Israeli police arrested a Jewish man on Friday after he allegedly assaulted Breaking the Silence (BtS) founder Yehuda Shaul while he was guiding a tour in the ancient city of Hebron.
The suspect, a resident of Rosh Ha’ayin released later that day, allegedly punched Shaul in the face. BtS released a photo showing Shaul’s bloodied mouth and upper lip.
BtS publishes testimony of former Israeli soldiers who report on alleged abuses by Israeli’s soldiers in the West Bank. The organization has drawn heavy criticism from Israeli officials, who have challenged the authenticity of its mostly anonymous claims.
The European-funded NGO offers regular tours of Hebron, where several hundred Jews live alongside roughly 200,000 Palestinians. The city is very much a microcosm of the conflict and strongly highlights many core features of both the Jewish and Palestinian narratives.
Visiting H2, the 20% of Hebron under Israeli security control (Jews are only permitted to live in three per cent of the city), reveals the deep roots of the city’s Jewish community, as well as Hebron’s importance to Israel’s rich story stretching back thousands of years. One can readily see evidence of the abrupt end of Hebron’s Jewish community in 1929, when British occupation forces expelled the Jewish survivors of a deadly Arab attack the British themselves were responsible for inciting. And one can also see the importance of the Jewish people’s return to Hebron after only a short 39 year window of absence, and not help but feel a sense of awe at the idealism and self-sacrifice of the Hebronite Jews.
But in H2 we also see Palestinians living under total Israeli military control. It’s the occupation at its worst. And although we might feel strongly about Jews being able to live in Hebron, we don’t want to live as occupiers or in such a way that creates injustices for others. These injustices are what Breaking the Silence tours highlight and, although many Israelis feel threatened by any criticism of state policies or legitimization of Palestinian grievances, it’s actually in our interest to recognize the problems with what the NGO tries to force us to struggle with.
If we hope to stay in Hebron long term, we need to find a way to address the grievances of our neighbors and to live in peace with them without Israeli security forces imposing checkpoints, curfews or freedom of movement.
Responding to Friday’s incident, Breaking the Silence said it filed a police complaint, which it said came in the wake of other incidents with Hebronite Jews, who often throw stones, eggs and dirt at BtS staffers. There have also been several recent incidents of Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH) workers in Hebron participating in acts of violence against Jewish locals.
Earlier this month, the Knesset passed a controversial bill empowering the education minister to ban organizations critical of the Israeli military from entering schools. Dubbed the “Breaking the Silence Law,” the measure aims to prevent high schools from hosting the NGO for presentations to students ahead of their enlistment in the IDF.
