Strangers at Home

For the past few weeks a major component of my job at Breaking the Silence has been coordinating the open tours to Hebron and the South Hebron Hills. This requires that I set the dates and location for the tours, decide which language (Hebrew or English) they will be in, and then send email blasts and facebook messages to the people that we are trying to reach to sign up for the tours. Our primary target audience is the Israeli public so I’ve been focusing on the Hebrew tours most. Then after I’ve spread the word, I obsessively check our email account tours2hebron@gmail.com, respond to inquiries that come in, and make lists of the people signing up. It’s pretty mindless work a lot of the time, except for the fact that it’s great practice for my Hebrew writing/typing ability. But when I actually do go on the tours myself, which I do every once in a while to make sure everyone gets on the bus alright and to continue my own education about the region, then I get to see the fruits of my labor (so to speak) and I realize why these tours are so important. This past Monday I joined one of the Hebrew speaking tours to the villages and settlements in the South Hebron Hills. This was my second time on this specific tour, and it was even with the same tour guide, so I expected to have a similar experience. However, the fundamental difference between the tours was in the make-up of the groups and especially the reactions that I observed within the second group, which was comprised of 16 Israelis while the first was a group of about 7 internationals. (Just a quick aside about numbers…there are over 50 Israelis signed up for our next tour which takes place today! Seeds are being planted.) So as I was saying, what I realized on this tour was the extent to which Israelis are unaware of the reality on the ground in the West Bank (in this case South Hebron), which is just about 45 minutes away from Jerusalem and actually quite close to many other Israeli cities; remember, it’s a tiny country. Plus, it’s a breeze for Israelis to pass through the checkpoints, the same checkpoints that Palestinians can sometimes wait at for hours. In many ways the tours are very informative and Ilan, the tour guide, is fully equipped with facts about policies and practices carried out by the army as well as his own personal stories of his time serving as a soldier there during the 2^nd Intifada. But, as Ilan emphasizes in the beginning, the tour is not meant to be a lecture and it’s a given that people won’t always believe everything they hear from the guide, but maybe they will believe their own eyes when they see the physical markers of separation and inequality. All Israelis hear stories or read the news about settlements and the friction with surrounding Palestinian villages. But do they imagine that some of these famed settlements are just a few caravans on a hilltop who gain land titles and access to water and electricity by abusing their privilege as Israeli citizens which guarantees them protection by the army? The process by which such illegal outposts become legal is pretty unbelievable. Basically a few settlers come and set up their caravans anywhere they choose within Area C of the West Bank. Area C refers to the majority of the land in the West Bank that is mostly rural and totally controlled by Israel. It stands in contrast to Area A which is comprised of the major cities and is controlled by Palestinians, and Area B which is a combination of the two. A description of the complications surrounding the different areas deserves a much more lengthy discussion but that is not my main intention right now. I mention it just for a bit of context and to explain the different sets of laws that serve the different populations in the West Bank. So since the settlers are Israeli citizens settling within Israeli territory (officially) they are held accountable under Israeli civil law which is (supposed to be) enforced by the police. Palestinians under occupation, however, are subject to martial law which of course is much more severe and is enforced by the soldiers. The soldiers have no power to evict the settlers even though they know their actions are illegal, and the police are local police, meaning they are settlers themselves, and thus have no intention of evicting the settlers either. But because they are citizens the army is obligated to protect them, so soldiers come in, set up generators for themselves, declare the area around the new settlement a closed military zone, and help the settlers begin a process of expropriation. Once the land is declared a closed military zone no one is allowed to go there, unless they want to get arrested, thus ensuring that Palestinians cannot access their agricultural and grazing land in that area. As more caravans are added the restricted area expands its reach, and if it can be proven that the land has not been worked in 5 years then the land becomes state owned and available for cheap lease, which the settlers take advantage of in order to legalize their land grab.

