http://www3.haaretz.co.il/eng/scripts/article.asp?mador=4&datee=08/13/00&id=88888
Please note, Mr. President
By Gideon Levy, Ha'aretz 08/13/2000
So, we finally have an apolitical president who has promised to keep his
mouth shut on controversial matters. Yet he has been in office only a
week, and already we have a battery of controversial comments and
steps, of a more extreme nature and coming faster than those of his
impetuous, leftist predecessor. These comments and steps place our new
president not just at the heart of the religious right, but occasionally even
at its extreme margins. Kedouri and Ovadia Yosef are one thing, but
Hebron forever?.
"Can you envisage a situation in which Jews would not be able to live in
Hebron?" asked President Moshe Katzav, responding, "I see no
diplomatic, political or security problem in the continued existence of the
Jewish settlement in Hebron. The Palestinians can accept it."
Let's start from the end. The Palestinians cannot accept it. No seeker of
peace can accept it. No reasonable person can accept it. But how could
the president know that? One can only assume that he has never heard
what Palestinian residents of the Hebron he so loves have to say on the
matter.
Perhaps he should ask the child, Hazm Al-Shrakati, who was beaten by
settlers a few weeks ago, or his sister Smakh, who was also hurt. Let him
ask Shirin Abu Aiysha. No, she is still unable to speak; she was only nine
months old when rocks thrown by settlers - children - hit her in the head.
Her brother, Mohammed, was also hit by the stones.
Why doesn't the president come and see the wall of fences their father
has erected around his home-citadel in Tel Rumeida, out of fear of his
Jewish neighbors? Why doesn't he have a talk with Fahed Salhab, who
was asked by settlers in the street this week, "Why are you looking at
us?" and was then beaten to the point that he required hospitalization?
Let him listen to Abed Abu-Srah, father of four, who can tell the
president about how he was beaten with clubs. He can also speak to
Mohammed Muhathsab, father of seven - the settlers made a shambles
of the souvenirs he sells near the Cave of the Patriarchs. Or perhaps
Karem Masouda will manage to convince the president that the
Palestinians cannot agree to the continued presence of the settlers in the
city, although he was only spat on by women settlers.
Perhaps the president should read the testimony of press photographer
Amr Al Joabri, about how he was beaten by settlers; or that of his two
colleagues, Naji and Mazen Dana, who were also beaten and had to be
taken to the hospital by ambulance. Let him speak to the B'Tselem human
rights organization, which has collected dozens of complaints from
Palestinians concerning the violence of the settlers, some from the last
few weeks. Let him speak to foreign and local correspondents who know
what is going on in Hebron, or to the soldiers who have been beaten and
humiliated there recently, also by the setters. He can also speak to the
few foreigners living in the city.
Perhaps he should go there and see with his own eyes what Shabbat in
Hebron looks like and how the settlers stir up trouble and provoke
quarrels. Let him see how the settlers slowly march down the streets on
Shabbat, deliberately holding up Palestinian drivers, who - humiliated and
submissive - do not dare to even honk their horns. Instead, they absorb
the indignity and nurture understandable feelings of revenge and hostility.
Let the president see how the settlers strut through the market with their
terrifying dogs. Let him read the posters with which they cover the
Palestinian walls and let him take a good look as they overturn stalls in the
marketplace. Let him note how they swagger through the streets, armed,
and how the police and soldiers do almost nothing. Mr. President, all these
things are sights that any occasional visitor to Hebron encounters daily.
"We are the landlords and they are the babysitters," explains the settlers'
doctor, Dr. Yaakov Ben Triya to me at the weekend, "and they should be
treated the way one treats a babysitter when one returns home." This is
the point of view, and not the most extreme or violent one, of the settlers'
doctor, who believes with all his heart that only God, or Abraham - and
this is what he told me in all seriousness - can change the status of the
city. How then can one expect any other behavior from a tiny minority in a
city that does not want them - and justifiably so - in its midst?
The Palestinians, whether they seek peace or not, cannot accept the
continuation of this situation. The president of the state, who has decided
not to voice any views on political matters - or has he? - should not have
expressed his support for the continuation of this state of affairs. Each
day, more and more seeds of destruction are being planted in Hebron and
they may eventually ignite a huge conflagration. The chief of staff defined
the fruits of these seeds last week: This is where the next confrontation
will erupt, he said. The makeup of the settlers in Hebron, or at least some
of them, does not make for any other possible pattern of relations.
One can assume that most Israelis realize this. They know that the Jewish
settlers in Hebron will remain there for another year or two, for another
interim agreement or two, or perhaps even for another prime minister or
two. In the end, however, they will be evacuated.
Who knows? Perhaps even the president realizes this. Nonetheless, he
does not even consider the possibility of criticizing their behavior. Not a
word. Why not? Even the law-enforcement agencies refrain from coming
out against them and continue to turn a blind eye to their actions. (Even
Dr. Ben Triya admitted that appropriate steps are not taken against those
among the settlers who behave improperly. He says that this is because
they are really agents of the Shin Bet security services.)
Instead, the president declares that we have no choice but to allow the
continued warmongering presence of the settlers in the territories. A
short time later, we were told, he hosted a "meeting for national unity" in
his residence. A nation with a president who thinks that the provocation of
the Jewish settlement in Hebron must continue forever cannot create
unity, and should not unite, even after a thousand such gatherings
