In Hebron, a South African Compares Israeli Occupation to Apartheid

Every now and then in life, and maybe just when you want it, god throws down a thunderbolt. It happened to me on Friday in Hebron, in the Occupied Territories. A group of seven Israelis and I were sitting in an Arab man's house, discussing the harassment and denial of movement to Palestinians in the center of that city—the second largest city in the West Bank—when I wondered for the 100th or thousandth time how the conditions I was seeing for myself in the occupation compared to apartheid in South Africa, which Americans rose up against 20 years ago.

Then the door opened and a group of international volunteers came in. I heard European accents, and a tall black man with a tan haversack walked across the room and took the seat right beside me.

"Where are you from?" I asked.

"South Africa," he said.

"Do you know about apartheid?"

"I lived through apartheid."

"How does this compare to apartheid?"

"In Johannesburg we had access to all the roads; they do not have that here," he said. "There were times we couldn't use the roads but those were exceptional occasions. We did not have these checkpoints. We carried papers but we were not constantly having to produce our papers as I have seen happens here. Our schools were inferior, but at least we could go to school. Many of these children are harassed on their way to school or are not allowed to get to schools. I have been here only three and a half weeks--but in my opinion, it is worse than apartheid."

"Worse than apartheid:" the words of Gosiame Choabi, an official of the South African Council of Churches.

I'm sure some people will seek to "contextualize" what Choabi said. They will talk about suicide bombers, or about the massacre of Jews in Hebron in 1929, or the big picture of Arab dictatorships with no free speech that surround Israel, or the fact that apartheid was in every city across South Africa, not just occupied territories. All true. But they will never be able to explain away the conditions I saw for myself: the expulsion of Palestinians from the center of their second largest city to make room for a small group of religious nuts who have confiscated land and houses and buildings in the old city out of messianic beliefs, and the support for separation and confiscation and harassment through the government implementation of checkpoints and curfews and patrols and settlers-only highways, guarded by heavily-armed soldiers, roughly one soldier per settler.

When our group of 8 Jews, seven of them Israeli, walked around the ethnically-cleansed marketplace, the religious nuts threw rocks at us.

And if anyone wants to challenge this account, I will produce the Israeli woman who said that seeing this was as important for her as seeing Auschwitz. Or the young Israeli man who said that seeing a video in the Arab man's house of settler girls waiting in a line outside the Arab school to throw rocks at the Arab girls and kick them and beat them so that they would abandon the school building, which is near a settlement, made him so nauseous he wanted to run out of the place and vomit. And most of all I will produce our group's leader: Yehuda Shaul, burly and inspired and 23, who served again and again as a soldier in Hebron and in whom the Army produced a kind of soul murder, in which he was brought by degrees to shoot indiscriminately into Palestinian neighborhoods every night at dusk as a means of stopping the violence—a soul murder that Shaul is trying now to undo by leading weekly trips to the scene of his service and by collecting testimony of other soldiers as part of an organization called Breaking the Silence. What a Jew!

There are two obvious questions about what I saw. How does the grotesque treatment of Arabs impinge on Israeli society generally? How does it affect Arab attitudes?

As to Arab attitudes, the effect is devastating. Whatever anyone says about the Arab "street," I have had many conversations here with privileged Arabs and I can tell you that they feel Rage. Rage and despair. There is a Palestinian magazine trying to be like New York Magazine, called This Week in Palestine, a glossy magazine with ads, and every article in there is a description in English of inequity, and a statement of rage. Every article. Enough about the goddamn street; across the Middle East, yes, Arabs are stifled in traditional societies, but they are acutely well informed about the occupation. This is America's problem. It demonstrably played a part in Osama Bin Laden's twisted cosmology and it is resented by the Shiites of Iraq who would volunteer to be martyrs on behalf of Sunnis in Palestine. Marty Peretz and Alan Dershowitz like to talk about how little Israel's Arab neighbors have done for the Palestinians, beyond lip service. But remember that we didn't do much for the blacks of South Africa in a material way, didn't bring the children of Soweto into our homes; yet it was distant lip service by Americans, among them many angered middle-class blacks, that played a crucial role in transforming South Africa.

