Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made an unprecedented visit to the occupied West Bank city of Hebron on Wednesday, sparking angry reactions from Palestinian leaders and citizens, who called his visit a “dangerous escalation.”
Marking the first time a sitting Israeli Prime Minister gave an address in the flashpoint city, Netanyahu participated in a ceremony commemorating a 1929 riot in Hebron that resulted in the death of 67 Jews.
During his speech, the PM referred to Palestinians as “blood-thirsty terrorists” who “carried out this horrible massacre 90 years ago,” reinforcing the Israeli narrative that the deadly riots were motivated by Palestinian hatred of Jews.
“They were certain that with that they were uprooting us from this place for good. They were wrong,” Netanyahu said, adding “we returned to Hebron” and praising settlement expansion in the city, particularly the notoriously violent settlement of Kiryat Arba.
The ceremony took place in the plaza in front of the Ibrahimi Mosque, or Tomb of the Patriarchs, a holy place for both Muslims and Jews, and the site of a 1994 massacre of 29 Palestinian worshipers by an American-Israeli settler.
“I say on the 90th anniversary of the disturbances – we are not foreigners in Hebron, we will stay here forever,” the premiere said, adding “the people of Israel are deeply entrenched in Hebron. From our very beginning, we belonged here.”
Remembered by Palestinians as the 1929 ‘Buraq Uprising’, massive protests were sparked across historic Palestine after a group of Jewish migrants went to al-Buraq, known as the Western Wall, carrying Zionist flags and chanting Zionist slogans.
Palestinians saw the move, which coincided with the anniversary of the Prophet Mohammed’s birth, as representative of an increasing Zionist presence in Palestine that threatened the takeover of their land and holy sites.
The events in Jerusalem led to violent confrontations between Palestinians and Jews in the city, which then spread to different cities, including Hebron, across Palestine, starting the Buraq Uprising.
It is estimated that 133 Jews were killed during the uprising, while 116 Palestinians were killed, mostly at the hands of British colonial forces, with some killed during Jewish attacks on Arab communities.
The Shaw Commission, a British inquiry into the uprising, found that there was “no doubt” that the fundamental reason for the uprising was a feeling of animosity among Palestinians “consequent upon the disappointment of their political and national aspirations and fear for their economic future.”
Dispelling the myth that Palestinians were killing Jews simply because of their religion, the commission highlighted the fact that in 10 years prior to the Buraq Uprising, there were only three incidents recorded of Arab attacks on Jews, and in the 80 years prior to that, “there were no recorded instance of any similar incidents.”
Despite historical records, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin joined Netanyahu in reiterating the belief that, as he put it, “the riots of 1929 were directed against all Jews of all ethnicities and views, simply because they were Jews.”
Rivlin even addressed claims by historians that the riots were directed against Zionism, saying “these claims are totally unfounded.”
During the ceremony, which was largely seen as an attempt to appease Netanyahu’s right-wing base ahead of this month’s elections, ministers from Netanyahu’s Likud party called on the premiere to extend Israeli sovereignty to all of Hebron.
Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein called for Hebron to be turned into a “full-blown city of Israel,” saying “the time has come for the Jewish settlement in Hebron to grow to thousands of residents,” the Times of Israel reported.
During her speech at the ceremony, culture Minister Miri Regev called directly on the premiere to fulfill his promise of extending Israeli sovereignty to all of the West Bank, saying “there is no better place to start bringing that pledge into fruition than Hebron.” she said.
“If there’s no Hebron there’s no Tel Aviv,” Regev said.
Yishai Fleisher, spokesperson of the Israeli settler community in Hebron, live tweeted much of the day’s events, lauding Regev and Netanyahu for their statements, and praising the day’s events.
The city of #HEBRON welcomes Israeli President @PresidentRuvi, Speaker of the Knesset @YuliEdelstein, and @IsraeliPM @netanyahu to commemorate 90 years to the 1929 Massacre & ethnic cleansing of the Jewish community here – and to CELEBRATE our return and CONTINUED REBUILDING!! pic.twitter.com/lfRaGX8Ak2
— Yishai Fleisher ? ישי פליישר (@YishaiFleisher) September 4, 2019
Palestinian leaders condemned Wednesday’s ceremony, which coincided with increased deployments of Israeli troops in the area and massive restrictions on Palestinian movement in the city.
According to Palestinian Wafa news agency, Israeli forces “clamped a curfew on the Palestinian neighborhoods” while Palestinian shops and schools were forced to close their doors early.
Dr. Hanan Ashrawi called Netanyahu and Rivlin’s visit “an irresponsible and offensive attempt to pander to the most extreme and racist elements of the settler movement.”
“The intolerable reality of segregation, racial discrimination, daily harassment, and oppression imposed on the Palestinian population in Hebron are maintained by the policies and racist illegal policies Mr. Netanyahu wants to perpetuate and promote against the Palestinian people across the occupied Palestinians Territory, including Jerusalem,” Ashrawi said.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeineh condemned the visit as an attempt to taunt Muslims in the region, saying “we warn against the dangerous repercussions of Netanyahu’s step, which is being carried out in order to win the votes of [Israel’s] extreme right wing.”
Both Ashrawi and Abu Rudeineh highlighted Hebron’s Old City and the Ibrahimi Mosque’s status as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and called on the international community to prevent further “aggressions” at the sites.
