UPDATE ON HEBRON'S OLD CITY

C O N F I D E N T I A L JERUSALEM 002325 SIPDIS NEA FOR FRONT OFFICE, SEMEP, AND IPA; NSC FOR SHAPIRO/KUMAR; JOINT STAFF FOR LTGEN SELVA E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/28/2019 TAGS: PGOV PBTS KPAL KWBG IS SUBJECT: UPDATE ON HEBRON'S OLD CITY REF: A. 07 JERUSALEM 1965 ¶B. 08 JERUSALEM 1260 Classified By: Consul General Daniel Rubinstein for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). ¶1. (C) Summary. In recent visits to Hebron's "H2" district, the impact of Israel Defense Forces' (IDF) movement restrictions on Palestinian residents remains apparent in high Palestinian unemployment, a shrinking Palestinian population, and derelict storefronts in what was once Hebron's commercial center. Palestinian residents complained of settler harassment and restrictive IDF policies on movement and access. For their part, representatives of the 800-strong settler community in H2 claimed a scriptural and historical mandate for their presence, which is secured by an IDF deployment roughly twice as large in number. An IDF veteran with prior Hebron service argued that the H2 district is not exceptional, but is instead a "microcosm" the West Bank, with security requirements leading to restrictions on Palestinian life. End Summary. H2 OLD CITY REMAINS A GHOST TOWN -------------- ¶2. (C) During a recent trip to Hebron with Poloffs, Yehuda Shaul, a former IDF officer who served in Hebron before founding NGO Breaking the Silence, explained that the IDF have imposed progressively stricter movement and access restrictions on the commercial center of Hebron (H2),which remains under GOI security control under the terms of the 1997 Hebron Protocol. The trend of intensifying restrictions began after the 1994 massacre at the Ibrahimi mosque, and intensified with the outbreak of the Second Intifada, when the IDF closed the principal commercial thoroughfare (Shuhada Street) to all Palestinian vehicular and pedestrian traffic. Now, Shaul noted, only the 800 Israeli settlers in H2, and the 1,600 IDF deployed for their protection, have access to the city's main street. ¶3. (C) Shaul added that of the 50 Palestinian families originally resident on Shuhada Street, only four remain. According to Israeli human rights NGO B'Tselem statistics, since the start of Second Intifada in Hebron, 42% of Palestinian residences and 77% of business have been abandoned, a trend he attributed to IDF restrictions and settler harassment. Conditions remain difficult for the 30,000 Palestinians who remain in H2, he added. OUTLINES OF THE H2 SETTLER COMMUNITY -------------- ¶4. (C) With regard to the 800-strong settler community, Shaul estimated that roughly 300 are children, 250 are yeshiva (seminary) students, and 250 work outside the settlements. He estimated that around 25% of the funding for the settlements' daily needs came directly from the GOI, 45% from the Hebron Fund (a US-based tax-exempt fundraising group),and 30% from other private donors in Israel and overseas. Note: According to a 2009 report produced by the Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH),the Hebron Fund supplies around 1.5 million USD annually to Hebron settlements, in addition to GOI benefits such as income tax deduction and subsidized housing provided to residents H2 due to its status as a National Priority Area. End Note. ¶5. (C) Shaul noted that levels of settler-Palestinian violence had declined. He claimed the trend was partly in response to a B'Tselem's project "Shooting Back," which provides video cameras to Palestinians in H2 to document incidents of settler harassment. Pointing at rows of shuttered and derelict shops and apartments, Shaul said, the situation cannot fundamentally improve so long as settlers are present. Based on his service in the IDF, he claimed that the greatest fear of any IDF officer is to fail to protect Israelis. In the case of Hebron, this means the settlers. "The 166,000 Palestinians (in Hebron) are not a part of the (political) equation," he added. FAMILIES MANEUVER AROUND MOVEMENT RESTRICTIONS -------------- - ¶6. (C) In the company of Dina Jabaari of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC),PolOffs visited hairdresser Hana Abu al-Khaider, who lives in the Tel Rumeida neighborhood with her elderly mother and young daughter. The al-Khaider home abuts an Israeli settlement; since the year 2000, the IDF has closed the access road to the house to all non-settler vehicular traffic. According to ICRC, ambulance crews periodically transport al-Khaider's mother to her regular medical treatments by carrying her on a stretcher over an IDF-manned roadblock and for a distance of several city blocks to the nearest permissible road. Hana Abu al-Khaider said that IDF had refused to issue her daughter, who bears a different last name, a permit given to