"You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do." - Anne Lamott

Graffiti in the old city of Hebron

Hebron should be a required stop for tourists coming to Israel. It is one of the more extreme places in the West Bank, because it is very holy in both Islam and Judaism. It is a place where Israeli settlers literally live on top of Palestinians, and Palestinians working in the old city have to put up wire and fabric to prevent settlers from throwing things like glass and bottles of urine down onto them. 

Wiring catches garbage thrown down by settlers
onto people working and shopping in the old
city of Hebron.

To really understand the settlement issue in Palestine, you need to know that first of all, according to the United Nations, the international community (including the US) and the Oslo Accords signed by both Palestine and Israel, Israeli settlement in the Occupied Territories (read: Palestine) is illegal. The Fourth Geneva Convention states that "the Occupying Power" (in this case, Israel) "shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies" (again, read:Palestine) Despite this, Israel continues to actively pursue Israeli settlement in the West Bank. Israeli settlers are civilians who have either destroyed Palestinian homes and taken over the land, or simply taken over the homes, and fall into one of two categories: the very savvy, and the very religious. The very savvy are Israelis who come to Palestine because their government provides them with a loan to take over the land in Palestine, and then forgives the balance after 10 years (loans which are financed by the US, despite repeated efforts by US presidents on both sides of the political debate, including President Obama and former President Bush the first, to reign in continued building of settlements). It's a pretty good deal, if you're comfortable having all of your neighbors see you as an invader. 

The very religious, however, are a different group entirely, and these are the settlers you find in Hebron. Hebron, as the burial site of matriarchs and patriarchs of the Bible such as Sarah and Abraham, Jacob and Leah, and Isaac and Rebecca,  is the second holiest site in Judaism, so it's home to 500 or so religious settlers, who don't work but are offered stipends by the Israeli government to just study Judaism intensively. The Israeli army provides a presence of about 1500 soldiers to protect those 500 settlers, and 18 checkpoints throughout Hebron.

A water tankard with bullet holes
preventingit from storing water.

The same water tankard,
just a full shot.

The best way to describe life in Hebron is that of a ghost town, or of Apartheid South Africa. There are literally full streets where Palestinians can neither walk nor drive, and entire neighborhoods that used to be shops and homes that were shut down by Israeli forces during the second Intifada, not to mention the overbearing presence of the Israeli military, the checkpoints, the settlers who throw glass at the Palestinians, or the Palestinian water tanks shot out so that they can no longer hold water. Hebron is the reality of life under occupation. This is Palestine.

A tapestry of Handala, a cartoon
symbolizing a Palestinian refugee
child witnessing life under
occupation, made by a women's
cooperative in Hebron.

This is a wall dividing where Palestinians
are and aren't allowed. In this photo,
we're walking on the Palestinian side,
but we also ventured up into the
Israeli side.

The empty, abandoned streets of Hebron,
with the Israeli flag hanging above.