In 1996 in his first term in office, Prime
Minister Binyamin Netanyahu opened the Hasmonean Tunnels,
declaring that this place was the “rock of our existence.”
Following the opening, riots broke out in Jerusalem and
throughout the West Bank and Gaza. Fifty-eight Palestinians and
15 IDF soldiers were killed.
Now the prime minister has fanned the flames once again,
announcing that the Cave of the Patriarchs (and Matriarchs) in
Hebron and Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem are national heritage
sites.
If the consequences of such political babbling were not so
deadly, one could simply say populism is a necessary evil of
democracy. But we have a prime minister who speaks before he
thinks and, more importantly, speaks about peace with our
neighbors without any serious thinking about what peace means.
This is, of course, not the first time that riots in Hebron have
spread throughout the Holy Land. There was the massacre of 1929
in which 67 Jews were killed by their Arab neighbors after
rumors spread that Jews were killing Arabs near the Western
Wall. In 1996, with the opening of the tunnels, rumors spread
that Israel was digging under the Aksa Mosque so that it would
collapse.
Hebron is a very special city. No one doubts its religious
importance –nor its bloody history. For Jews it has symbolized
barbaric terrorism since the 1929 riots. For Palestinians, the
massacre of Baruch Goldstein “matches” the Jewish memories of
horror. Without diminishing from the memory of those who were
brutally killed, Jews or Arabs, there is nothing special about
Hebron in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There are hundreds
of places and dates that can be recalled from the 100 years of
conflict by both sides to invoke the memory of fallen martyrs.
The massacre in 1929 does not grant any special rights to Jews
to reclaim property in Hebron, any more than the rights of
Palestinian refugees from Jaffa or any other destroyed villages
throughout the land of Israel to reclaim their property. If one
side has the right to reclaim propertyfrom before 1948, surely
the other must have the same. The mutual claims on property must
be dealt with at some time in the peace process.
But Hebron is a special place because of its religious
significance. The period from 1949 to 1967, when Jews were
denied the possibility of praying in the Tomb, is not
acceptable. Any peace process must entail religious tolerance,
mutual respect and a large degree of civility when it comes to
the holy places of all the faiths. The religious claims of Jews
regarding Hebron and the Tomb of the Patriarchs cannot be denied
by anyone that makes similar claims. People do not have to
accept the truth of claims made by other religions, but they
must accept that the other religions’ truths have value equal to
their own.
WHEN A Palestinian state is finally created and the Israeli
occupation comes to an end, Hebron will be under sovereign
Palestinian rule. Jews must recognize that you don’t have to
have sovereignty over every holy site or every grave. Rabbi
Nachman’s grave in the Ukraine is still a sacred site for the
tens of thousands who travel there to worship, even without a
claim of Israeli sovereignty.
It is important that Jews have access to and are able to safely
worship at all their holy sites, even those within the
Palestinian state. This does not require sovereignty, and the
question of the right to settle in Hebron will have to be dealt
with in the framework of permanent-status negotiations and not
through a unilateral act by the Israeli government. If the
Palestinians wish to remove the settlers from Hebron, it would
be wise of them to propose a plan that recognizes the city’s
holiness to the Jewish people and guarantees the religious
rights of the Jews there.
The plan should state clearly that Hebron will be under
Palestinian sovereignty with arrangements for Jewish prayer on a
regular basis and security guarantees for Jewish worshipers.
In recognizing that Palestinian promises of security fall short
in Israeli eyes, the plan should call for international
guarantees to protect those rights and to provide security. The
plan should be magnanimous and enable the Jews to establish a
center of learning in one of the Jewish properties and to even
have a museum of Jewish heritage there.
Palestinians have an opportunity to play a constructive role in
de-escalating the situation ignited by the thoughtless words of
the prime minister. The Israeli government must remove the
settlers from Hebron, and the sooner the better. They are among
the most fanatic, dangerous people with messianic delusions and
present a clear and present danger to peace in the area.
WHEN PRIME minister Yitzhak Rabin thought about removing the 500
Hebron settlers who live in constant conflict with the more than
120,000 Palestinian Hebronites, he was warned by experts that
they might “pull a Masada-type suicide” and the political
fallout would be too great for any Israeli government to handle.
Rabin backed down, even though he had a majority in the cabinet
for a decision to remove them after the Goldstein massacre.
Hebron is one of the hard-core issues that will be on the
negotiating table. Palestinians can make it easier to handle.
Palestinian rhetorical responses to a loudmouth Israeli prime
minister will not help. An initiative aimed at recognizing and
guaranteeing Jewish religious rights in Hebron would be very
helpful in building public support in Israel for removing the
settlers as well as creating an international willingness to
assist. Hebron could explode into much larger violence at any
time – but it also provides an opportunity for Israelis and
Palestinians to head toward better chances for reconciliation.
The writer is co-CEO of the
Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information
(http://www.ipcri.org), and an elected member of the Israeli
Green Movement political party.
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