And what about Israeli society? How much awareness is there of what I saw? I asked the Israelis, and the young man who had wanted to vomit, Amnon Aaronsohn, 25, spoke with passion: "Israelis don't know about this, they don't want to know. And if you tell them about it, they say, Well there must be a good reason for it, and that is the end of it." The woman who had spoken of Auschwitz said, "The majority of Israelis think this is for their own security, the rhetoric is so forceful."

I said, "Well there is good reason for that, terrorism." But she, who has monitored checkpoints for the human rights group Machsomwatch, said that the separation and humiliation go so far beyond national security questions, and are a "bureaucratic torture, preventing schooling, health care, any ways of normal life."

I understood what Aaronsohn had told me, later, when I was on the beach in Tel Aviv. Israel is a beautiful country; and in many ways Israeli society is miraculous. It sprung up so quickly, to a European standard. But Israelis have generally blinded themselves to the apartheid in the back yard because if they did acknowledge it they would have to do something. This complacent blindering recalls the American south during the civil rights movement, or the founding fathers during slavery. They avoid the information. The newspapers say little about it, and I see that it is impolite to use the words "occupied territories." You hear the words administered territories, Palestinian areas, or Judea and Samaria.

And meantime their children at 18 are forced into the service of governing the Arabs and poking the old men at checkpoints, and asking them for their papers. Yehuda Shaul said that when you give a teenager a gun and power, it changes him, he is not ready for the moral gray area he enters, he is soon abusing people, as the horrific testimonies on the Breaking the Silence's website show.

We are discharged soldiers who have decided not to keep silent. To stop keeping to ourselves everything we've been through in the past 3 years. So far, hundreds of discharged combat soldiers have decided to break the silence and every day more people follow. We have one mission left: to talk, tell and not keep anything hidden.

Israeli society must know the price it is paying for every soldier serving in the occupied territories. Israeli society must realize the trap we are caught in, because while the army is trying to deal with the threat posed by terror, it is creating a disaster.

"Breaking The Silence" ("Shovrim Shtika" in Hebrew) should serve as a warning sign to Israeli society. We are alerting about irreversible corruption.

Irreversible corruption. When will progressive Americans deal with the facts brought forward by brave Israelis, and address this tragedy that our government underwrites?

Comments

[Joey Cavod]

Impressionable, uninformed Phil Weiss has forgotten one small detail- Hebron is not an Arab town. It is the holiest site in Judaism, some say it is more holy that the site of the two Temples which stood for 1000 years in Jerusalem. Just because the Arabs slapped a mosque on top of the tomb of the Patriarch of Judaism 2500 years after he was buried does not make it an Arab town. It is not a "small group of religious nuts who have confiscated land and houses and buildings in the old city out of messianic beliefs", it is all Jews that want Hebron, except maybe the eight that you met there. Why not use real data instead of your crap opinions.

Jewish/Arab history goes much deeper than the handful of factoids that Weiss picks up from people he meets with views that map into his anti-Jewish sentiment.

Just because Israelis don't talk to schmucks like Weiss about Hebron does not mean that they are "blinded" to what's going on there. They know all about it- they are not naive, dilettantes that babble about situations that they don't fully understand. Weiss does not know the difference between Schem and Nablus!!! Now he's an expert on Hebron??? There is a popular t-shirt worn in Israel that says "think B 4 U speak".

Comparing Apartheid to the Arab/Israeli situation is a cliche that compares two situations that have so little in common that it is trivial to even begin to describe the differences.

Israelis are proud to join the IDF and those that don't want to join can do National Service:
"children at 18 are forced into the service of governing the Arabs and poking the old men at checkpoints"- this is false, biased statement.

Weiss' reporting reflects his bias and is full of inaccuracies. His last two pieces have demonstrated his false/sloppy/inaccurate reporting- why trust anything he writes, unless it fits your own preconceived bias?

It's too bad the Observer buys into his crap, and the editors don't wake up. Perhaps Jared Kushner will have a more objective viewpoint, he will receive an analysis of how crappy, biased reporting makes bad business sense.