other families, allowing them to use their front access road as pedestrians. As a results, she said, her daughter exits the house by climbing through a hole in the roof, and walks to school via neighboring farmlands. ¶7. (C) Abu al-Khaider asserted that her family had lived on the 14-dunum plot for 180 years. "In 1997," she claimed, "(Amcit pro-settlement investor) Irving Moskovitz came to the house, and offered 20 million (USD) for it. And he offered to get us U.S. citizenship. I refused. This is a tough economic situation for our family -- we're applying for loans, we have medical bills. But I am proud to be a member of this household, and I will keep struggling." She said the family was subject to regular harassment by neighboring settlers, who had on several occasions thrown stones at ambulances approaching the house. Still, she said, she was open to any practicable form of co-existence that allowed her family to remain in their home and resume a normal movement regime. "I will even protect the settlers if someone comes to attack them," she said, "because I know it's in my interest." H2 SETTLERS POINT TO ABRAHAMIC MANDATE -------------- ¶8. (C) Post contacts in the settler community are generally candid about the frustrations faced by H2's Palestinians residents, but claim a scriptural mandate to settle in the city's heart, citing Abraham's burial of Sarah at the Cave of the Patriarchs, the presence of Arabic-speaking Jews in Hebron in the 15th century, and a "communal right" to avenge the 1929 massacre of Hebron Jews by local Arabs, in which 67 Jews were murdered. H2 settlers are primarily of an ideological slant that rejects the secular Israeli state. A number of settler houses in H2 fly an orange flag featuring a crown, known as the "State of Judea" flag, which symbolizes opposition to GOI disengagement from the West Bank. H2 settlers are also frank in noting that they face few of the obstacles to daily movement encountered by their Palestinian neighbors. David Wilder, spokesperson for the Hebron Jewish Community, told PolOffs that he and his fellow settlers don't feel any need to restrict their movements, asserting that they travel more freely that diplomats do in the West Bank. CURRENT TRENDS IN SETTLEMENT EXPANSION, SECURITY COORDINATION -------------- -------------- ¶9. (C) TIPH Political Advisor Simon Agerberg told PolOff that the TIPH regularly witnessed evidence of settlers breaking into shuttered Palestinian shops in H2's market area, citing break-ins of 15 stores since August 2009. PolOff observed signs of human habitation in several shops identified by the TIPH on a tour the same day. H2 settler David Wilder told PolOff that the Hebron Jewish Community intended, eventually, to occupy every property in Hebron's downtown area in which settlers believed there had once been a historical Jewish presence, saying, "we will continue to build here, and attempt to purchase more homes." Wilder noted that there was "plenty of Jewish property in Hebron" that "we can't access now due to U.S. pressure." But, he continued, "we know where all the properties are, and we will eventually take it all back." ¶10. (C) Meanwhile, according to the TIPH's Agerberg, the IDF's limited mandate inside H2 -- which is restricted to protection of Israeli settlers -- and the inability of Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces to access the area left H2's 30,000 Palestinian residents without an effective security regime. "There's a lack of law enforcement in H2 (with regards to the Palestinians)," Agerberg said. "Law enforcement (in H2) is in the hands of the clans." ICRC's Jabaari concurred, adding that while security in H1 (the portion of Hebron under PA security control) has improved due to the deployment of PA security forces, the situation in H2 has deteriorated. "It's become a shelter and a sanctuary for criminals. Palestinian security forces aren't allowed to access the area without coordination with the IDF, and even then, they have to enter in civilian clothes," he noted. HEBRON AS MICROCOSM OF THE WEST BANK -------------- ¶11. (C) Yehuda Shaul concluded that Hebron "is not an exception," he said. Instead, he described the political evolution in H2 as a "microcosm" of the settlement enterprise in the West Bank. The introduction of a settler presence creates a need for the IDF to secure those communities, Shaul noted. With Palestinian considerations only marginally relevant to IDF behavior, he said, rules of engagement on the ground are driven almost exclusively by a desire to maximize settlers' security. Major acts of Palestinian violence result in tighter IDF control on adjacent Palestinian population areas, he added. Shaul said that in his view, the situation can only be reversed if the settlers are physically relocated from Palestinian population centers. RUBINSTEIN