines the extremists from both camps and places human rights at the centre of the debate while simultaneously supporting all peaceful attempts to bring an end to the occupation.

Open Shuhada Street, an international campaign with South African roots, is holding protest actions in 30 cities around the world, including Tel Aviv, Sydney, New York and Prague.

We are supporting the call from residents of Shuhada Street, such as Badia and Zlikha, as well as a range of Israeli and Palestinian activist organisations, to stand in solidarity with their campaign calling on the Israeli government to open Shuhada Street to both Israelis and Palestinians; grant full civil rights for all; and end the occupation.

Badia had this to say as a message of support to all those who are participating in OSS actions worldwide: "Many people's experiences teach us that a large victory begins with small victories."

We hope that opening Shuhada Street will be one such victory - a step towards a just resolution to the conflict.

~*~

The other side of the street

Mutual respect should be the basis for bridging the divide in Hebron, writes David Saks

Karla Green and Daniel Mackintosh's article of February 25 ("The road less travelled") makes an impassioned call for the reopening of Hebron's Shuhada Street, thereby giving the Palestinian population free access once more to what was once one of the city's main thoroughfares.

This, they believe, would represent a small but important step in freeing the West Bank as a whole from Israeli control and bringing about "a just resolution to the conflict".

Green and Mackintosh are not altogether wrong. The entire Hebron situation, and not just the Shuhada Street question, is indeed profoundly dysfunctional, impacting negatively on the day-to-day life of much of the city's population.

Where they err is in their rigidly partisan apportionment of who is to blame. In their view, it is Hebron's 800 Jewish residents (backed by the Israeli military) who are the villains of the piece, and the 150000 Palestinians who are the victims.

As is so often the case with activists for a particular political cause, there are no nuances and no shades of grey.

However, the real world seldom works that way, and Hebron is no exception.

The obvious question to ask is why Shuhada Street was closed in the first place. Contrary to what the writers suggest, it was not exclusively due to the actions of a lone Israeli psychopath, Baruch Goldstein, who in 1994 went on the rampage at a local mosque and shot dead 29 Palestinians. There had also been numerous attacks, some of them fatal, on the small Jewish population by equally ruthless Palestinian fanatics.

Also left unmentioned is the fact that Shuhada Street was in fact reopened in 2000 and closed once more later that year following the eruption of the so-called "second intifada", a sustained campaign of orchestrated violence indiscriminately aimed at Israeli soldiers and civilians alike.

Can Palestinians reasonably claim to be victims of Israeli "apartheid" because of Israel's stringent security policies when it has been their own actions that brought those measures about?

This fraught situation has effectively resulted in Hebron's miniscule Jewish population being confined to a ghetto for its own safety.

Palestinians have free access to almost all of Hebron and Jewish Israelis to only 3%. Who, then, are the real victims?

Justice for the people of Hebron is surely not just about opening Shuhada Street to Palestinians; it must, equally, be about giving Jewish Hebronites full - and safe - access to the entire city, and not just to a tiny, closed-off enclave.

One also looks in vain in Green-Mackintosh's analysis for even a passing reference to why Hebron is so very important to Jews. This is arguably the oldest Jewish city in the world, one with an unbroken Jewish presence right up until 1929, when a pogrom by the local Arab population briefly left it without any Jews.

As the burial site of the Jewish patriarchs and matriarchs (Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob and Leah), the ancestors of the Jewish people, it is regarded as the second-holiest place in Judaism after Jerusalem.

Why, then, are those few Jews who, at great risk and cost to themselves, choose to live there, depicted as illegal aliens whose very presence is an obstacle to peace?

Lest I be accused in turn of being just as partisan as Green and Mackintosh, only from the other perspective, let me stress that I have the gravest reservations over the behaviour of many of the Jewish Hebronites.

None, fortunately, has gone to anything like the barbarous lengths of Baruch Goldstein, but many have taken advantage of the protection afforded them by Israeli soldiers to engage in numerous provocative, intimidatory and occasionally violent actions against their Palestinian neighbors.

This includes daubing offensive graffiti on Palestinian shops and stoning Palestinian bystanders.

Even those who, like myself, strongly believe in the right of Hebron's Jews to be there, cannot fail to be dismayed by such thuggish and ultimately self-defeating behaviour. It is certainly not an excuse to retort that many Hebron Palestinians are guilty of the same thing.

What is ultimately needed on each side is a recognition of the other's historical, cultural and religious roots in this troubled city. The Palestinians, too, after all, claim their descent from Abraham.

The Hebrew Bible and its commentaries movingly describe the reconciliation that took place between Isaac and Ishmail, respectively, the ancestors of the Jewish and Arab peoples, at the funeral of Abraham, their common father.

That event took place in Hebron 4000 years ago.

Perhaps it can be in Hebron as well that Jews and Arabs, Israelis and Palestinians, will one day find a way to understand, respect and accept one another.

~*~

I respond to David Saks

1. Flawed logic

It is remarkable that Saks writes an entire article on Hebron without mentioning that it is under Israeli military occupation, part of the occupied West Bank.

Saks calls for the "recognition of the other's historical, cultural and religious roots in this troubled city". However, the central question is not about access, but about sovereignty. The settlers don't just want to be there, they want to own it. If Saks is advocating for free movement and mutual sovereignty for all, then he must call for a one-state solution.