[John]

Philip -- before there are more harangues deploying the 1929 Hebron massacre (which was certainly horrible), know that over two-thirds of the Jewish population at the time was saved by the Arab population that sheltered them. The notion that it was an Arab-wide progrom against Jews is propoganda, plain and simple. (Statistic from p. 326 of Tom Segev's One Palestine, Complete [2000].)

Of course Hebron has vast import in Jewish history. But to go from that to saying, as previous commentator "Joey" does, that Hebron "is not an Arab town" is pure sophistry. Arabs live there; most have lived there for so long no one can remember when they arrived; the Arabs who lived there are the descendents of the people who lived there before the Arab conquests, when they called themselves Christians, or Canaanites, or Jews, or who knows what. (This is contrary to the right-wing narrative in Israel [and the U.S.] which says all Palestinians are descendents of the 7th c. Arabian armies. There's no historical basis for this.)

Joey perfectly embodies the Israeli version of what South African Steve Biko rejected in the following quote: "The basic tenet of black consciousness is that the black man must reject all value systems that seek to make him a foreigner in the country of his birth and reduce his basic dignity." [from Statement As Witness]

Joey and the settlers of Hebron are trying to make Palestinians foreigners in their own country and reduce their dignity. It's happening every day. This is shameful.

[Rowan Berkeley]

"Hebron is not an Arab town. It is the holiest site in Judaism"

-- I've heard it said Berchtesgarten is holy to Hitlerites, too.

[Joey Cavod]

This is pure sophistry and factually wrong:

"most have lived there for so long no one can remember when they arrived; the Arabs who lived there are the descendants of the people who lived there before the Arab conquests, when they called themselves Christians, or Canaanites, or Jews, or who knows what."

Jews have been in Hebron continually for 3000 years- the Arabs have come and went over the centuries.

"Or who knows what?" obviously you don't.

Ancient period:
Hebron became one of the principle centers of the Tribe of Judah, and the Judahite David was anointed King of Israel in Hebron and reigned in the city until the capture of Jerusalem, when the capital of the Kingdom of Israel was moved to that city. After the destruction of the First Temple, most of the Jewish inhabitants of Hebron were exiled and their place was taken by Edomites at about 587 BCE. Herod the Great built the wall which still surrounds the Cave of Machpelah. Jar handle stamps bearing Hebrew letters dating from 700 BCE, the oldest known inscription naming the city, have been found in Hebron (see LMLK seal).

During the first war against the Romans, Hebron was conquered by Simon Bar Giora, the leader of the Sicarii. Eventually it became part of the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantine Emperor Justinian I erected a Christian church over the Cave of Machpelah in the 6th century CE which was later destroyed by the Sassanids.

Medieval period:
The Islamic Caliphate established rule over Hebron without resistance in 638. Arab rule lasted until 1099, when the Christian Crusader Godfrey de Bouillon took Hebron in 1099 and renamed it "Castellion Saint Abraham". n 1260, al-Malik al-Zahir Rukn al-Din Baibars al-Bunduqdari established Mamluk rule; the minarets were built onto the structure of the Cave of Machpelah/Ibrahami Mosque at that time. Duing this period, a small Jewish community continued to live in Hebron, however the climate was less tolerant of Jews (and Christians) than it had been under prior Islamic rule. Jews wishing to visit the tomb were often taxed, and in 1266 a decree was established barring Jews and Christians from entering the Tomb of the Patriarchs; they were only allowed to climb up to a a certain step outside the Eastern wall. Sir John Mondeville wrote that the Jews and Christians were "treated like dogs." Many Jewish and Christian visitors wrote about the community, among them a student of Nachmanides (1270), Rabbi Ishtori Haparchi (1322), Stephen von Gumfenberg (1449), Rabbi Meshulam from Voltara (1481) and Rabbi Ovadia Bartenura, a famous biblical commentator (1489). An account from Hakham Yishak Hilo of Larissa (Greece), who arrived in Hebron and observed Jews working in the cotton trade and glassworks. He noted that in Hebron there was an, "Ancient synagogue in which they prayed day and night in 1333.
Ottoman rule

With the advent of Ottoman Turkish rule in 1516-17, there was a violent pogrom in with many Jews were raped and killed and Jewish homes were plundered. Throughout the Ottoman Empire rule, (1517-1917), groups of Jews from other parts of the Land of Israel, and exiles from Spain and other parts of the diaspora and settled there. Hebron at this time became a center of Jewish learning. In 1540 Rabbi Malkiel Ashkenazi bought a courtyard and established the Abraham Avinu Synagogue. In 1807, the Jewish community purchased a 5-dunam plot upon which the city's wholesale market stands today. Another pogrom took place in 1834. In 1831, Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt took over Hebron until 1840.

