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rfmcdonaldFrom Danny Rubinstein's Ha'aretz article "Despite all, the `father of the settlers' is optimistic":
As I've noted before, it's a minor mystery to me that an Israel that claims to be committed to justice has been able to get away with colonizing downtown Hebron for the past four decades. The gap between rhetoric and reality--on Hebron in particular, but in relation to the entire colonization project adopted after 1967--does seem revealing to me. It reminds me, in some respects, of South Africa's claim to be defending Western civilization in Africa by ensuring that separate races have their right to separate development, though curiously the whites always seemed to end up with the best real estate and government services.
Israel isn't an apartheid state, of course. The Zionist ideology has its flaws, certainly--in particular, Herzl doesn't seem to have conceived of the possibility that the non-Jewish majority already established in Palestine might not want to have their homelands transformed, via massive immigration, into a Jewish nation-state. That said, for an irredentist blood-and-soil nationalism Zionism wasn't that bad, assimilating democratic and humanistic norms from the start. The fact that Israel is currently having its own human rights revolution for its Arab minority--fifty years delayed, perhaps, but still--says what needs to be said.
No, the frightening thing, and the unfortunate thing, is that Israel has blundered into emulating certain behaviours of South Africa's apartheid state purely by accident, purely through normal human behaviour. No one thought that the occupation would last so long; no one thought that any Jewish millenarian movements would establish colonies; no one ever thought that the colonies would grow so much. Things happened; Israelis (and Palestinians, and everyone at all connected) are still paying for them.
I really hope that the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the northern West Bank goes well, and that further withdrawals take place, and that in the end a Palestinian state will be formed that bears as little resemblance to a bantustan as possible. This is a long and fragile chain, I know, but if any of these links fail I'm going to have to start inspecting my oranges to make sure that I don't buy anything from Israel. I don't want to do that, and not only because that's time-consuming.
What was recently described as an easing of the restrictions on the Palestinian population is barely perceptible along the road that leads from the Har Gilo tunnels to the settlements of Gush Etzion and Hebron. The same checkpoints remain at the entrances to the Arab villages and towns along the way, the same yellow Arab taxis and minibuses are waiting on the other side of the dirt and stone roadblocks, and the same gangs of Arab residents continue to loiter, waiting for a lift or for a permit at the El-Khadr intersection, at the entrance to Gush Etzion and at the turns into Beit Omar and Halhul. At the eastern entrance to Kiryat Arba are new multi-story buildings, and beyond them the steep road descending toward the Cave of the Patriarchs and the Jewish neighborhoods in Hebron.
Those Jewish neighborhoods of Hebron have significantly expanded since the start of the intifada, if not in number of residents then at least in the amount of territory at their disposal. The hundreds of Arab families that lived near the homes of the Jews have left. The markets adjacent to the Avraham Avinu (Our Patriarch Abraham) neighborhood are empty. Of all the Arab stores that lined the streets leading from the Cave of the Patriarchs to the Jewish settlement, only two or three remain open. They sell souvenirs to the few tourists who arrive for a visit from time to time. The other shops are shuttered. Slogans daubed by the settlers adorn the closed steel doors. Some inform Ariel Sharon: "Lily is waiting for you."
Shallala Street, which runs below Beit Hadassah and once had row after row of shops stocked with gold jewelry, is now lined with barbed wire fencing and weeds. What used to be the main bus station of Arab Hebron long ago became an army base, and the stores of the wholesale market, which Israel committed to return to the Arabs, have become temporary residential housing for settler families.
What the Arabs call Shuhada Street and the Jews call David Street - intended to be a symbol of coexistence in Hebron during the Oslo process - is nearly desolate along its entire length. Much money was invested here in decorative streetlights, most of which have been destroyed. Standing in the middle of the street is a sign directing Jewish visitors to the graves of Ruth the Moabite and Jesse the father of David, and to the cave of Othniel the son of Kenaz. A work of art has also been installed on the site: an iron sculpture of a helmet, bayoneted rifle and rake. Perhaps a reference to the verse "And they shall beat their swords into plowshares," which has nothing in common with what has happened in the area in recent years.
A few Arab youths from the Idris family can be found hanging out on one street corner this Monday. They have been waiting for two days for a permit to install a steel door on one of the homes. Why do you need a permit for a door? One of them claims to be one of the few people who have stayed behind to live in the area and that he has to get a permit from the Israeli administration for everything. "Even to sleep with my wife."
Barely any Arabs still remain in the large expanse of the old city of Hebron. The old buildings, some of them destroyed, stand empty. Few Arabs may be seen walking in the streets. Some of them make their way to the mosque of the Cave of the Patriarchs. They have a separate entrance from the Jews. The entire structure that overlies the cave is carefully partitioned between Jews and Muslims. The separation between worshipers is complete.
As I've noted before, it's a minor mystery to me that an Israel that claims to be committed to justice has been able to get away with colonizing downtown Hebron for the past four decades. The gap between rhetoric and reality--on Hebron in particular, but in relation to the entire colonization project adopted after 1967--does seem revealing to me. It reminds me, in some respects, of South Africa's claim to be defending Western civilization in Africa by ensuring that separate races have their right to separate development, though curiously the whites always seemed to end up with the best real estate and government services.
Israel isn't an apartheid state, of course. The Zionist ideology has its flaws, certainly--in particular, Herzl doesn't seem to have conceived of the possibility that the non-Jewish majority already established in Palestine might not want to have their homelands transformed, via massive immigration, into a Jewish nation-state. That said, for an irredentist blood-and-soil nationalism Zionism wasn't that bad, assimilating democratic and humanistic norms from the start. The fact that Israel is currently having its own human rights revolution for its Arab minority--fifty years delayed, perhaps, but still--says what needs to be said.
No, the frightening thing, and the unfortunate thing, is that Israel has blundered into emulating certain behaviours of South Africa's apartheid state purely by accident, purely through normal human behaviour. No one thought that the occupation would last so long; no one thought that any Jewish millenarian movements would establish colonies; no one ever thought that the colonies would grow so much. Things happened; Israelis (and Palestinians, and everyone at all connected) are still paying for them.
I really hope that the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the northern West Bank goes well, and that further withdrawals take place, and that in the end a Palestinian state will be formed that bears as little resemblance to a bantustan as possible. This is a long and fragile chain, I know, but if any of these links fail I'm going to have to start inspecting my oranges to make sure that I don't buy anything from Israel. I don't want to do that, and not only because that's time-consuming.
