The ongoing conflict between Palestinians and Jewish Israeli settlers in the West Bank city of Hebron is part of the wider Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Hebron has a Palestinian majority, consisting of an estimated 208,750 citizens (2015)'Localities in Hebron Governorate by Type of Locality and Population Estimates, 2007-2016,' Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics 2015. and a small Jewish minority, variously numbered between 500 and 800.Quandt, William B. (2005) Peace Process: American Diplomacy and the Arab-Israeli Conflict Since 1967 University of California Press, p 365 The H1 sector of Hebron, home to around 170,000 Palestinians, is governed by the Palestinian Authority.Peter Beaumont'Inside Hebron's pressure cooker: the West Bank's most troubled city ,' The Guardian 14 November 2015. H2, which was inhabited by around 30,000 Palestinians, is under Israeli military control with an entire brigade in place to protect some 800 Jewish residents living in the old Jewish quarter.Baruch Kimmerling, Politicide:Ariel Sharon's War Against the Palestinians, Verso Books p.157 n.13.Strickland, Patrick. "Living in fear in Hebron", Aljazeera in-depth feature, 18 February 2014 As of 2015, Israel has declared that a number of special areas of Old City of Hebron constitute a closed military zone. Palestinians shops have been forced to close; despite protests Palestinian women are reportedly frisked by men, and residents, who are subjected every day to repeated body searches, must register to obtain special permits to navigate through the 18 military checkpoints Israel has set up in the city center.'Locals: Humiliating treatment continuing in Hebron's Old City,' Ma'an News Agency 30 December 2015.
History
The Hebrew Bible describes Hebron as the home of patriarchs Abraham and Jacob and as all the patriarchs final resting place. It is also considered King David's first capital city.
In the mid-19th century, Hebron was small town with a population of around 10,000, the majority of whom were Muslims.Robinson, Edward (1794-1863). "Biblical researches in Palestine, 1838-52 A journal of travels in the year 1838, p.88 From December 1917, Hebron came under the rule of the Mandatory Palestine, a move sanctioned by the League of Nations.
In 1929 when the Hebron massacre took place, Sephardic Jews and Ashkenazi Jews had been living in Hebron for about 800 and 100 years respectively. In the massacre, 67 Jews were killed by Arab rioters, and many incidents of rape, mutilation, and torture were reported. In 1931, 160 Jews returned to the town,Tom Segev (2000) p 347 but after further Arab unrest, the British Government decided to move all Jews out of Hebron "to prevent another massacre".
At the beginning of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Egypt occupied Hebron. By late 1948, part of the Egyptian forces had been isolated around Hebron and Bethlehem, John Bagot Glubb sent 350 Arab Legionnaires and established a Jordanian presence in Hebron.Wilson, Mary Christina. (1990) King Abdullah, Britain and the Making of Jordan Cambridge University Press, p 181 With the signing of the Armistice agreements the city fell exclusively under Jordanian control. In 1950, the city was unilaterally incorporated into Jordan.Peter Bouckaert, Human Rights Watch, Human Rights Watch (Organization), Clarisa Bencomo (2001) Center of the storm: a case study of human rights abuses in Hebron district Published by Human Rights Watch, p 15
Israeli rule and Jewish re-settlement Following the June 1967 Six-Day War, Hebron came under Israeli control. The vacillations in the Israeli cabinet after the war, over annexation and the political realism in wanting to maintain the majority Jewish demographic of Israel left the Israeli leadership in a quandary in ways to deal with the newly occupied territories.Golda Meir (2007) p. 293 Israel's position was that parts of the West Bank be traded for peace with Jordan.Chaim Herzog Heroes of Israel p.253. Under the Allon Plan, Israel was to annex 45% of the West Bank and Jordan the remainder.He [Allon] proposed that Israel annex a strip of land 6–9 miles wide along the Jordan River, most of the sparsely populated Judean desert along the Dead Sea, and a wide swath of land around Greater Jerusalem. The Heart of the West bank - its great Arab cities and most densely populated towns - could be returned to Jordan. Elinor Burkett (2007) Golda Meir; The Iron Lady of the Middle East pp 295–296
In an interview with the BBC on July 12, 1967, Former Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion declared that:
in the cause of peace, Israel should take nothing in the conquered territories, with the exception of Hebron, which 'is more Jewish even than Jerusalem'. According to Randolph Churchill, he [Ben-Gurion] argued that "Jerusalem became Jewish three thousand years ago under King David. But Hebron became Jewish four thousand years ago under Abraham and included a number of settlements that were destroyed two days before Israel was established."Randolph Churchill and Winston S. Churchill, The Six Day War,1967 p.199 citing 'The World at One' BBC radio, July 12, 1967
In 1968, a group of Jewish settlers led by Rabbi Moshe Levinger, with the tacit support of Levi Eshkol and Yigal Allon,Gershom Gorenberg, The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967–1977, Times Books, Henry Holt & Co., New York 2007 pp.137ff. rented out the main hotel in Hebron and refused to leave. This was short lived and through a government compromise the Jewish presence was moved east to a nearby abandoned army camp. The new settlement of Kiryat Arba was established. According to the American Jewish historian Ian Lustick:
'The government was caught by surprise. Internally divided, depending for its survival on the votes of the National Religious Party, and reluctant to forcibly evacuate the settlers from a city whose Jewish population had been massacred thirty-nine years earlier, the Labor government backed away from its original prohibition against civilian settlement in the area and permitted this group to remain within a military compound. After more than a year and a half of agitation and a bloody Arab attack on the Hebron settlers, the government agreed to allow Levinger's group to establish a town on the outskirts of the city.'Ian Lustick, (1988) For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel Council on Foreign Relations, p 42
Beginning in 1979, some Jewish settlers moved from Kiryat Arba to found the Committee of the Jewish Community of Hebron in the former Jewish neighbourhood near the Abraham Avinu Synagogue, and later to other Hebron neighborhoods including Tel Rumeida. They took over the former Hadassah Medical Center, Daboya Hospital, now Beit Hadassah in central Hebron, founding the committee. Before long this received Israeli government approval and a further three Jewish enclaves in the city were established with Israeli army assistance,Anita Shapira, (2007) Yigal Allon, Native Son: A Biography Translated by Evelyn Abel, University of Pennsylvania Press, p 315UN Docs Chronological Review of Events November 1994 '2 November Speaking in Jerusalem to a young leadership of the United Jewish Appeal, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said that the Likud government made a major mistake by establishing settlements of 30 to 80 families in areas densely populated by Palestinians. As a result the bulk of the army is required to be stationed in the West Bank for the purpose of protecting Jewish settlers, he concluded. According to Rabin, in order to protect 450 Jewish settlers in Hebron, which has a Palestinian population of 100,000, there was a need for three Israeli army battalions to be there at all times.' and settlers are currently reported to be trying to purchase more homes in the city.
A total of 86 Jewish families now live in Hebron.
Post–Oslo Accord On 25 February 1994, Israeli physician Baruch Goldstein opened fire on Muslims at prayer in the Cave of the Patriarchs, killing 29, before the survivors overcame and killed him. 24 more Palestinians were killed in the ensuing response to Arab riots, by Israeli police as local Palestinians protested and rioted, 6 on the following day at a demonstration in front of Hebron's hospital, and a further 18, (with some 37 more wounded) in ensuing clashes through till March 4. Two Israelis were killed and two wounded at the same timeJoel Beinin, 'The Oslo Process and the Limits of a Pax Americana,' in Joel Beinin, Rebecca L. Stein (eds.) The Struggle for Sovereignty: Palestine and Israel, 1993–2005, Stanford University Press, 2006 pp.21-37, p.32.Israeli Ministry of Foreign affairs Preliminary Report on the Events in Hebron as presented by Commanding Officer of the Central Command General Dani Yatom Before the Diplomatic Corps This event was condemned by the Israeli Government.Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs -- Excerpts from the report of the Commission of Inquiry Into the Massacre at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron (aka the "Shamgar Report") The extreme right-wing Kach party was banned outright by the Israeli cabinet under 1948 anti-terrorism laws, following the group's support of Goldstein's actions.Key Issues: Protecting Charitable organizations US Department of the TreasuryIn the Spotlight: Kach and Kahane Chai Center for Defense Information, 1 October 2002
The first Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH) mission was established on May 8, 1994 as a UN response to the massacre. However the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli government could not reach an agreement on the extension of the mandate and the observers were therefore withdrawn on August 8, 1994.UN Docs Chronological Review of Events August 1994
A year later, on April 3, 1995, the Hebron municipality, through its mayor Mustafa al-Natshe, invited the Christian Peacemaker Teams to function as a violence-reducing presence.Kathleen Kern, In Harm's Way: A History of Christian Peacemaker Teams, Lutterworth Press, 2009 pp.99,214. Opposed to all forms of violence (they have informed local Israeli settlers that they 'stood with whomever was on the receiving end of a gun barrel'),Kathleen Kern, 'From Haiti to Hebron with a Brief Stop in Washington, D.C.; The CPT Experiment,' in Cynthia Sampson, John Paul Lederach (eds.)From the Ground Up: Mennonite Contributions to International Peacebuilding, Oxford University Press, 2000 pp.183-200, p.192 they now assist the local Palestinian community cope with the numerous restrictions—settler harassment, home demolitions, curfews and land confiscations—they are subjected to by the occupying power in what CPT, whose function is to monitor the tensions and accompany the Palestinian Hebronites on their daily rounds, calls collective punishment.Barbara R. Rossing,The Rapture Exposed, Basic Books, 2007 p.59.Bill Baldwin, Samah Sabawi, The Journey to Peace in Palestine: From the Song of Deborah to the Simpsons, Dorrance Publishing, 2010 pp.1,8.Kathleen Kern, In Harm's Way: A History of Christian Peacemaker Teams, Lutterworth Press, 2009 pp.06,152,159