[Joey Cavod]

Where did you dream up this baseless statement?

"the Shiites of Iraq who would volunteer to be martyrs on behalf of Sunnis in Palestine."

Now that you're so in tune with the "Arab Street" maybe it's time to figure out why the non-Arab Persians of Iran have decided to destroy Israel.

It's too bad you didn't do some real reporting when you were over there and speak with Temporary International Presence in the City of Hebron (TIPH). TIPH�s main task is to monitor and report on misconduct by either side in the conflict. TIPH is not allowed to intervene directly in incidents and has no military or police functions. The TIPH mandate is the result of negotiations conducted by the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel between 1994 and 1997.

Speaking to eight radical protesters is like going to Provincetown and doing a report on human sexuality in America.

I support your desire to report, but with you lack of objectivity and depth of knowledge, you should go back to college or something like that.

[anonymous]

If you had made it to these places or to Yad Vashem you would realize how stupid you sound:

"Or I needed to see the Hagana Museum in Tel Aviv, or the Begin Museum in Jerusalem, or another of the many museums to the military ego."

"Holocaust...offered as a justification for the militarization of Israeli society."

It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.

[anonymous]

Another ridiculous, false statement:

"it does not seem that the Israelis have spent any real time with Arabs."

15 percent of Israeli citizens are Arab (not including East Jerusalem). Arabs are integrated into the Israeli workforce as business owners and workers and work for the government as Civil service workers. Some Arabs volunteer for the Army.

In addition, before the first intifada, hundreds of thousands of Palestinian workers making decent living in Israel.

It's too bad that you report on things that you don't understand. I guess this what the Observer is about. Go New York Sun- a paper with factual, objective reporting.

[effraim]

"Go New York Sun- a paper with factual, objective reporting."

Sometimes these comments make me chuckle, sometimes not. But this little parting shot made me laugh out loud.

[anonymous]

To put it in perspective, imagine if the Observer let Weiss cover Lieberman's primary loss- the kind of borderline-nutcase reporting that would have emanated.

His biased reporting makes him a loose cannon on ship that already doesn't know where it's going...

The Observer's, accuracy cannot be trusted- not a good thing for a newspaper.

The editorial staff is responsible. It's no wonder the paper is a big money loser.

They have a Jayson Blair on their hands and don't seem to realize it. As a matter of fact the similarities are glaring- an egotist with a chip-on-his shoulder.

[Steven]

Phil,

Great reporting from Hebron.

Let us get sober.

Short of expelling all Isralis from Israel, or to oppress and compress all Palestinians into a mini-state, the next best solution is mixed/assimilated/enlightened state for former Israelis and Palestinians.

I can confirm from personal experience, the hostility of the young and old Israelis in Kiryat Arba and Hebron against the Palestinians. Not hidden, if you understood Hebrew.

The Israeli settlers and the Palestinians need lots of Enlightenment.

[thewiseking]

Alas, little philly weiss has turned his first visit to the holy land into an opportunity to bash the state of israel and vent his liberal guilt and jewish self-loathing. It is painfully obvious that he is entirely ignorant of the history of the region and is an easy dupe. Little phil is the type of jew who is accustomed to being pissed upon and then looking up at the sky and declaring "it's raining".

[Joey]

Melach Chacham:

e-mail me: jcavod@gmail.com

[Steven]

Phil,

You are doing an admirable job. Just, please keep it safe and balanced.

No generalization for all - but Lots of Israelis and Palestinians have lost their moral compass.

Fascism is a tempting way for both sides.

The useless terror is undermining the Palestinian cause, and the Israeli biblical claims are also baseless myths.

See a good article in today's haaretz.com:

In the name of Allah - By Riad Ali

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/747996.html

[bobby]

"Israeli biblical claims are also baseless myths"

Noted archaeologist Nelson Glueck writes, "It may be clearly stated categorically that no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a single biblical reference. Scores of archaeological findings have been made which confirm in clear outline or exact detail historical statements in the Bible."

