Random Pali Tales of Reality: Part 1

Khaleel El-Rahman (The Friend of The Merciful) is the Arabic name for the Biblical city of Hebron. The name refers to the Prophet Abraham who is believed to have been buried in what is known as the Cave of the Patriachs (The Ibrahimi Mosque) in the Old City of Hebron, amongst a number of other Prophets. In the Quran, Abraham is mentioned as God, the Merciful's Friend. 


I wasn’t planning to head down to the Old City. We were just going to buy a Jawwal cellphone and go home. Yet, when I got to the marketplace, an interface between what is known as Area H1 and Area H2 of Hebron with borders that get more and more blurred every year, the Old City seemed to be crying out for me. I figured my younger brother and I would stop by for a short time. After all, I had been practicing saying “I want to go to my friend’s shop” in Hebrew for a month; might as well try it out. As we went through the metal gate that is more fit for animals than human beings, three IDF soldiers who casually held their heavy weaponry in your face welcomed us to an area that my father used to be able to access unconditionally for decades. Today, the Old City is a sad place to be in with about 1200 shops forcefully bolted shut by the IDF for “security reasons,” while 400 Israeli Jewish settlers roam free, protected by a special security detail of 1500 IDF soldiers in a city of about 500,000 Palestinians. They have also closed some very important streets that connect the main city together, such as the case with Shuhada Street. It’s kind of comical when you think about it. I’ve become in the habit of tragically chuckling at the realities of the area that is considered the origin of my city. Anybody who takes a tour with me in the Old City will be oversatured with sarcasm; sometimes it’s the only way I can deal with it. The majority of Palestinians in Hebron avoid the Old City. “It’s dangerous place to be where settlers shoot you at will if they suspect that you’re doing anything wrong” Or “It’s just a hassle to be stopped for no reason, have your ID taken from you and be forced to wait for hours to get it back.” I’ve heard so many Palestinians explain disgruntled feelings to visit the place where my privilege of knowing English allows me to visit frequently with little fear.

It had been a year since I had been to that part of the city. I had the intention of visiting one of my friends that I had met last year at his ceramics shop in an area that is “off limits” to Palestinians with “Green IDs.” It was for this reason that I practiced to ask for permission in Hebrew, hopefully the stick in uniform would feel less threatened by somebody speaking in Hebrew. I walked all the way down to the barricades that separate the walkways between “Green ID” holding Palestinians and “Blue ID” holding Israeli Settlers and tourists, to avoid friction in an area that has known its share of violence back and forth. It’s kind of a ridiculous set up actually. Three IDF soldiers are ordered to maintain the separation and often yell at Palestinians who pass through the barricades with or without knowledge of the rules. I think it’s somewhat of a sad assignment to be in, for a fully trained soldier, it’s just pathetic. Nonetheless, I try out my broken Hebrew. The soldier looks at us funny, so I immediately switch to English and explain that we just want to walk 10 yards across the street to visit my friend who operates in the middle of this mess with pride, refusing to leave his store, in an area that so many stores have already been closed down. The soldier finally tells me its okay, but he would keep my Arizona driver’s license that I had given him until I get back, even though I had gone through there many times and there was no need to keep my ID all those other times. But whatever, I agree. These soldiers are always subjective about whom they allow in and whom they don’t.

My brother and I sit at our friend’s shop for a little while as we watch settlers, tourists, soldiers and what seems like dozens of armored IDF cars and vans pass by. Suddenly, we are interrupted by one of the soldiers at that “great separation outpost” yelling at an old man who had refused to stop at the barricades. The young soldier follows him and yells, “Where are you going?” in Arabic at the old man. The old man responds, “Get away from me!” and continues to walk to another one of the shops in the area. The soldier would not let it go and takes it personally as he starts yelling at the old man to go back. At that point, one of the storeowners springs into action and starts yelling at the IDF soldiers in fluent Hebrew. It turns out the old man actually lives in the house above the store and the soldier had expected him to walk all the way around this road so that his path does not cross with Jewish settlers who may be walking there. He had been living there for 35 years, he tells the soldier (the conversation was repeated to me later). The soldier is then calmed down and he returns to his very important post, while the old man sat in front of the store he was headed to, as his feet really hurt him. I find this whole event interesting and sit with this group next to the man who spoke fluent Hebrew at his shop, who looked exactly like Saladin from Kingdom of Heaven. He turned out to be quite the funny entertaining man after the soldier left. He was proud, resilient and stared down the soldiers standing by. His son was getting married and he invited us to his wedding. He lashed out at his older friends for smoking, calling it poison (my kind of guy). My brother and I were in admiration. He looked out to the crowd as a young Palestinian pregnant woman was walking by. He tells us that whenever he sees pregnant women in the street he becomes happy, because he knows that they carry “goodness in their bellies,” he said hopefully.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a bald IDF soldier with no cap or helmet on comes around, swinging an M-16 around his neck. He was smiling. As he approached us, he began to speak to us in fluent Arabic as if he was an Arab. He was an Arab. Was he Druze, I wondered? No. It turns out he was actually Lebanese! I relaxed a little bit but stopped short as I remembered that he was still an IDF soldier. He started shaking hands with everybody in the group and then finally with the old man who was stopped earlier. I was so confused and didn’t understand what was happening. He asked, in a calm kind voice, about what had happened earlier. The group explained to him how the soldier has given the old man a hard time. The Lebanese IDF soldier then turned and walked towards the soldier who had stopped the old man to talk to him. After a while, he came back and apologized to the old man and explained that the other soldier was new and that he was just upset that the old man didn’t listen to him. This was all blowing my mind. The Lebanese IDF soldier then turned to my brother and I and with a change of mood and asked where we were from. I told him we were from the city but lived in the US. He looked at us for a second and then turned back smiling at the group. He shook hands with the group and was on his way, leaving me in cloud of confusion to how an IDF soldier can be so kind and apologetic about such a small event, while at the same time a part of an oppressive occupational force.

Even though Jews have had a peaceful coexistent presence in Hebron before 1948 (Khaleeli Jews), to most Palestinians, the IDF and Illegal Israeli settlers in the Old City are a problem, but its not specifically because they are Jewish. They look at the settlers with such disdain and hatred for the mess that they brought to their city, as they slowly take over one Palestinian house at time, while making life so hard for Palestinians living in the Old City that many end up leaving. They also have a violent extremist reputation separating themselves from their Palestinian Hebronite neighbors (and vice versa).  Most Palestinians collectively associate them with infamous massacres that have happened in the area. For example, in 1995 a Jewish settler who was a resident of the illegal settlement Kiryat Arba opened fire on Muslim worshipper as they were praying Fajr in the Ibrahimi Mosque (Cave of the Patriachs) in the Old City. One of my cousins was praying there at the time, who lives to tell me the story. IDF soldiers in green have always scared the childhood out of me whenever I saw them as a child, specifically when I went to the Old City to that same Ibrahimi mosque. Today, the Old City continues to really baffle me every single time I go down there. The realities of that part of town remain a puzzle that I don’t think I’ll ever figure out.

As I walked through the metal gates that are suitable for animals and not human beings, I looked at the soldier looking at me through a small hole in a concrete block, tagging me with his gun. “What up?” I nodded at him, as I turned my head and walked back to the main city where I can take refuge and go back to pretending that none of this exists.