Sorry I haven't posted in a while, I've been really busy. The counselors for this kids' camp have their schedules packed. I farm a little in the morning, work with the kids from 9-2, then either travel somewhere as a group or have meetings the rest of the day, followed with more farming, then some more meetings. The camp is going well though, the kids can sometimes be tough to work with but I think my group is getting to be a lot closer and working better together now than before. I have 14 kids in my group with two other conselors and a translator, I try to speak mostly in Arabic with the kids but sometimes the translator has to translate my Arabic, to real Arabic. It's fun though, we have a lot of interesting projects that we do and there will be a lot more next week. I'm excited to come home but I'm pretty bummed I'll be missing the second half of camp, I'm starting to like these kids. One of the kids in my group, Mohammed, is actually from the refugee camp Deisha in Bethlehem. It's really interesting to talk to these kids about their lives but it's even harder sometimes to get them to think for themselves but I think we're getting closer. One of the sadder things I've heard though is that not one of the kids in my group wants to live in the West Bank when they grow up, what's even sadder though is that most of them will end up living here the rest of their lives regardless. It's tough working with these kids but I hope we can make some difference in their lives, even with the short time I'm here.
Also, today, we all went to Hebron for a few hours, insane experience. Hebron is split into H1 and H2 - H1 being the original Palestinian Hebron and H2 being the part settlers kind of took over. There are checkpoints all over the city, as well as different roads and walkways that can only be used by Israelis. We walked through a few alley ways that used to be thriving markets - before the Israeli military sealed off the roads going in and out - where overhead was fence and bars loaded with trash and large stones or bricks. The reason this is is because when Palestinians walk through these alleyways, Israeli settlers living on the upper floors would throw stones, trash, and sometimes even things like Molotov cocktails at them in an attempt to scare them away from Hebron. The fences were then put up to catch all the trash but even now, on Sundays especially, some Israeli settlers are now using trash mixed with water or even acid to dump on Palestinians or just visitors trying to observe what's happening. Hebron is littered with military and bases, checkpoints, segregation, and the looming feeling of hatred and although I was not shocked by any of this, it was a truly eye-opening experience. I know I mentioned this before, but this is what I mean when I say THIS IS APARTHEID. I'd like to hear your thoughts on this, I gave a very short explanation of what I've seen since I have to head out soon but if any of you still feel that this is right or justified, please explain. I've never seen humans treated in such an animalistic way as they are in Hebron, Palestine, Israel.
Hey Bear! I'm not exactly a Wiki fan, but this was interesting background on helping me familiarize myself with Hebron. Hope you read it! Love you, Mum
ReplyDeleteJewish resettlement after the Six-Day War
After the Six-Day War in June 1967, Israel, according to the Allon Plan, was to exchange parts of the West Bank with Jordan in a proposal for trading land for peace, with Israel annexing 45% of the West Bank and Jordan the remainder.
Star of David carved above entrance to a now Arab home in the old city of Hebron.David Ben-Gurion disagreed, and told the BBC that Hebron was the one sector of the conquered territories that should remain under Jewish control, as it became, in his view, Jewish four thousand years ago under Abraham.
In 1968, a group of Jews led by Rabbi Moshe Levinger rented the main hotel in Hebron and then refused to leave. The Labor government's survival depended on the National Religious Party, and was reluctant to evacuate the settlers, given the massacre that occurred decades earlier. After heavy lobbying by Levinger, the settlement gained the tacit support of Levi Eshkol and Yigal Allon.After more than a year and a half of agitation and a bloody Arab attack on the Hebron settlers, the government agreed to allow Levinger's group to establish a town on the outskirts of the city" in an abandoned military base at Kiryat Arba.
In 1979, a group of settlers headed by Levinger's wife Miriam led 40 Jewish women and children to move back and take over the former Hadassah Hospital, now Beit Hadassah in central Hebron, to found the Committee of The Jewish Community of Hebron near the Abraham Avinu Synagogue. The take-over created severe conflict with Arab shopkeepers in the same area, who appealed twice to the Israeli Supreme Court, without success.This was later extended to other Hebron neighborhoods including Tel Rumeida, and settlers are currently reported to be trying to purchase more homes in the city.
Six Jews were killed and sixteen were injured in Hebron on May 2, 1980 at 7:30 pm. They were returning from Friday evening services on foot, following Jewish religious law on the Sabbath, and were fired upon and attacked with grenades from the rooftops.
A total of 86 Jewish families now live in Hebron. Many reports, foreign and Israeli are sharply critical of the settlers.Supporters of Jewish resettlement within Hebron see their program as the reclamation of an important heritage, dating back to Biblical times, which was dispersed after the massacre of 1929. Survivors and descendants of that prior community are mixed. Some support the project of Jewish redevelopment, others commend living in peace with Hebronite Arabs, while a third group recommend a full pullout.Descendants supporting the latter views have met with Palestinian leaders in Hebron.In 1997 one group of descendants dissociated themselves from the settlers by calling them an obstacle to peace. On May 15, 2006, another group, a member of whom is a direct descendant of the 1929 refugees, urged the government to continue its support of Jewish settlement, and allow the return of eight families evacuated the previous January from homes they set up in emptied shops near the Avraham Avinu neighborhood. Beit HaShalom, established in 2007 under disputed circumstances, was under court orders permitting its forced evacuation. All the Jews were expelled on December 3, 2008.
Since early 1997, following the Hebron Agreement, the city has been divided into two sectors: H1 and H2. The H1 sector, home to around 120,000 Palestinians, came under the control of the Palestinian Authority. H2, which was inhabited by around 30,000 Palestinians, remained under Israeli military control to protect several hundred Jewish residents in the old Jewish quarter. A large drop has since taken place in the Palestinian population in H2, identified with the impact of extended curfews, strict restrictions on movement with 16 check-points in place, the closure of Palestinian commercial activities near settler areas, and settler harassment.
There's more:
ReplyDeleteThe Jewish community has been subject to attacks by Palestinian militants since the Oslo agreement, especially during the periods of the Intifadas; which saw 3 fatal stabbings and 9 fatal shootings in between the first and second Intifada (0.9% of all fatalities in Israel and the West Bank) and 17 fatal shootings (9 soldiers and 8 settlers) and 2 fatalities from a bombing during the second Intifada,[129] and thousands of rounds fired on it from the hills above the Abu-Sneina and Harat al-Sheikh neighbourhoods. 12 Israelis were killed (Hebron Brigade commander Colonel Dror Weinberg, 8 soldiers and 3 civilians, members of the civil defense unit of Kiryat Arba) in an ambush of Jewish settlers walking home from Sabbath prayers at the synagogue in the Cave of Machpelah, and of the policemen, security guards and soldiers who rushed to their rescue.[130] Two Temporary International Presence in Hebron observers were killed by Palestinian gunmen in a shooting attack on the road to Hebron[131][132][133]
Israeli peace organization B'Tselem states that there have been "grave violations" of Palestinian human rights in Hebron because of the "presence of the settlers within the city." The organization cites regular incidents of "almost daily physical violence and property damage by settlers in the city", curfews and restrictions of movement that are "among the harshest in the Occupied Territories", and violence and by Israeli border policemen and the IDF against Palestinians who live in the city's H2 sector.[134][135][136]
According to Human Rights Watch, Palestinian areas of Hebron are frequently subject to indiscriminate firing by the IDF, leading to many casualties