“The international community has added responsibility to protect this City from further pillaging and devastation and to compel Israel to end its draconian measures against the Palestinian population in Hebron and restore life and freedom to its besieged neighborhoods, which have been forcibly emptied of life and hope by the Israeli occupation,” Ashrawi said.
In the Old City of Hebron, some 800 extremist Israeli settlers live under the protection of thousands of Israeli soldiers that secure the settlers access to the majority of the area.
Meanwhile, the mort than 30,000 Palesitnian natives of the city live under Israel’s permit regime, and are confronted daily with violence by settlers and more than 20 military checkpoints that restrict their every move.
“Palestinians saw the move … as representative of an increasing Zionist presence in Palestine that threatened the takeover of their land and holy sites.”
They are precisely correct, as history has shown, and as current events continue to show. Zionist claims that they are interested in peace and justice have been entirely in bad faith. The evidence is now overwhelming. Their behavior is that of a sociopath.
@eljay, etal
Reality regarding Hebron, 1929, etc.
On May 1, 1921, inevitable large scale violence broke out in Jaffa and elsewhere in which 90 Jews and 62 Arabs were killed and many more wounded. (Smith, Palestine And The Israel/Arab Conflict, p. 72) The clashes were ignited in Tel Aviv and spread to Jaffa when Jewish socialists began protesting against Jewish communists who were parading in support of a Soviet Palestine. These disturbances by a foreign minority that espoused alien ideologies and showed little respect for local customs and mores (e.g., Jewish women dressing immodestly in public) were an unacceptable affront to Palestinians. As they saw it, their country and way of life were under siege from within by interlopers who as the 1919 U.S. King-Crane Commission had asserted, intended to dispossess them. They could take no more and vented their rage by attacking Zionists in their midst.
In 1925, Vladimir Jabotinsky, a Zionist zealot from Poland, founded the fascistic Betar or Brown Shirts along with the Revisionist Party (origin of today’s Likud) which advocated “revision” of the British Mandate to include forcible Jewish colonization of then Transjordan in addition to Palestine. Such Jewish extremism, along with the racist rants of Rabbi Kook and threats against the Dome of the Rock by Revisionist demonstrators led to the terrible and bloody riots of 1929, resulting in the deaths of 133 Jews in Hebron and elsewhere.
Although never acknowledged by Israel and its supporters, hundreds of Hebron’s Jews were taken in and protected by Muslims. Tragically, 64 of Hebron’s Jews died, but 650 were saved. Throughout the country 133 Jews were killed and 339 wounded while Palestinians suffered 116 dead and 232 wounded.
Vincent Sheean, an eminent American journalist who arrived in Palestine as a pro-Zionist just days before the riots erupted, was shocked at what he saw: As he later wrote: “I was bitterly indignant with the Zionists for having, as I believed, brought on the disaster…. [W]hy couldn’t the Zionists leave it [Palestine] alone, it would never hold enough Jews to make even a beginning towards the solution of the Jewish problem; it would always be a prey to such ghastly horrors as those I saw everyday and every night….” (Vincent Sheean, Personal History, New York: Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc. 1935)
Bitterly ironic is the fact that most Jews living in Hebron in 1929 were anti-Zionist. They were the descendants of the Sephardim who had founded the city’s Jewish Quarter near the tomb of the Patriarchs in the 1500’s after Jews were expelled from Spain and then welcomed and given sanctuary in the Arab world. Their numbers increased somewhat during the early 1900’s with the arrival of Hasidim from Poland who came to study. Many Muslims who were driven out of Spain by the Christians also moved to Hebron. Prior to Zionism, Jews and Muslims lived together harmoniously in Hebron for 400 years with the Jews always forming a small minority. There were very few if any Christians in the city.
The friendship that existed between Muslims and Jews in Hebron was attested to by Israeli journalist Chaim Hanegbi, whose great grandfather was the city’s last Rabbi: “My grandfather lived very peacefully with his Arab neighbours…. His family joined the grape harvest every year, and the [Muslim] neighbours cooked kosher food so the Jews could share the feasts with them.” (Canada’s Globe and Mail, February 18, 1997)
It should also be noted that in the spirit of reconciliation, Hebron’s mayor has stated publicly that he and his fellow Muslims would welcome the descendants of the city’s Jews if they chose to return and replace the Zionist fanatics who are presently there.
BTW, in response to claims by Zionists today that properties of Jews in Hebron were illegally taken over by Arabs, it should be noted that evidence in the form of receipts for annual payments up to the year 1936 have been produced by Anwar Katib, former Jordanian governor of the District of Jerusalem which prove that much of the property they occupied was in fact leased. (Patricia Sellick, “The Old City of Hebron: Can It Be Saved?;” Journal of Palestine Studies, #92, Vol. XXlll, Summer 1994, p.75).
BTW:
“During his speech, the PM referred to Palestinians as ‘blood-thirsty terrorists’ who ‘carried out this horrible massacre 90 years ago,’…”
Speaking of a “horrible massacre,” true to form, Netanyahu ignores Baruch Goldstein’s massacre of 29 worshipping Palestinian Muslims in Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque on 25 February, 1994 and the response of Israel’s Chief Rabbi Perin, who stated during a commemoration ceremony for Goldstein that “One million Arabs are not worth a Jewish fingernail.” (New York Times, Feb. 28, 1994)
Of course israel much rather not speak about the thousands and thousands of Palestinians who were forced to flee in 1948 – or the over 400 Palestinian villages that were burned. Only the Jewish suffering counts…n’est-ce-pas?