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Closed Military Zone

July 20th, 2008Eva (Israel)

Last Friday July 18th, 2008 I went on another trip organized by Peace Now’s Settlement Watch Team I already introduced in my Blog called “A Trip to Settler-Land”. 

This time lots of people had joined – and as I said before – many of them (like me) not members of Peace Now. We came just to see reality on the ground. 

The trip was supposed to go to Hebron (H2, to be precise). Peace Now had asked and obtained all the necessary permits for this trip – asked and obtained from the highest possible level in the Ministry of Security. 

We set out from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv (5 busses full of Jewish Israeli citizens with blue ID card and tourists). Yet, as few miles ahead we were stopped by the police and not allowed to continue our trip. 

The explanation given to us was that on that very morning settlers of H2 had aggressed a group of visitors led by members of Breaking the Silence. While the responsible people from Peace Now tried to negotiate the continuation of our trip, we were told that Hebron (H2) had been declared “Closed Military Zone” for the next few hours. 

We were all very annoyed by this decision – for me it would have been my first visit to Hebron. Yet, a few of the settlers had arrived at the scene to give us a taste of what it would have been to go to Hebron. 

Some settlers from Hebron 

As before in Beit El, they tried by shouting as loud as they could that WE were responsible for all terrorist attacks to disturbed the explanations given to us by our guides. We tried to figure out what to do, and some of us decided to continue our way as pedestrians. 

While we tried to reach Hebron this way, policemen warned us that we were penetrating a Closed Military Zone and if we continued, we would be arrested. Yet, while walking a few dozens of meters towards Hebron, I saw several Israeli cars with kids on board penetrate without restriction this same Closed Military Zone. At that point I took out my Israeli ID card and asked the police to stop these people as well. As they didn’t react, I asked them all to explain to me what difference there was between those Israeli citizens allowed to penetrate a Closed Military Zone and me, Israeli citizen with exactly the same rights (or so I thought). I was sent to the officer in charge to get my replies (naturally lower graded policemen cannot give such an answer). One of them, though, (and I thank him for that) told me that as a private citizen he’d completely agree with me. Thank you, unknown policeman, for testifying your inner humanity… 

So I went to talk to the officer and explained my case. The only answer a got after lots of extremely polite insistence that these Israeli citizens had a special permit to enter the Closed Military Zone, which I had not. 

But the most AMAZING thing I’ve seen right in front of my eyes: while I was stopped and not allowed the Closed Military Zone, one of the tourists that had joined the trip, exhibiting his British Passport was ALLOWED TO PENETRATE THE CLOSED MILITARY ZONE of H2.

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I just found an article about this in The Jerusalem Post of today (20.07.2008)

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3 Responses to “Closed Military Zone”

  1. #1 Madmax - July 21st, 2008 at 10:23 am

    Why was the tourist allowed in? If they are keeping people from visiting for PR purposes (what I gather from the post) then why would they make an exception for the Brit? Or did I miss something?

  2. #2 Gila (Israel) - July 21st, 2008 at 8:57 pm

    Oy!

    Had my first trip ever to an Arab village in the shtachim this past weekend. At some point will try to see Hevron but since I am afraid of everyone there (both sides have enough crazies), this will have to wait until I am brave and/or stupid enough to get up and go.

    Gila

  3. #3 Eva (Israel) - August 6th, 2008 at 12:39 am

    Madmax,
    I’m sorry for taking so long to reply to your question. I intentionally wrote this post “naively”, exactly as the police officer explained the situation to me, and stating exactly what happened. I intentionally did not interpret it – in fact to show the absurdity of this so-called “Closed Military Zone” and to raise questions like yours. Declaring Hebron a “Closed Military Zone” was a totally arbitrary decision ONLY intended to prevent US from going there. In fact, the “normal” situation in the Occupied Territories is this: Settlers and naturally police and military are allowed to penetrate the areas under Israeli control (Area C) any time. Usually also “regular” Israelis. Israelis are NOT allowed to enter zones of Area B (joint Israeli and Palestinian control) and Area A (entirely under PA control). Area A means mostly Palestinan towns and bigger villages. A small, unimportant Palestinan village can be in Area C, and thus allowed for Israelis to penetrate. Non-Israelis = holders of a foreign passport are allowed to penetrate everywhere, without restriction, unless there is a real and imminent security threat.

    Hebron is a “special” case – it is divided in 2 zones – Area C (called H2) where the about 700 settlers reside, and the rest of the town where some 166,000 Palestinians live in Area A.

    The settlers of Hebron are known as the “worst” kind of settlers. While they are very welcoming for any right-winger coming to visit “their” town, they are extremely violent towards Israeli “left-wingers”, even if they do nothing but visit the place and look around. The same happens to International Peace-Groups or Tours.

    Now, the approx. 3000 soldiers in Hebron are in charge of protecting the SETTLERS. So, if other Israelis, like us, the situation gets quite tricky. The settlers aggress such groups or people and the soldiers “cannot” intervene against them – as they are there to protect THEM.

    To avoid such “difficult” situations, the army seeks to keep peace-groups and all so called “left-wingers” out of Hebron, also because we and others are a threat to them, as we tend to testify about what’s going on in Hebron, which is extremely unconfortable for the army… The movement “Breaking the Silence” (Israeli soldiers speaking out about what they have been made to do during their military service) has it’s roots in Hebron.

    This day we were told that a group from Breaking the Silence had already “created troubles” earlier in the morning. To avoid other troubles, the army therefore declared Hebron “closed military zone” – but in fact ONLY for us (special “honor”! wow!).

    What I mainly intended to show in my post is the arbitrary in which the whole West Bank is administered – as it is entirely under Military Rule (except, of course, for the settlers, who are sunjected to Israeli national law, while all Palestinians are subjected to Military Law of Exception)…

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