Another image that doesn’t exactly match up with what Israelis believe they know about the West Bank is the image of the Palestinian village of Susiya. If it weren’t for the people who live there as a cohesive community and hold onto the memories of each eviction they’ve undergone, one could easily dismiss the cluster of ripped tents off the side of road as just a few “homeless” people and we would not understand that it is in fact a village with a history that begs to be heard. On the tour we sat in one of these tents, drank delicious tea, and spoke with members of the village who pointed to holes in the tent caused by Molotov cocktails and holes in the ground that serve the purpose of collecting the little rain water that falls in the winter, that is if the holes are not raided by the army and filled in with trash. And then people on the tour wonder why they don’t just leave, move to the cities, pull themselves up by their sandal straps. But when the only other option is to move to the unbelievably crowded refugee camp of Yatta (seen just over the horizon), staying and fighting for rights to their land, however difficult it might be, seems like the only way to proceed. And besides, what right do we have telling them to pick up and leave just to cooperate with the shameful Israeli plan to concentrate them as much as possible in the cities (a type of ghettoization)? Can all these practices really be explained away as simply security measures? Does the official Israeli government rhetoric, that I heard the Israelis on the tour cling to in an attempt to make sense of a senseless reality laid out before them, really help us understand the facts on the ground in the South Hebron Hills, or do they simply keep us from actually opening our eyes and confronting the injustices that exist in this “homeland” that we thought we knew but now seems a bit foreign and unsettling?

However, this feeling of being a stranger within our own country isn’t something that is exclusive to visits to the West Bank, where actually it is expected because “technically” that area is not even part of the country. In fact, that feeling of being an outsider is something I have experienced numerous times within Israel proper, but never to the extent that I did this week. A few days ago I took a bus that I had never been on before which passed through an area that I had never intended to pass through, but I was in no rush and I knew the end destination was Jerusalem, my home, so I paid the bus driver and sat in the front of an empty bus and started to read a book. The bus driver commented that I was crazy for trying to go to Jerusalem dressed as I was (shoulders exposed) but I told him I live there and I dress like this all the time. I responded with a sort of “thank you, but I can handle myself” type of attitude. Nonetheless, I put a sweater on after a few minutes, but only because the air conditioning was on high and not because I felt compromised. Eventually, as the bus began to fill up with haredis (men in black hats, women in long skirts, and tons of screaming children with side curls) I realized that the bus was driving through Bnei Brak, which is one of the most orthodox religious neighborhoods in the country. I continued to mind my own business, reading, until I heard someone talking to me. It was a religious man asking me to move to the back of the bus. I was so taken aback by his request that I could not find the courage to form the words I wanted to say, which would have been something like “but I was sitting here first and I’m not bothering anyone”. Instead I just looked toward the back of the bus, noticed that most women were sitting there and that I was now the only secular person on the crowded bus, picked up my belongings and took my new seat in the back. The tears that then filled my eyes and streamed down my cheeks surprised me because after all, he had asked relatively politely, I hadn’t been physically hurt, and truthfully I don’t mind where I sit on the bus. But regardless, there was something so painful in that interaction and as I sat there I crying I thought about the overwhelmingly frustrating sense of entitlement that allows people to dictate who belongs in the front and who in the back, who in positions of power and who as subordinates, who as an valuable members of society and who as burdens or nuisances. I felt outcast and unable to assert my voice that only cries out for equality. I feel this alienation as well when Israeli family, friends and strangers, tell me that I am working against the country, being one sided, and forgetting the Jewish history of persecution and victimhood. I know where I come from, I love and deeply respect my heritage, and I am trying to achieve my highest ideals which do not dictate that some can benefit at the expense of many. So why is my voice considered extreme and thus not worthy of real reflection that could lead to actual change here, change that I believe is beneficial to everyone, and not just “one side”? So if you think you disagree with me, I just ask that you hear me, and I will continue to struggle for the creation of spaces of mutual respect where everyone has the ability to safely and comfortably express all aspects of their identity.

A Palestinian resident of Susiya showing us a destroyed water hole.

The Palestinian village of Susiya in the South Hebron Hills.

An elderly Palestinian man talking to us outside his home

Palestinian village of Susiya. If you look closely you can see the Jewish settlement of Susiya (yes, same name) in the background. All the land in between the settlement and the village has been declared a closed military zone where Palestinians cannot enter.



The illegal outpost/settlement of Avigail. It is on it's way to becoming legal. They are hooked up to water and electricity through the army generators. The nearby village of Susiya has none of these amenities. An organization called Ta'ayush has started to build solar panels and wind turbines in Susiya but it's still very limited