One Year in Nablus: Hebron

First I'll begin by apologizing for my lack of posts lately. I've been doing quite a bit at work and the last thing I want to do is to come home and spend more time typing but I know I need to do so. This week I'm going to try to write at least one post a night to cover my recent experiences while they are still fresh in my mind. This will require me to do some jumping around so I apologize for a lack of chronology in the coming days.

This past Saturday I convinced one of the roommates to come with me on a day trip to Hebron to do some sightseeing and gift shopping. Hebron is a city locates in the southern area of the West Bank which puts it geographically quite distant from my home in the northern West Bank. The Lonely Planet guide book describes it as a hidden jewel in the West Bank but also goes into a more accurate description as "a deeply troubled one." The Cave of the Patriarchs is located in Hebron as is believed to be the place that holds the tombs of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as well as their respective wives. Of course this makes the site of religious importance to Jews as well and thus a population of around 500 settlers have taken up residency in the city.. The mosque that is built above the tomb is split in half to appease people of both faiths and on certain days one faith will have exclusive rights to the mosque. The best comparison I could make is that the mosque is like a child held in joint custody, with the mom getting him for christmas and the dad getting him for Easter, except in this case one of the parents is fanatical and takes every opportunity to beat, spit on, and generally ruin the life of the other parent. These would be the settlers.

The settlers have taken up occupancy on the second floor of buildings that line the narrow roads of the marketplace. The original Arab occupants were forcibly removed from their homes and many of the doors of their shops on the bottom floor were welded shut. There are scorch marks from molotov cocktails hurled through windows, and just about everyone we met in the market wanted to give us a tour or tell us their story. When you walk through the streets of the market and look up, there is a wire mesh above you to catch the rubbish/debris/chunks of cement/ glass bottles that are thrown down from the settlers on the people below. approximately 4,000 IDF soldiers are stationed in the city alone to protect the settlers from reprisal of their actions, as well as to limit the level of violence against the Arab population....but I'd say the seem to do less of the latter. In 1994, an ultr-orthodox settler entered the mosque and opened fire, killing 29 individuals and injuring somewhere around 150 others. There were riots from the Palestinians the next day which led the IDF to impose a two week curfew on them, while the settlers were allowed to move about freely. There was even a shrine commemorating the man who committed the massacre until it was finally bulldozed years later. I try to remain objective about the conflict and I believe in assigning blame where it is due and therefore I will not say that the Palestinians are the innocent victims, but they are still very much the victims due to inequal power distribution among other factors.To be honest it makes you a little sick to see the way people are willing to treat others, to fully understand the way that someone treats another person that they consider to be so very much inferior and worthless to themselves. I'd like to clarify right now that this is not conjecture or bullshit, I'm not spewing rhetoric that I picked up from some website or some activist but instead what I witnessed with my own eyes and experiences.

So we walked through the market and purchased a few items for friends and family. The last Keffiyeh looms in Palestine are in Hebron and so we picked up a few of the Arabic scarves that have become so trendy in the world lately. It's interesting because people who wear it for solidarity with Palestine for the msot part are purchasing mass-produced ones from China and thus are showing solidarity, but are not actually investing anything in a unique market that desperately needs investment to preserve. I highly recommend this article to learn more about the man who operates the last factory:
http://wn.com/The_Last_Keffiyeh_Factory

I was really glad to see that they have started to attach "Made in Palestin" tags on the keffiyehs that come from Hebron as well because it means so much to see that on a keffiyeh when even the ones sold in the West Bank and Jerusalem seem to come from foreign factories. I implore anyone who wants a keffiyeh to ensure that you purchase one with this tag on it and if you can't find one in your area please contact me and I'll see what I can do about bringing one back for you.

After purchasing a few other small items from a women's co-op in the market (Christmas presents so I won't reveal any details), we set off on foot for a 3 kilometer trek to find the glass studios of Hebron. 3 kilometers my ass by the way and I have full intention of letting the Lonely Planet guidebook we consulted before going to Hebron know that. We ended up probably five kilometers away before we came across a really nice young shopkeeper who spoke clear English and gave us directions and the actual name of the district that was home to Hebron glass blowers (also not in the guidebook). This art industry has been in Hebron for around 2000 years and thus I really wanted to see it. There are three factories of hand-blowing operations left in Hebron that I know and they are all operated by families that having been carrying on the tradition for as long as they can remember. I purchased a few pieces (once again gifts) and marveled at the inexpensive yet beautiful pieces that adorned the shops. I wish my family could have been with me to see the walls of cobalt vases, glasses, carafes, baubles and other such pieces of art. It made me feel good to buy Palestinian products, and in general it feels nice to buy things here because your money usually goes directly to the manufacturer/producer or at most through one or two intermediaries- a lot different from the corporate structure found in America.

Since it takes about three hours to get back home we decided to head out after the glass factories. We had a quick stop over in Ramallah and ran to grab some supplies that we can't get in Ramallah, my roommate grabbed some beer and a bottle of whiskey while I settled on a very inexpensive bottle of wine from Bethlehem. I cracked it tonight and must report that it is a quite tasty merlot and should last me for a week. My drinking has fallen off here because it doesn't happen in Nablus, but I enjoy the luxury when available and treat with appreciation for the rarity it is now. We also went by a nice little DVD shop that sells bootlegs for a 3 dollars and I picked up the new Bruce Willis movie. It's pretty good for an over the top action movie. The guy who owns the shop has made me a pretty dedicated customer already. His store is located on the third floor of a tower and the last time I was in Ramallah he actually came up to me on the street and invited me to take a look. It's really well maintained and very modern, but more than that he remembered me after weeks of not coming in and good customer service always has meant a lot to me. In Nablus being remembered isn't that uncommon because there are only so many white people here on a regular basis, but Ramallah is the capital of internationals, NGO's and activists in Palestine, so I was happy to have made an impression. After the quick shopping trip, we headed home to Nablus, physically exhausted from the trip. I can't speak for my roommate, but I also found Hebron to be emotionally exhausting as well. It's so hard to see such injustice and inequality and feel so powerless.