One of the most interesting places of my trip was the city of Hebron, in the Westbank about 40 minutes south of Jerusalem. It is so fascinating because it is probably the most volatile place in the country, and is symbolic of the entire Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I visited Hebron twice during my stay in the region. One day I was in Jerusalem when I decided, on a whim, that I wanted to visit Hebron. I had seen it on tv so many times that I just wanted to see it for myself. I knew there was danger, but I had read other peoples' travelogues about Hebron and they had all survived, so I wasn't TOO worried. So I walked around my hostel in Jerusalem seeking some travel companions. At first everybody said "No way! Are you nuts?!", but then as I was leaving everybody started saying "Well...it WOULD be really interesting..." So me and four others took a cab from the Damascus Gate taxi stand down to Hebron. After 30 minutes we knew we were close and everybody was quiet. Finally we arrived. I looked out the windows and saw streets full of Palestinians, old looking buildings, cars from the 60's, Palestinian police with machine guns...it all felt so exotic. This city is almost entirely ignored by tourists (understandably), so it has retained it's Middle Eastern character and atmosphere. I didn't sense any danger, so I said to the others "this doesn't seem so bad..." and I got out of the car. Right as I reached to shut the door I heard a LOUD gunshot echo throughout the streets. None of the locals seemed to notice and they kept puttering around and buying stuff, etc. We started walking towards a crowd that had gathered near the entrance to a street, and then we heard another gun shot, and heard a bunch of voices cheering like they were acknowledging a victory. A crowd of kids came running in our direction carrying one of their friends, and they were cheering for him after he had been shot (I saw no blood, so I assume they were rubber bullets). They carried him over to an ambulance parked at the side of the road and then ran back down the street towards whoever had the gun. I wondered to myslef exactly why a 14 year old kid would run TOWARDS someone who was shooting at him.
While we were standing there watching this, two young Palestinian men approached us and introduced themselves. We got to talking with them, and they offered to show us around the city. We politely declined, but they insisted. We started to walk around with them, and we realized that all the locals were staring at us, but not in a negative way like I had expected. They were smiling, and many waved or said "hello" or "welcome", and little kids came running up to us saying "friend!!", etc. In the Old City of Jerusalem tourists recieve the same kind of attention, but there is one difference: in Jerusalem they want something from you. Nobody tried to rip us off in Hebron, nobody hassled us or insulted our nationality when we didn't by from their shop. The people welcomed us warmly, and it was sincere. I think one reason for this is that they feel like Palestinians are ignored or demonized by the West, so they are anxious to show us that they are mistreated by Israel and that they are people, not monsters. They appreciated our presence so much, as though we were the only people who had ever listened to them.
The two guys brought us down a side street and showed us how to watch the "problem" (ie., shooting) from a safe place. We turned some corner and all-of-a-sudden we were standing right behind about 15 Israeli soldiers, some with riot gear. I had deja vu...I had seen this view before...then I realized that this was the exact place that I had seen on tv a couple dozen times. I noticed that we were actually standing with the press. The soldiers stared at us like we were nuts, but they didn't tell us to leave. We heard kids down the street chanting something, and then they rolled a burning tire towards the soldiers. The guys we were with said that each tire symbolizes a Palestinian who has been shot. I saw rocks flying in our direction, so I watched carefully, though most of them were just sliding on the ground by the time they reached us. The kids were about 300 metres down the street, and would run out and throw a bunch of rocks and then run into an alleyway. The soldiers can't simply chase them because the Hebron accord gave 80% of Hebron to the Palestinian Authority. If Israeli soldiers cross into the PA territory it will be a violation of the accords. So instead they stayed in the Israeli section. After the rocks flew towards us we heard a HUGE bang, and we all ducked, and then we saw one of the kids fall down. There was a sharpshooter up on a ledge right above us, so it was damn loud. This went on for a few minutes, and then a bottle came flying right towards me, and I ran out of the way. I wondered how someone could throw a bottle that far, but then I saw another one flying from the top of a building about 10 metres in front of us. This must have been right across the Israel/PA border line, because no soldiers ran up there on foot like I've heard they do. Instead the sharpshooter started firing at the building. I asked the two guys why this was all happening right here, and nowhere else. They pointed out that the building right behind us was part of the Jewish settlement which is right in the middle of Arabic Hebron. There are 600 Jewish settlers living in a city of 100,000 Arabs. I wanted to see some of these settlers, so we left the "problem" and took a walk around the settlement.
There were Jewish children with kipas playing in the street (with plenty of soldiers to guard them), and they were as cute as any other kids i've ever seen. I playfully held up my camera and threatened to take their picture and they ran away giggling. They were cuties. But then I saw some of their older counterparts. A bunch of teenage settlers were walking down the street, and two of them were holding machine guns in their hands (not on their shoulders, in their hands). They were all sneering and one pointed his gun at me as he walked by. I wondered exactly why that was necessary. There were Israeli flags hanging out of windows and from the telephone wires, and everything was just completely nationalistic. Then I looked across from the settlement and noticed that the Arab-owned buildings had Stars-of-David spraypainted on them. The settlers go around doing this as a statement that they own all of Hebron. The Hebron settlers are not ordinary Jews, they are religious extremists. In the Qiryat Arba settlement there is a monument to Baruch Goldstein, the man who murdered 30 (?) Muslims in the Hebron mosque with TWO machine guns as they prayed. One of their doctrines is that Jews should not be punished for anything done against a non-Jew. Later we visited the Abraham mosque/Cave of Machpela where Baruch Goldstein comitted his cowardly act. I stood in the exact place that he stood, and I looked out at the floor, wondering how he could watch people die and not give a shit. The mosque (and an adjacent synagogue) are built above the cave where Abraham and the patriarchs are supposedly buried. I wondered exactly what Abraham would think about people killing each other for control of his tomb.
After visiting the mosque/synagogue/tomb, one of the two guys showing us around invited us to his home. We didn't want to be an unexpected nuisance for his family, but they welcomed us so warmly. His younger sisters seemed thrilled to meet us, but then they disappeared. A moment later they returned with two trays full of amazing home made grape juice for us. Mmmmmmmm!!!!!!! It was good I tell ya. I remember that in the bible Moses sent spies to check out Hebron before the Israelites went there, and they returned with huge bundles of grapes or something like that. Hebron is also known for it's great wine. Anyways, this guy phoned all his relatives who lived in the city, and within 15 minutes it was like a family reunion in honor of us. One of his brothers is an English major and was studying for an exam but then he was told he could practice on some native English speakers instead. So we sat around with them and talked and looked at their decorations. The guy showed us a photograph on the wall of his father and Yasser Arafat together. He said they had both lived in Be'er Sheva before the 1948 war when Israel gained the city. Then he showed us a huge snake skin hanging on the wall, and he told us that one of his relatives (I forget which one) killed it and brought it back from the Sudan. These people were so kind to us, even though we were strangers. It was a truely surreal experience to be sitting on a balcony overlooking HEBRON (that notorious city) with a family of PALESTINIANS (those notorious people), discovering the human side of both. I literally will never forget this experience.
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