Shuhada Street
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Credit: Rina Castelnova, New York Times, Sept. 15, 2009 October, 2010 - By September Khalid Amayreh Published by Americans for Middle East Understanding, Inc. John F. Mahoney Executive Director T T E E Archives: www.ameu.org E E Link R R T T S S I look at the above photo and wonder why anyone would toss wine at this woman. I But this is Shuhada Street. And in this issue West Bank journalist Khalid Amayreh intro- duces us to numerous Palestinians forpaved whom with this cruel, main oftentimes thoroughfare fatal in humiliations. Hebron has been have to think it is toher make religion her by feel spraying her less than with human, alcohol. like garbage. Perhaps even to belittle About This Issue S A A S The Link A A U D H H U D H H Volume 43, Issue 4 The Link Page 2 AMEU Board huhada Street runs raeli defense minister, Moshe Dayan, of Directors through the center of Heb- and the mayor of Hebron, Sheikh Mu- ron, the second most popu- hammed Ali al-Jabaari, sought to en- Jane Adas (Vice President) lated West Bank city after courage a palatable modus vivendi Elizabeth D. Barlow Jerusalem. between the occupying power and the Edward Dillon local populace. The people of the city Since the time of Abraham Hebron Rod Driver would be allowed to maintain normal has always had a small Jewish popu- John Goelet lives without interference from occu- lation. But at no time in the past 1,400 David Grimland pation authorities. In return, the peo- years did Jews constitute a majority or Richard Hobson ple of Hebron would not interfere even a large minority of the town’s Anne R. Joyce with the army’ssecurity functions. Hon. Robert V. Keeley inhabitants. Some Palestinians feared that Jews Kendall Landis (Treasurer) In 1538, we know from Jewish and would seek to avenge a massacre that Robert L. Norberg (President) Western sources that the city had 749 occurred in 1929, when a mob of local Hon. Edward L. Peck Arab-Muslim households, 7 Christian, Arabs, inflamed by false rumors that Donald L. Snook and 20 Jewish. In 1839, there were two Arabs were killed and that Jews Rosmarie Sunderland 1,295 Muslim families, 1 Christian were attacking the al-Aqsa Mosque, James M. Wall family and 4 Jewish families. By 1922, murdered as many as 67 Jews. Most of according to the British Mandate cen- the Jews survived by hiding with their AMEU National sus, the total population of Hebron Arab neighbors. Council was 16,577, including 16,074 Muslims, Hugh D. Auchincloss, Jr. 73 Christians and 430 Jews. Al-Jabaari, indeed the bulk of Pal- William R. Chandler estinians, thought the Israeli occupa- Today, according to Khaled al Paul Findley tion was a passing phenomenon that Usaily, the mayor of Hebron, the Arab Moorhead Kennedy would end soon, just as the British Ann Kerr population of Hebron exceeds 180,000 mandate did. Mary Norton Palestinians, with 400-500 Jewish set- Marie Petersen tlers living in the old part of town un- The next year, however, in 1968, Don W. Wagner der constant protection of Israel’soc- the Israeli military governor of Heb- Miriam Ward, RSM cupation army. ron summoned the notables of Heb- ron and surrounding villages to the The Israeli army seized the West Executive Director military government headquarters in Bank, including Hebron, from Jordan John F. Mahoney the city and told them that the army during the 1967 war. Initially, the Is- needed to have shelters that would AMEU (ISSN 0024-4007) grants permission to reproduce material from The Also in This Issue… .. Link in part or in whole. AMEU must be credited and one copy forwarded to our ■ Page 13… … . The Link’s Links, interview with Tarek Abuata about the web- office at 475 Riverside Drive, site of the Christian Peacemaker Teams, www.cpt. org Room 245, New York, New ■ Page 14… … Jane Adas reviews “Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews,”by York 10115-0245. Tel. 212- 870-2053; Fax 212-870- Alan Hart 2 0 5 0 ; E - m a i l : ■ Page 15… … . Video Catalog [email protected]; Website: www.ameu.org. ■ Page 16… … . In Appreciation: James E. Akins The Link Page 3 protect soldiers from the weather. According to Ab- remorse for the murder and the Israeli government dul Rahman Hijjeh, a notable from the nearby town only detained him for a few weeks. of Dura who attended the meeting, the military gov- A few years ago, this writer tried to interview ernor asked the Palestinian dignitaries to protect Levinger as he was walking near the Ibrahimi their “cousins” from the harsh winter by granting mosque. His response to my request was this: “Ifyou them “asmall plot of land outside the city in order to don’tgo away, I will shoot you.” build temporary barracks for the army. “ Levinger is affiliated with the religious-Zionist The dignitaries, who included