Hebron: Collective Peace or Punishment?
Come and See, Go and Tell Reflection #7
By, Rev. Dr. Shannon Smythe
On the last full day of our solidarity pilgrimage in Palestine, we traveled to Hebron, the largest city in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and a major industrial center for Palestine.
On the bus ride into the city, we read Genesis 23, which tells the story of Sarah’s death and burial in Hebron. Abraham negotiated with the Hittites for a piece of land to bury Sarah in a cave there. According to tradition, this became the burial place for Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Leah (Rachel’s tomb is thought to be in Bethlehem).
For thousands of years the site of the tomb has been sacred to all three Abrahamic faiths: Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. The Ibrahimi Mosque, built to enshrine the holy tomb, includes huge stones that were put in place by Herod. For thousands of years followers of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam peacefully shared this holy site and mosque/temple together. A small community of Jews lived among Muslims and Christians in Hebron for many years before the start of the Zionist movement in Palestine.
Since that time, there has been too much violence and strife in the area, beginning with tensions over rites to the Mosque/Temple. Some Palestinians committed a massacre of 66 Jews in 1929 (others sheltered up to 400 Jews). At that point, the British-run police evacuated the rest of the Jews living in Hebron to Jerusalem. They did not return until the war of 1967, at which point Kiryat Arab settlement was built to the east of the old city, in violation of international law. Then, in 1979, a settlement was established right in the old city, as a group of Jewish women and children were placed in an abandoned hospital in the middle of the night and Israeli soldiers took up positions to defend it. With the blessing of the government and the protection of the army, five settlements were established in the city center, displacing and demolishing people from their homes and oftentimes killing people in the process.
During Ramadan of 1994, a settler named Baruch Goldstein burst into the Ibrahimi Mosque with an M-16 and murdered 29 Palestinians and wounded 125. Since that time there has been more and more army presence in the city to protect the settlers living there. They have closed down streets, imposed curfews on Palestinians but not the settlers, and partitioned the Mosque with thick bullet proof glass into Muslim and Jewish spaces of worship. All of this has been done “for security reasons” but the question is, “security for whom?”
When we pulled up outside the Mosque in the mid-morning on an already stifling hot summer day, it was eerily quiet. Stepping off the air conditioned bus into the oppressive heat it looked as if we were walking into a ghost town rather than a major tourist center and sacred site for three world religions. Looking at the Mosque, draped in a huge Israeli flag, it is obvious that there is no peaceful coexistence here. In yet another Palestinian city in the West Bank, we found more checkpoints and Israeli guards. They asked us where we were from and what our religion is (!).
As we met our tour guide, Lena, a Muslim woman, we learned of the even more difficult situation that has happened since October 7th. The Palestinian Muslims are sometimes denied entry to the Mosque. The IDF can close it whenever they want. Palestinians cannot worship in peace. There are soldiers, security cameras all throughout the mosque, and checkpoints all around the old city. The tourism industry has completely dried up. Shop owners have been forced by the IDF to close their shops. Windows are covered with bars to protect Palestinians from settler violence at night. Signs in Arabic have been crossed out and replaced by Hebrew lettering. Before we could get even a few minutes into our tour, we were accosted by an angry settler who loudly tried to talk over Lena to tell us that we were only hearing one side of the story. He was armed and seemed dead set on trying to convince us that his life was under threat.
The rest of the time we spent in Hebron was more of what we had been hearing, seeing, and feeling this whole trip—a strange mix of gracious hospitality, delicious food, and pleas that we take what we are learning and seeing and share it back home combined with constant surveillance, multiple checkpoints, obvious apartheid, constant IDF presence, and armed settlers.
The difference with Hebron is that the temperature of the situation is turned to high heat (figuratively and, that day, literally). People are desperate for business in order to survive and meet basic needs. It was equal parts frustrating and heartbreaking to be trailed by a group of young children and teenagers constantly trying to get us to buy their trinkets. Their unrelenting aggressiveness led to a shouting match between our tour guide and them. The armed settler also would not leave us alone and got into a shouting match with some in our group. Omar, our host for the pilgrimage, had to intervene and try to calm the situation down. At one point, he had his ID taken from him by the IDF, and we all had to wait and pray that it would be returned without further incident, which, thankfully, it was.
It is so very evident that what is happening in Hebron, what is happening in the West Bank, what is happening in Gaza, all of it is war crime upon war crime upon war crime. It is collective punishment. There is no peace here. There is no justice. As it was explained to us, they either kill you right away or very slowly.
This is not the time to equivocate. It is not the time to remain silent. Things are not “complicated.” What is happening is not rocket science, it is settler colonialism 101 and clearly and simply injustice. According to international law, you cannot militarily occupy people and dictate their lives with 18 year old IDF soldiers. As Omar shared with us passionately at the end, people who are Christians, who follow the way of Jesus, must never abandon the people on the margins.
We will never get to collective peace if we do not follow the logic of International Law. There must be justice. There must be accountability. This cannot be allowed to continue. Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy.
Rev. Dr. Shannon Smythe
Rev. Dr. Shannon Smythe serves in a validated ministry in the Presbytery of the Coastlands as Director of Field Education and Vocational Formation at Princeton Theological Seminary. She has spent the past decade engaging in Reformed theological scholarship and teaching in both seminary and undergraduate contexts and pastoring in PC(USA) churches in NY, DE, and NJ. With a strong commitment to seeing God’s shalom kin-dom come on earth as it is in heaven, her goal is to help cultivate students who “are able to facilitate the gathering of people together,” inviting them “into a shared offering of themselves to one another” (Willie Jennings). Shannon lives in Morrisville, PA with her husband, Kevin, son, Micah, and dog, Chloe.