[jimmy]

What about the claims of the Hittites and the Philistines and the Canaanites? if they showed up, would we honour their claims to the land?

Ultimately, anyone who claims land based on the idea that God gave it to him is a lunatic.

[John]

Joey, I didn't neglect the importance of Hebron in Jewish history. But your anti-peace chauvinism, dressed up in a selective history lesson, does exactly what Steve Biko denounces: namely, shilling for an ideology that makes the Palestinian a foreigner in the country of his birth and reduces his dignity. Of course South Africa and Israel are different in many ways, but you bring them together in your style of _hasbara_ -- dissimulation to make Palestinians interlopers on their own property. The Afrikaaners did the exact same thing.

The Arabs of Palestine are the descendents of the Hittites, the Canaanites, monotheistic sects, the Arabs, the Crusaders, and the Phoenicians, but now they self-identify as Arab. It makes no sense to say the Bible was written before the Arab arrival, and therefore these people have to leave so Jews from Chicago or Boston can go and enact their pioneer fantasies. Nowhere else would modern real estate disputes -- in which one side has real, modern land deeds -- be based on an ancient text that was not even written to be history in the modern sense.

Joey and others here represent how Zionism is taking the pluralist humanism of diaspora Judaism -- which is so amazing -- and distorting it into sectarian tribalism. Nice job.

[John]

Phil, pay no mind to those who cite a factual error, which all of us can make, and then try to argue you're not qualified to write about Israel. I believe in expertise, and it's true there are too many dilettante journalists who sound off without knowing anything. But you're not that.

The idea that the New York Sun -- edited Seth Lipsky, self-declared Jabotinsky devotee -- is "objective" demonstrates how confused some of your readers are. If the Sun is objective, then objective just means what comports with one's own subjective views. Neither Phil nor the NY Sun are objective, and that's fine. The point is to be fair.

Anonymous, you also have a romanticized view of the place of Arabs in Israel. They are taught in different (lesser funded) schools, there are but a handful of mixed towns, and the racism is out in the open. Hardly any Jewish Israelis speak Arabic -- with the exception of the IDF's orientalists. Ask Israeli Arabs if they feel they are equal citizens.

There are courageous Jews and Arab Israelis who attempt to build bridges. But the one new town explicitly built to be 50-50 Arab-Jew -- Neve Shalom, or Wahat al-Salaam -- has had many obstacles put before it by the Israeli govt. The reason is that the town is contrary to the state's ideology.

[Rowan Berkeley]

Nelson Glueck (what a tacky name that is) may be 'noted', but he is partisan, and it would be naive not to say so.

[joey cavod]

John your correct, the New York Sun is not objective, it is merely factual, unlike the Observer which is neither.

What's a mere factual error in a newspaper anyway?

What an novel aspect of Judaism: "pluralist humanism of diaspora Judaism" could you please explain this to us? Sources would be helpful too, or if that's too much trouble, just give your own explanation.

Israeli Arabs receive better health care and education, have more college degrees per capita, lower imprisonment rates and less mortality than than 35 percent of Americans. They do not have mandatory Army service, either. However many volunteer. Recently, a Bedouin officer was promoted to the rank of Colonel.

"Hardly any Jewish Israelis speak Arabic" Arabic is a national language of Israel. Every aspect of public service is given in Arabic- all of the health care, transportation, national insurance and the national television channels devote many hours of prime-time every day to Arabic programs.

[jessica]

hii im jessica. So im full palestinian and i am totally confused to what i am and where exactly i came from. I have been researching it for so long but can't figure it out. Am i a philistine (philistine is how you say palestinian in arabic) so i was guessing i am or am i just an arab?? and from what i have researched arabs are like jordan syria and all that. so am i one of those?? whe i researched everything it said philistines went to palestine..how did they go to palestine if there philistines and philistines are palestinian?? who was there first the jews or arabs? and are arabs the same as philistines. im soooo confused
am i and arab, caanite , israelite, philistine or what? help
thanks!!
sincerely,
Jessica Jarrous