Rising Tensions Turn Hebron Into a Powder Keg

In the scorching heat of late summer, Jewish settlers living in the heart of this Palestinian city are trying hard to act as though their future here is assured.

Beneath the watchful gaze of Israeli troops, a pair of men slap fresh blue paint on iron railings at Beit Hadassah, sprucing up one of four Jewish enclaves an Israeli lawmaker recently described as “stuck like a bone in the throat of the peace process.”

Nearby, children clamber on a brightly colored, well-shaded jungle gym. Tourists, only slightly wilted by the heat, tramp through a museum commemorating the Jewish community here attacked by Arab rioters in 1929.

To all appearances, the 200 or so Jews who live here amid 120,000 Palestinians are as firmly entrenched as ever. They are expecting a visit soon from newly elected President Moshe Katsav, who recently said he cannot imagine a Hebron without Jews.

But under the surface, Israeli army officials say, tension is mounting in this bloodstained locale, the only West Bank city where Jews and Arabs live together and Israel and the Palestinian Authority share control. The army says it is caught in the middle of two communities who feel that everything is up for grabs.

“Everything changed after Camp David,” said a senior army source in the city, speaking of the recent peace summit on condition of anonymity. “The settlers are nervous because they are worried about their homes and families. The Palestinians are nervous because they see the light at the end of the tunnel. They think the settlers are maybe not here much longer.”

As Disputes Rise, Army Serves as Mediator

With alarming frequency, army officials say, settlers and Palestinians are clashing in the narrow streets of Hebron’s ancient Old City. Soldiers, the army says, must mediate between settlers afraid that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak is willing to cede the city entirely and Palestinians hopeful that he might.

“Maybe because of this tension, we have had more attacks in the last few weeks” by settlers against soldiers in Hebron and elsewhere, said Shlomo Dror, spokesman for the army office that oversees Israeli-controlled parts of the Palestinian territories. “You see things you didn’t see before.”

In one incident, a settler from Elon Moreh near Nablus clubbed an Israeli officer who tried to prevent him from beating a Palestinian.

Dror said that attack prompted him to call the head of the Yesha Council, an umbrella group representing West Bank settlers, and warn that “if something happens to one of our officers, you will be to blame.”

West Bank City Has History of Violence

Revered by both Jews and Arabs as the site where their shared patriarch, Abraham, is buried in the Cave of Machpelah, Hebron has long been a hot spot for violence between settlers and Palestinians. The site, which houses both a mosque and a synagogue, was the site of a massacre of Palestinians by a Jewish settler, Baruch Goldstein, in February 1994.

The Palestinian mayor, Mustafa Natshe, has watched the ebb and flow of violence in his city around the Jewish enclaves for more than two decades. Now, he, like many Hebronites, believes that maybe the settlers will be leaving.

“Sooner or later, the settlers will leave Hebron because it is to the mutual benefit of Israelis and Palestinians,” Natshe said during an interview at City Hall. The instability and violence that are a part of daily life in Hebron, long the regional center for villages in the southern half of the West Bank, have made it hard for the city to attract investors or grow, Natshe says.

“Once they are gone, commercial, industrial and social activity will return to normal,” he predicted. “There are many Hebronites in neighboring countries who wish to invest here--but they are waiting for a suitable time.”

Last week, Lt. Gen. Shaul Mofaz, the Israeli army chief of staff, visited the city to try to calm the situation after Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Barak had offered at the Camp David summit to evacuate settlers from Hebron.

Barak dismissed Erekat’s claim as “baseless.” But the report that the Hebron settlements were on the table at the Maryland peace talks further inflamed the two communities.

Describing Hebron as “the most difficult place,” Mofaz warned paratroops that “the frictions here can ignite the whole of Judea and Samaria,” using the biblical name for the West Bank.

Mofaz and other officers point to settlers and Palestinians using children on the front lines of their skirmishes as a particularly dangerous development. Last month, after a young settler reportedly was attacked by a Palestinian who allegedly tried to kiss her, dozens of settlers rampaged through a Palestinian neighborhood, assaulting people and damaging property.

Five Israeli soldiers reportedly were injured by marbles fired at them by slingshot-toting settler children, and one soldier allegedly was slapped by the father of a child the soldier tried to stop from shattering Palestinian car windows.

Since that incident, the army says, settlers have allowed their children to provoke other clashes. Girls are sent into Palestinian neighborhoods, according to the army, only to quickly return to their homes, reporting they have been verbally harassed by Palestinians. In response, boys rush to the site and attack Palestinians. Palestinians also have grown bolder, the army says, provoking and taunting the settlers.

Jewish Settlers Deny Stirring Up Trouble

David Wilder, a spokesman for the Jews in Hebron, said that under the circumstances, “there is tension, and tension can lead to incidents.” But he denies that the settlers have organized or instigated confrontations with Palestinians or with Israeli soldiers or police.

“We don’t have militias here,” Wilder says. “Our safety is in the hands of the police and the army. They are paid to see to it that we are safe here.”

Mofaz’s comments about Hebron, Wilder said, were “somewhat of an exaggeration.”