Goldstein’s Legacy Written by: Ahmad Jaradat

Settler Violence and Israeli Policy in Hebron

While anniversaries marking the death of loved ones or the commemoration of tragedies are often somber times, they serve an important communal function. By setting aside time to memorialize lost friends and relatives, communities are able to join together in collective moments of affirmation: reaffirming both the lives of loved ones and the communal bonds that hold together those who live on and remember. For the Palestinian community of Hebron, however, which on February 25th mourned the 29 people who were brutally massacred by Baruch Goldstein in the Mosque of Ibrahim, it has been difficult to relegate such tragedies to the past. Each year, as Hebron’s Palestinian residents remember their loved ones, their murderer is memorialized by the city’s settlers-who celebrate Goldstein’s memory and pursue his vision of an “Arab free” old city of Hebron.

The memory of the Goldstein murder is tragically linked to Hebron’s contemporary reality. Palestinians in Hebron are still confronting Goldstein’s vision, which continues to materialize on the ground. The methods underlying the removal of Palestinians from Hebron’s old city, however, are generally more subtle then those of Goldstein; indeed, they rarely even make the news. Their significance should not be underestimated: the process of securing Jewish hegemony over the city has historically depended more on bureaucracy than settler terror, on military orders instead as dramatic violence, and on the policies of the Israeli state rather than the flamboyance of ideological zealots.

The story of the Goldstein massacre is fitting. In the wake of the attack, Israel decided to close down numerous Palestinian shops in the downtown area of the city for “security reasons.” Included in these closures was the Palestinian wholesale market- an area the Hebron Municipality had leased from Israel. By closing these shops, Israel made it significantly easier for the settlers to seize territory; in the winter of 2001, the settlers successfully occupied the marketplace without resistance from the Israeli army.

Only a few weeks ago, as the eleventh anniversary of the Goldstein massacre approached, and as Hebron’s Palestinian residents again remembered their loved ones, settlers celebrated Goldstein’s legacy with considerable verve: the settlers and Israel had struck a deal, which will allow the settlers to, perhaps permanently, take control over the market. In exchange for temporarily leaving the area, Israel prematurely terminated its lease with the Hebron municipality and agreed to speed up the proceedings necessary to allow the settler to lease the market “legally” from Israel.

These developments are unfolding within a broader context of settlement expansion and accommodation. In the greater Hebron region, Israel has continued construction of two settler access roads, which will slice through Palestinian areas of Hebron and create territorial contiguity between the old city and the outlying Jewish settlements of Kyriat Arba and Ramat Yishai. These roads will greatly facilitate settler access to Hebron-a development that can only perpetuate tension and violence.

In the Hebronian context, where violent zealots like Goldstein generally steal the spotlight, the story of the marketplace is hardly the stuff out of which headlines are made. To the outside world, for whom Hebron is a city name, and its occupation an idea, the tiresome, bureaucratic process of confiscation-the closure of shops for “security reasons,” the termination of the lease with the Hebron Municipality, and road construction-is barely news worthy. However, it is this process that has perpetuated the removal from Hebron’s old city more Palestinians than religious violence like that of Goldstein could ever have hoped to achieve on its own. Indeed, since the beginning of the second intifada, Israeli policies in the old city of Hebron have forced “a mass departure” of its Palestinian inhabitants, as close to 40% of the Palestinian population has fled. (1)

Settler violence understandably remains a primary concern for the people of Hebron, who continue to face not only the confiscation of their property, as well as ongoing attacks on their livelihood, but also the perpetual endangerment of their lives. Indeed If the story of the market settlement has conveyed any message to the settlers, it is that violence against Palestinians can yield tangible political gains. In this context, Israel’s policies in Hebron are likely to perpetuate further violence.

(1)Patrick Muller, “Occupation in Hebron,” The Alternative Information Center, 2004.