Keep them silent

Yehuda Shaul being filmed by settlers Anat Cohen and Ofer in front of the Gutnick Centre

It is surprising how much ruckus one Israeli can create in Hebron city centre just by his mere presence. Yehuda Shaul, one of the founders of Breaking the Silence – a group of former Israeli soldiers – was in Hebron to give a tour of the city where he was formerly stationed as a commander.

Breaking the Silence reveals some of the things that soldiers have to do whilst serving in the IDF, like terrorizing families at night, harassing Palestinians at checkpoints and torturing detainees, often without any legitimate reason. These revelations make the group very unpopular among certain Israeli factions. As you can imagine, the Hebron settlers aren't their biggest fans.

The tour bus was stopped in front of the Gutnick Centre - the settlers' local shop and information centre - where the some infamous settlers, flanked by Israeli police, were waiting for us. The bus wanted to keep moving down Shuhada street - a street that is closed to Palestinian vehicles, but in practice completely closed for any Palestinian movement at all - into the Palestinian neighbourhood of Tel Rumeida.

The police told us to all get off the bus. Stepping out, Yehuda, pulled out a video camera and started filming the settlers. Simultaneously, the settlers produced several video cameras themselves and were filming Yehuda filming them. It was very bizarre. All the while, Jewish songs were blasted from the loudspeakers of the Gutnick Centre.

A strange game, which both parties seemed to know way too well, ensued. Yehuda was discussing with the police officers asking them if they had a legal reason to prevent him from moving on with the tour. At first, the police tried to use common reasoning with the "c'mon, don't be difficult. we're on the same side" kind of arguments. Noticing that this failed, the police tried to appeal to Yehuda's concern for the tour group, claiming that they would be unable to ensure our safety if we continued. Finally after an hour or two, the police had bought enough time to be able to produce a paper declaring the area a closed military zone.

In principle, that means that no civilians are allowed to be in such an area, and consequently, we were banned from entering the zone. However, settlers kept walking uninterrupted up and down Shuhada Street to and from their settlements.

Breaking the Silence has been denied access for several weeks. They had to turn around this week too. But they will be back next Friday to try again, all the while fighting their case in the Israeli court system.

The tour eventually ended up in the South Hebron Hills, police in tail. A little disappointing for us who already know the area, but at least Jean-Marie got to fly a plastic bag kite and I got to play with the cutest, most emaciated kitten I've ever beheld.

Apparently, many photos and video clips of internationals and israeli peace activists end up on the Hebron settlers' website together with all the other documentation on 'nazi-leftists' (that's not an expression to cover all political affiliations, it's an actual word that they use, the clever (oxy)morons sorry got carried away...).