Evil Incarnate: Settlers of Hebron

We visited Hebron this weekend where the situation is far more savage and dire than could possibly be imagined. The only way to describe what we witnessed in Hebron's Old City is like the constant replaying of an old horror film. You know the kind that show little girls jumping rope with half smiles frozen on their faces in a surreal dream state, while simultaneously a parallel plot of horror plays out. Their was no jumping rope, but the frozen smiles were precisely the look the little settler
kids had on their face as they shouted down to us from their settlements, and threw rocks, stones and debris at us. Terrified, we tried to hide as they giggled and chanted "yulla", "yulla" ("come", "come"); their tone eerily indicating that this was their game of choice.

The scene was way too much to take in and process at the time. Speechless, we looked at the few remaining store owners that are left in the Old City, as if begging for an explanation. They just watched our bewildered reactions and simply shrugged their shoulders, offering no words for our brain to make sense of what our eyes were witnessing. Then again, who can possibly explain, understand or justify the 3,000 soldiers who are there to protect 500 settlers so that they can continue with immunity to: taunt, beat, harass, injure and attempt to push 300,000 Palestinians into leaving their homes?

We sat and had coffee with a family who was the last of the remaining to stay put at the precise point where the settlement is bursting to expand. Isolated, yet steadfast and determined I had recently seen this family in a film titled "A Spiders Web" (you can get it for a small donation from Al-Haq the human rights organization). The family and children have dealt with severe daily harassment by the settlers who even occupied the stairs leading up to their home for several weeks. The cute little one-year old boy has a disorder of violently banging his head against the floor and wall. None of the doctors have been able to explain or stop his behavior. Does it take a medical genius to explain such a phenomenon? What surprised me most is how Palestinians are able to uphold not only their humanity and resistance in the face of such daily, brutal aggression, but how they are able to hold it together rather than turning into the blind hate monsters that they are surrounded by.

We also saw a home video of mobs of these settlers who, apparently whenever feel roused, get into a large group and gangs of them savagely brake into as many homes as they can, only to destroy all of the family's belongings, valuables and life's savings. The soldiers stand there for their protection. The soldiers are placed there by the government to protect the settlers as they carry out their banal acts of evil. This regular display of harassment is the closest I've ever seen to evil incarnated. Through the role modeling of their parents and community explains the only possible way that these children could manifest such righteous acts of hatred. Remember the major propaganda of the late 90's that said Palestinians were teaching their children hate, or violence in school? I wish there could be an equal and thorough analysis of the systematic process in which children are caused to engage in what can easily be seen as blind evil. The situation in Hebron can not be ignored,
nor should it be seen as isolated. It is yet another step towards the slow, systematic ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

Noura - OPT