Why do I say that? Because under the 4th Geneva Convention it is illegal to transfer civilian population into occupied territory. Saks tells us that he believes strongly in the 'right of Hebron's Jews to be there'. Unfortunately international law recognises no such right. And this is the 21st century, not the middle ages. If they want to be there they must submit to the same government and legal system as the local population.

Therefore, in line with his harmonious scheme of "recognition of the other" Saks must also call for one legal system. At present Palestinians live under Israeli military law and Israelis under Israel civil law. Settlers vote in Israeli elections and Palestinians don’t.

Saks must also be consistent. Would he suggest the same recognition of Arab rights in Haifa or Jaffa, which lie inside Israel itself? Specifically, should the Arabs of those cities control their parts of town as the Israeli military does in Hebron? Does he advocate full Palestinian control in East Jerusalem?

If Saks is not suggesting a one-state solution, then he must call for Israel to annex the West Bank and impose permanent minority rule with all that that implies.

But if Israel planned to annex Hebron it would have already done so. After all, Israel did annex greater Jerusalem after the 1967 war, making all Jerusalem part of Israel under Israeli law (although without granting citizenship to Jerusalemite Arabs). Of course international law does not recognise this, which is why no foreign embassies, not even the US embassy, are in Jerusalem.

In reality, Saks and Israel have no plans for equality in the West Bank and no plans for annexation either, which would at least have the dubious distinction of being an honest recognition of the horrible de facto reality. The only way I can understand Saks’ position, is that he wants to draw out the present for as long as possible in the vain hope that the deceit will work forever.

The alternative is to realise that Hebron, sadly maybe, is outside of the borders of Israel. And to acknowledge that a country cannot go beyond its borders and close down "only 3%" (or 100%, depending on how you look at it) of another city. This notwithstanding the long Jewish history in the city including the 1929 massacre.

Saks does not honestly recognise the current situation and offers no way out of it.

2. Decontextualised facts

But he also plays loose with the details. For example, he poses the following: "Palestinians have free access to almost all of Hebron and Jewish Israelis to only 3%. Who, then, are the real victims?"

The "only 3%" of the city happens to be the centre of town, the main market, the main industrial area, and the main artery from North to South. Israel controls fully 20% of the city, from a civilian and military perspective, and the Palestinian Authority has no access to it. But the other 80% of the city is not Palestine, but a Palestinian autonomy controlled by Israel. The Israeli military controls all of the exits and entrances, the currency, the legality of organizations, the taxes and so on. During the Second Intifada Palestinians were under full closure for almost 400 days (not being able to exit or enter their houses other than a couple of hours a week). The settlers were under closure for 0 days. In reality, 100% of the city is under Israel's control, which it manifests differently in different places.

Saks refers to Baruch Goldstein, the American doctor, new immigrant to Hebron, as a 'lone Israeli psychopath' who went on a rampage at a 'local mosque'.

Firstly, Goldstein is fairly representative of Hebron settlers, in the sense that many are recent American immigrants. Secondly, during the massacre in which 29 people were killed and 150 injured, Goldstein wore his Israeli military uniform. Thirdly, Goldstein's grave is a shrine for some settlers who have written songs about him and idealise him. Fourthly, the only reason Goldstein was there in the first place is because the entire Hebron settlement project was and is supported by the State of Israel. The problems generated by inserting radical settlers into the heart of Hebron were surely all too obvious, and if the political will had existed the present untenable situation could have been prevented. The settlement is financially supported by the state in terms of education, electricity, water, postage, road maintenance etc. And fifthly, the unnamed 'local mosque' is the Ibrahimi Mosque, the self-same Tomb of the Patriarchs whose religious significance to all three Abrahamic religions Saks barely acknowledges.

(It is also mildly interesting to note that Goldstein was eventually overpowered and killed, bringing the massacre to an end. He was therefore a suicide-shooter, and he preceded all the suicide-bombers who have since sown such wreckage and destruction in Israel. They, of course, may have materialised without Goldstein's intervention, but he nevertheless made a fine example for them.)

3. Sleight of hand

Saks criticises the behaviour of the settlers, and on some level deserves credit for this. But he is careful to criticise only their behaviour and not their being there, illegally, in the first place. To Saks, the settlers’ bad behaviour is really an inconvenience: It makes the settlers look bad and opens them up to criticism. Saks would prefer them to behave well and go about their task of entrenching themselves in the heart of Hebron. But their bad behaviour and their being there cannot be separated. The settlers are actually not bad people: they are just products of a culture of impunity fostered by the Israeli state, military, rabbinate, Jewish and Christian right-wing Zionist supporters of Israel, and the region's Arab dictatorial leaders who care more about their own power than about democracy or human rights.

Lastly, Saks is disingenuous in how he depicts Green and Mackintosh: He calls them “activists”, which of course they are, and whimsically reflects that “as is so often the case” they see “no nuances and no shades of grey”. But who is David Saks? He is associate director of the SA Jewish Board of Deputies. He is paid a lot of money to respond to every article critical of Israeli policy. He is a partisan activist in every sense.

The Board of Deputies has sunk to a new low in sanctioning an article that defends the truly indefensible. I encourage people to visit Hebron for themselves.