A visit yesterday in Hebron had an unexpected turn.

Hebron is a city bitterly divided since the massacre of Palestinian worshipers committed by Jewish settle Barcuh Goldstein in 1994. H1 is controlled by the Palestinian police and constitutes roughly 80% of Hebron’s area while H2 is controlled by the Israeli army and includes roads where Palestinians are barred from living and where Jewish settlers reside.

There are separate entrances into the compound for Muslims and for Jews with Jews barred from some halls (Isaac’s tomb) most of the year besides on the Jewish high holidays. 

Generally speaking, I am accustomed to making my way into and out of Palestinian areas controlled by the Palestinian police and back into Israel without too many hurdles. This should not be obvious since Israelis are barred from entering areas under Palestinian control and major Palestinian cities. However, as an American-Israeli, I felt safe in both areas. This time was different.

I was innocently crossing the streets of the city with an European friend, gradually making my way to the Machpela complex, the Ibrahimi mosque, the resting place of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. As we crossed our way from the Palestinian area towards the Jewish area, we were abruptly stopped by the Israeli border patrol. First they asked my friend, in English, if she was a Christian. To which she responded in the positive. Then they asked me if I was a Christian.

As someone who converted to Catholicism before and who was long aware of the suspicions heralded by many Jews and of the Israeli  state towards Christianity, I thought it would be best if I denied being Christian and would claim to be Jewish. Generally speaking, historically, Jews who converted to Christianity lost their Israeli citizenship as in the case of the Catholic brother Daniel (Shmuel Oswald Rufeisen) whose plea was rejected by the Supreme Court several decades ago. I therefore thought it would be safer for me to respond by saying, “no, I’m actually Jewish.”

My answer was unsatisfactory to her however. The officer demanded to know how I made my way to the Palestinian area, wondering how long ago it was. She explained simply that there were areas where only Jews could go to and areas only Palestinians could go to. When I told her I’m an American citizen, she said, it does not matter. As a Jew, she said, I am barred from visiting the Palestinian area. It does not matter that I have a different passport.

The officer spoke in the communication system and passed on my details. This time I she will let you me go, she said. However, she was trying to figure out the breach in the security system that allowed me, a Jew, to make my way to the Palestinian side. When I later tried to make my way back through the same path, I was barred from entering the Palestinian side. The officer made me take a settlers bus back to Jerusalem and would not allow me to walk with my friend to the Palestinian area.  

There are several interesting elements to be dissected from this. First, Israel believes it is the guardian of Jews around the world, regardless of their citizenship and does not believe they should be allowed to enter Palestinian areas inside Hebron. This, in spite of the fact that I was welcomed by an Arabic language center and volunteer space although they knew perfectly well that I was Israeli in addition to being an American. In other words, it was not just that that Israel bars Israelis from visiting Palestinian areas, thereby preventing Israelis from experiencing Palestine and making Palestinian friends. American Jews visiting Israel were also barred.

Secondly, being a Jew, rather than being a Christian was seen as almost a crime in the eyes of the Israeli state. For, as a Jew, my crime was to cross from the Palestinian side to the Israeli side. In other words, being a Jew was an obstacle for a Christian could wander freely from a Palestinian area to an Israeli area while a Jew could not. 

Israel has ended up practicing reverse discrimination towards Jews in its effort to maintain peace and security.

Israel bases its existence on being a safe homeland for the Jewish people. The Palestinians main crime is not being Jewish, for if they were Jewish, they would have been given citizenship and rights that Israeli Jewish citizens enjoy. In other words, millions of Palestinians are confined to checkpoints, behind walls and under military rule since they are not part of the Jewish people. As absurd as it sounds, this rational conclusion is inevitable if one looks coldly at the facts. The law of return stipulates that only one who was born Jewish or whose mother or grandparent is Jewish could immigrate to Israel. Palestinians who lived in the land for generations are not recognized as worthy of citizenship by Israeli law unless they happened to live in the pre-1967 borders where Israel declared its statehood in 1948. 

To minimize the number of Palestinians in areas such as east Jerusalem, Israel makes it difficult for Palestinians to acquire Israeli citizenship and seeks to rob them of their residency rights. 

While traditionally Israel has been seen as oppressive towards Palestinians it in fact hampers Israelis as well from traveling to Palestinian areas and getting to know their Palestinian neighbours. Israel does so because there were several instances where soldiers or settlers made their way into Palestinian cities and were lynched by angry mobs. However, from my experience, Israelis who comes to Palestinian areas in a spirit of good will and without bad intentions will only encounter hospitality and friendship. That said, it is true that it would be better if they would not resemble settlers in their physical  appearance. Decades of colonization and of land theft have left Palestinians bitter and angry towards settlers who confiscated their lands and took away their water resources from which they are frequently deprived or for which they must be a high cost. 

As an American-Israeli Jew, I feel perfectly safe in Palestinian areas. I feel unsafe when a border patrol officer stops me for the crime of walking through different parts of the city of Hebron. Even from a Jewish nationalist perspective, the entire region is part of the land of Israel, Eretz Yisrael, and Jews should be free to walk anywhere. For me it was sad that the fearful and suspicious eyes of the officer indicates that has I tried to explain that I feel comfortable in both places and that I am treated well in the Palestinian side she would not understand. Instead, she told me in a blatant straightforward manner that as a Jew I am not allowed to visit the Palestinian side. My Judaism, a sensitive issue in a politically-correct world- was revoked in order to bar me from walking freely in a country of which I am a citizen in lands which Israel occupies and whose residents have no civil rights but are subject to a military occupation. 

Needless to say, Palestinians who go through the trouble of crossing from Palestinian areas into Israeli areas will face a much harsher penalty than I did and can spend weeks and months in jail. I was let off after roughly two minutes. However, I found it ironic that in the Jewish state being a Jew means one was not free to walk everywhere. Moreover, telling one I was Jewish could actually be held against me rather than as a neutral fact or as a positive aspect.

In the officer’s mindset it was obvious that Jews belong in some regions and Arabs belong in others. For her, separation and segregation are the natural order of things and should not be violated. This made perfect sense in her mind. It took me years to overcome my Zionist conditioning and see Palestinians as friends and as full human beings. It would take decades for the officer and her friends to overcome their conditioning that sees segregation and separation between people as natural and as useful. It made me very sad that to tell my officer my story and how I came to realize Palestinians were humans would risk my arrest for it would be admitting my crime that I knew I could not go to a Palestinian area but did so anyway. What made me even sadder still was that even if I changed the mind of the particular officer and made her realize that segregation and separation based on ethnic origins was nonsensical and counterproductive, the system of apartheid and segregation would remain, and there is nothing I alone or she alone could do to dismantle it.

Joshua Tartakovsky

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