al-Jabaari, report- camp, which follows the messianic ideology as edly consented to the request on the condition that taught by Abraham Kook, widely viewed as the the Israelis use the land only temporarily. modern mentor of Religious Zionism. A few months after the Israeli military governor According to the authors of “Jewish Fundamen- met with the Hebron dignitaries, a group of Jews, talism in Israel,” Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvin- disguised as tourists, led by the extremist rabbi sky (Pluto Press, London, 1999), Kook is quoted as Moshe Levinger, took over the main hotel in Hebron and refused to leave. A few weeks later, Levinger moved to the army barracks, declaring the establishment of the settle- ment outpost of Kiryat Arba. Today Kiryat Arba is a flourishing suburb of Hebron with a population of 7,500 Jewish settlers. More than ten years later, Levinger’s American wife, Miryam, with the tacit en- couragement of the army, led 30 Jewish women to take over the Daboya hospital, now Beit Hadassah, overlooking Shuhada Street in central Hebron. Eventually, succes- sive Israeli governments approved the sei- zure, encouraging the mostly messianic Jewish group known as Gush Emunim (Bloc of the Faithful) to take over more and more Arab homes and property. Rabbi Levinger is not exactly an embodi- ment of a righteous Jew who would follow the Talmudic edict, codified by the famous sage Hillel, who told a heathen who wanted to learn the Torah while standing on one foot, “What is hateful to yourself, do not do to your fellow-man… this is the whole of the Torah and the rest is commentary.” In 1988, Levinger shot and killed an in- nocent Palestinian shopkeeper, Kayed Salah, in cold blood. He never expressed The Link Page 4 saying that “The difference between a Jewish soul toward the Palestinians can be. and souls of non-Jews— all of them in all different Consider that massacre at the Ibrahimi Mosque. levels— is greater and deeper than the difference be- On February 25, 1994, as hundreds of local Muslim tween a human soul and the souls of cattle." worshipers were praying at dawn in the old quarter Some apologists would dismiss Kook’sviews as of Hebron, an American Jewish immigrant, a physi- anachronistic, and not necessarily representative of cian by profession named Baruch Goldstein, de- modern Jewish orthodoxy. Don’ttell that to Rabbi scended on the mosque and started spraying the Levinger. Following the massacre of 29 Muslim wor- worshipers with bullets. Within minutes, he mur- shipers at the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, Levinger dered 29 and injured dozens; the survivors eventu- was quoted as saying, “Iam not only sorry for dead ally killed him. Arabs, but also sorry for dead flies as well.” Goldstein was a follower of the manifestly racist Then there is Rabbi Saadya Grama of Beth rabbi Meir Kahana, who believed in the necessity of Medrash Govoha, the renowned Talmudic school of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the River Jor- Lakewood, N.J. In 2003, he published a book in which dan to the Mediterranean. In 1978, he wrote a book he claims that gentiles are completely evil and that entitled “They Must Go.” Fourteen years later, fol- Jews constitute a separate, genetically superior spe- lowing a speech in a New York City hotel in which cies. he called for uprooting all Palestinians from Pales- tine-Israel, Kahana was assassinated. The book, published under the Hebrew title, “Romemut Yisrael ufarshat Hagalut,” quoted nu- The Israeli government and major Jewish organi- merous classical Jewish sources to prove Jewish su- zations around the world condemned the killings at periority over the rest of mankind. the Ibrahimi Mosque, saying it didn’treflect Jewish ethics and morality. However, it was clear that the The difference between Jews and gentiles, the au- vast majority of settlers and their supporters, both in thor argued, is not religious or political. It is rather Israel and abroad, effectively supported the mass racial, genetic, and scientifically unalterable. One murder in one way or the other. group is at its very root and by its very nature “totally evil” while the other is “totally good.” Indeed, Goldstein’stomb in the nearby settlement Rabbi Grama concludes: “Jewish successes in the of Kiryat Arba became a pilgrimage attraction for world are completely contingent upon the failure of radical Jews from around the world, with some Gush other peoples. Only when the gentiles face total ca- Emunim rabbis writing books glorifying Goldstein tastrophe, do Jews experience good fortune.” and calling him a saint. While castigated by many Jewish figures, both Even today, more than 16 years later, while Gold- religious and secular, for its brazen racism, Grama’s stein himself no longer exists, “Goldsteinism” e.g.