Hebron: Model of Security Cooperation, Ethnic Cleansing of Jews

"Palestinian Forces Dilute Hebron's Volatile Brew"
A6, Wednesday 11/26/08
By Ethan Bronner

Ethan Bronner doesn't let difficult questions cloud his depiction of two vitally important issues: Israeli-Palestinian security relations and the Jewish future of Hebron.

On these security relations, Bronner states "something significant seems to be happening." This is true. Law and order has returned to Jenin and Hebron following the installation of PA security forces.

Bronner attributes the cooperation to "leaders of both nations," who "assert that a two-state solution is the only way forward." In describing positive developments of Israel-Palestinian cooperation, the Times again overreaches. Bronner needs to show more skepticism in attributing the word "solution" to Abbas' two state platform.

In Palestinian political discourse, establishing an independent state is advertised as a pragmatic position – a temporary accommodation with an Israel too strong to be defeated. The PA is careful to qualify two states as not being a solution. For instance, the PA has undermined the concept of a Jewish state and promoted the right of return, positions inimical to the two-state solution.

Bronner gives voice to the issue of the PA working not with Israel, but against it. He cites David Wilder, spokesman for Hebron's Jewish community, "referring to what happened eight years ago when the Palestinian police turned their guns on Israelis in the second intifada."

So what has changed for the PA in a decade? Bronner claims, as described above, that the PA is now for the two-state solution.

Is the incentive in not turning their guns on Israelis rooted in a genuine change of heart on Israel's legitimacy, in a pragmatism that Israel currently cannot be undermined and defeated through armed struggle or perhaps in a realization that under threat of a Hamas takeover, the Fatah-led PA has no choice but to cooperate with Israel and maintain its grip on power? For many astute observers, the second and third points best explain current PA cooperation, which is thus seen as resting on shaky ground. The Times will have none of this. The PA is a partner for peace, with no ulterior motives.

Bronner's treatment of Wilder's remarks should be examined. After declaring Hebron's Jews "among the most combative in the West Bank," Bronner cites Wilder's explanation for the recent defacing of a Muslim cemetery and mosque by settlers as "the result of endless provocation".

Bronner doesn't explore the merits of this charge, which may or may not explain these Jews' "combative" nature. This lack of exploration also allows Bronner to paint the mere presence of 700 Jews in Hebron's old city as the provocation.

Bronner, through Haaretz's Nadav Shragai, presents a stark "fault line" for Israel: those who believe a "future of our sons is more important than the graves of our forefathers" and those who believe "there is no future for their sons in a place without the graves of their forefathers".

These are positions that divide Israelis. However, there is more complexity to the situation. Why is there no room for compromise or accommodation for a Jewish community committed to maintaining a millennia-old presence in Judaism's second holiest city? Is there no stream of secular Israeli thought concerned with this question?

That there goes unaddressed the option of offering Palestinian citizenship to Hebron's Jews reveals two troubling and overlapping aspects of Palestinian society: The denial of others' religious rights, and the ethnic cleansing of Jews. For the Times, this observation of Palestinian society's treatment of non Arab-Muslims – casting into doubt the prospect of coexistence – is best left unexposed.

What's most astounding about this piece is that the Times uses Hebron to make an example of Palestinian cooperation on one hand and a justification for ethnic cleansing of Jews on the other.