My personal take on Hevron

I'm hoping that the combination of bold, italicized and underlined words in the title of this post will head off some (but certainly not all) of the nonsense that ensues whenever I make the mistake of wading into politics. Only time will tell.

First of all, I should start by saying that I have no more or less information about what's going on in Hevron than anyone else in the world with an Internet connection. I haven't visited Hevron in over a year, and contrary to popular belief, we settler types don't have some Magic 8-Ball® that makes us privy to the goings-on throughout the West bank.

So with that said I'll tell you that I think the biggest tragedy in what is being reported from Hevron right now is that the Israeli press is falling into the same trap as their foreign counterparts; specifically, of looking at events on the ground with little or no reference to the historical and/or legal context.

Without sounding like some kind of zealot/messianist, it is worth pointing out that Hevron is one of the few cities in this region to which the Jewish people have an iron-clad, ancient, internationally known (but oft-ignored) claim of ownership.

No matter which version of the Bible you have on your bookshelf, you can open to the book of Genesis and read word-for-word about the negotiated purchase by Abraham of the cave of the Machpelah and surrounding fields of Mamre in Hevron (in front of witnesses) for cash money.

What's more, both Judaism and Islam agree that the deal was consummated and that many of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs are in fact buried there. This may seem superfluous to many, but it is a point that is frequently ignored by people who like to view only the Arabs as the ancient claimants to any part of the land.

Next, up until late summer of 1929 when 133 Jews were murdered, 339 more were wounded and pretty much all of the Jewish owned property/real estate in Hevron was seized by Arab rioters, there had been a sizable and long-standing Jewish population in Hevron.

It is also worth pointing out that up until the 1929 riots (which were deliberately instigated by the then Mufti of Jerusalem), there had been comfortable (I won't say cordial) relations between the Jewish and Arab residents of the city.

I find it interesting that so many who have latched onto the Palestinian 'right of return' to land and property that was abandoned or seized during the War of Independence in 1948, consider 1929 to be such distant and ancient history as to be legally moot (or not worth mentioning at all).

I am not a subscriber to the myth that the Jews came to Ottoman and mandatory Palestine and began settling an empty land. But in fairness the land was never empty of Jews either, and there are at least as many un-adjudicated Jewish land claims throughout the region as there are Arab ones... and the Jewish claims aren't being held in interest-bearing accounts the way the bulk of the Arab ones are.

Some of the journalists have been thorough enough to add closing paragraphs or even footnotes to their articles that make reference to the fact that the current trouble is essentially over property that was undisputedly owned by Jews and which has now been re-occupied by Jews as a form of protest. The really fair-minded ones even mention in passing that the stores were re-occupied by Jewish residents as a reaction to the murder of a baby (who was being held in her mother's arms at the time) by an Arab sniper. 

I have mentioned several times here on treppenwitz that I don't personally have the time or interest to participate in the tradition of answering each act of terror with a new act of settlement.  However, I like this formula a great deal more than answering violence with violence.  Call me old-fashioned.

So with that sorely truncated and inadequate historical groundwork laid, what do I think of what's going on in Hevron right this minute?

I think that the Government and Police (not to mention the media), have bestowed the villain's black hat upon the settlers once again without allowing for any historical or legal motivation to their actions.  This was done to great effect during the disengagement from Gaza, and I have made no secret of my disdain for such deliberately biased politicizing of what should be fairly straightforward legal issues.

With that said, I should point out that I think the settlers involved in the current scuffle have once again missed an important opportunity to wear, if not a white hat, then at least not the black one.  Simply put, they have confused 'fair' with 'legal'. 

If they were on a playground and a tribunal of kids from various cliques was asked if there was a 'fair' Jewish claim to any or all of Hevron, the answer would (IMHO) be an easy yes. 

But there's the rub... this isn't taking place on a playground.

The shops that these settlers took over and converted into residences were unquestionably once owned by Jews and subsequently taken by force from the legal owners by Arabs.  Nobody... not even the press... says otherwise.  The problem is that these Jewish settlers have appointed themselves the legal heirs to the property based solely on fairness without any regard for the law.

If they had taken the simple step of tracking down and contacting even one of the legal heirs to the property (presumably not too difficult to do only a few generations later), and gotten their permission to either assume title, or at least become a co-claimants, to the land, then they would be on much more solid legal ground.  But like so many of the activists who continue to set up non-viable 'McSettlements' on any random piece of Jewish or State-owned land, they are missing the clear distinction between what's fair and what's legal.

I also get more than a bit angry when I see the press reporting on events in Hevron as though the more violent participants were elected and recognized representatives of all settlers (religious or otherwise).  This is simply not the case.  Left and right...secular and religious...these loose classifications within Israeli society are rife with factions and individualists.  In this respect, 'fair' should carry some weight... but it is being largely ignored in favor of a more convenient and homogeneous view of all settlers as religious troublemakers.

So, what will happen now? 

Sorry, my Magical Settler 8-Ball® says "Not clear...try again later".  I can venture a pretty safe guess that the police (as the pointy end of the government's current policy) will have little difficulty in tossing out a few angry Jews from an area that has become controversial at a time when Israel finds controversy to be inconvenient. 

But if you ask me what I think... I'll tell you that having Hevron join Gaza in Judenrien status is not kosher from either a legal nor fair standpoint. 

Hevron has both an ancient and modern Jewish provenance unrivaled by any other place, including Jerusalem.   I would hope that the current anti-religious and anti-settler sentiment held by much of the media (and more than half of the country) wouldn't give people the mistaken notion that the legal and 'fair' aspects of the Jewish claims to land and property in Hevron can simply be tossed aside as inconvenient and irrelevant.  But it looks to me like that is exactly what will happen in the end.

Or, as I often point out... I could very well be full of sh*t.