On Hebron Ambush Site, a New Settlement Rises
In Hebron, where the political and religious divisions are animated by death, a new settlement was born on Saturday. Following the tradition of their tenacious movement, settlers converted sorrow and anger into territorial gain, building a rough outpost near the site of the Friday ambush. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon endorsed the settlers' aims during a visit to Hebron today.
In the first 24 hours of the settlement's life, its builders went from pitching tents to hooking up water lines and a generator and, tonight, to discussing where to get closets and carpeting. By dusk, Israeli boys were laughing and playing soccer on a field where they had never dared to venture before, as soldiers set up a seven-foot-high concrete barrier around the new community.
Held under curfew for a second day, Palestinians watched the bustle silently from surrounding rooftops, then withdrew into their houses as night fell.
Nowhere else in Israel and its occupied territories do Israelis and Palestinians live as close together and as far apart as in Hebron.
The Hebrew root of "Hebron" is the same of that of "to unite," and the Arabic name of the city, El Khalil, is based on the word for a close friend. Yet peaceful coexistence died bloodily here decades ago, to be replaced by fear and seemingly irreconcilable claims. This is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict's frontier, and perhaps its future.
Gazing at the darkened Palestinian houses, Mr. Menachan tried to envision the city in 20 years. "What I hope is, no Arabs," he said, as a fire made of brambles and olive branches crackled nearby. "If they continue to make trouble, no Arabs, and a Jewish city. If they're good people — if they know this is our land, that God gave it to us — they can stay.…
About 150,000 Palestinians live in Hebron. Inside the city, near the Cave of the Patriarchs, venerated by Jews and Muslims as Abraham's tomb, 450 Jews live in an intently guarded settlement that was started in 1979.
Less than half a mile away, at Hebron's edge, is another religious settlement, Qiryat Arba, with about 7,000 residents. It was established after the 1967 war, when Israel seized the West Bank from Jordan and Jews returned to the city for the first time in 20 years.
The ambush on Friday took place along an exposed road between those two settlements, in the Israeli-controlled section of the city.
The Israeli Army initially said the attack was on Jewish worshipers, but it appears to have been directed at security forces who guard settlers. Three security guards from Qiryat Arba were killed, along with five members of the border police and four soldiers, including the commander of forces in Hebron.
By sundown on Saturday, when the Sabbath ended, settlers were grieving and seething. More than 1,000 of them gathered next to the road, where a Palestinian orchard had recently been bulldozed after another attack. The dirt had been graded as though in preparation for building.
In between somber psalms, speaker after speaker called for the creation of a new settlement on the spot to join Qiryat Arba to the settlement inside Hebron.
After the rally, some youths tried to run into Palestinian Hebron, only to be turned back by Israeli forces. In a turbulent crowd, they pounded on the doors of nearby Palestinian houses and then smeared the pale stone with blue graffiti: "Every Arab killed — for me it's a holiday," and, over and over, "Vengeance."
What happened down on the field, by contrast, was calm and purposeful.
A man in running shoes, jeans and a prayer shawl strode to the edge of the clearing and began praying intensely, bending rapidly back and forth at the waist over his prayer book. The outpost took shape around him during the next four hours, as midnight approached.
A truck pulled up and, without a word, the driver unloaded a water tank the size of a small car beside the praying man, who did not look around. Steps away, two dozen young people formed a bucket brigade and began pulling stones from an old wall beside another orchard, passing them along to build an enclosure behind a green trailer.
First a lean-to appeared, then three silver tents were pitched. Benches were set up, and a rabbi began leading a group in prayers and songs. A flatbed truck arrived carrying a red container for conversion to a shelter.
The work proceeded even though those working at the site did not have a formal permit to build a new settlement and did not know who owned the land.
A small community of Jews lived alongside an Arab majority in Hebron for hundreds of years. But as the national aspirations of the two peoples began to grow in the 20th century, so did the violence. In 1929, Arabs rampaged here, killing 67 Jews, including women and children, and burning Torah scrolls. Jews drew profoundly different lessons from that massacre, said Avraham Burg, the speaker of the Israeli Parliament. Until the riot, Mr. Burg's family had lived here for seven generations.
He said his mother, then a baby, survived because her grandfather's Arab landlord posted himself in the doorway and took a savage beating to protect the family. But other family members who hid with Mr. Burg's great-uncle were killed. Now, he said, his family was split.
"Half will never believe any Arab — you will find them in each settlement," he said. "And half of my family you will find in the peace camp, looking for the individual Arab who will overcome the mob and make peace with us."
Asked if Jews and Palestinians could coexist here, Mr. Burg said, "It's impossible, and it cannot become possible. We're talking about a deeply religious city that attracts the fundamental emotions on both sides. It attracts extremism, intolerance and inability to compromise."
In 1980, just after Jews moved back into Hebron, six Israelis were killed, also on a Sabbath eve.
In 1994, a doctor from Qiryat Arba, Baruch Goldstein, originally of Brooklyn, opened fire on Muslims at prayer here. He killed 29 and wounded 150 before he was beaten to death. He remains something of an underground hero here.
The Palestinian mayor of Hebron, Mustafa Natsheh, said the settlers "have no intention at all to coexist with our people." The "original Jews of Hebron" would be welcome to return, he said, provided that Palestinian refugees of the 1948 war, when Israel declared independence, were granted the right to return to homes in Israeli cities like Haifa and Jaffa.
"The settlers are not the original Jews of Hebron, and these people are trying to create tension and chaos," he said. "They look on us as their enemy."
Mr. Natsheh seemed unsurprised by the new settlement, calling it the realization of an old plan to link Qiryat Arba to Hebron.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/18/international/middleeast/18MIDE.html?pagewanted=all&position=top
