VZCZCXYZ0000
RR RUEHWEB

DE RUEHJM #2325/01 3621601
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
R 281601Z DEC 09
FM AMCONSUL JERUSALEM
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 7121
INFO RUEHAM/AMEMBASSY AMMAN 8728
RUEHEG/AMEMBASSY CAIRO 5328
RUEHTV/AMEMBASSY TEL AVIV 5079
RHEHNSC/WHITE HOUSE NSC
RUEKJCS/JOINT STAFF WASHDC

C O N F I D E N T I A L JERUSALEM 002325 
 
SIPDIS 
 
NEA FOR FRONT OFFICE, SEMEP, AND IPA; NSC FOR 
SHAPIRO/KUMAR; JOINT STAFF FOR LTGEN SELVA 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/28/2019 
TAGS: PGOV PBTS KPAL KWBG IS
SUBJECT: UPDATE ON HEBRON'S OLD CITY 
 
REF: A. 07 JERUSALEM 1965 
     ¶B. 08 JERUSALEM 1260 
 
Classified By: Consul General Daniel Rubinstein 
for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). 
 
¶1.  (C) Summary.  In recent visits to Hebron's "H2" district, 
the impact of Israel Defense Forces' (IDF) movement 
restrictions on Palestinian residents remains apparent in 
high Palestinian unemployment, a shrinking Palestinian 
population, and derelict storefronts in what was once 
Hebron's commercial center.  Palestinian residents complained 
of settler harassment and restrictive IDF policies on 
movement and access.  For their part, representatives of the 
800-strong settler community in H2 claimed a scriptural and 
historical mandate for their presence, which is secured by an 
IDF deployment roughly twice as large in number.  An IDF 
veteran with prior Hebron service argued that the H2 district 
is not exceptional, but is instead a "microcosm" the West 
Bank, with security requirements leading to restrictions on 
Palestinian life.  End Summary. 
 
H2 OLD CITY REMAINS A GHOST TOWN 
-------------------------------- 
 
¶2.  (C)  During a recent trip to Hebron with Poloffs, Yehuda 
Shaul, a former IDF officer who served in Hebron before 
founding NGO Breaking the Silence, explained that the IDF 
have imposed progressively stricter movement and access 
restrictions on the commercial center of Hebron (H2), which 
remains under GOI security control under the terms of the 
1997 Hebron Protocol.  The trend of intensifying restrictions 
began after the 1994 massacre at the Ibrahimi mosque, and 
intensified with the outbreak of the Second Intifada, when 
the IDF closed the principal commercial thoroughfare (Shuhada 
Street) to all Palestinian vehicular and pedestrian traffic. 
Now, Shaul noted, only the 800 Israeli settlers in H2, and 
the 1,600 IDF deployed for their protection, have access to 
the city's main street. 
 
¶3.  (C)  Shaul added that of the 50 Palestinian families 
originally resident on Shuhada Street, only four remain. 
According to Israeli human rights NGO B'Tselem statistics, 
since the start of Second Intifada in Hebron, 42% of 
Palestinian residences and 77% of business have been 
abandoned, a trend he attributed to IDF restrictions and 
settler harassment.  Conditions remain difficult for the 
30,000 Palestinians who remain in H2, he added. 
 
OUTLINES OF THE H2 SETTLER COMMUNITY 
------------------------------------ 
 
¶4.  (C)  With regard to the 800-strong settler community, 
Shaul estimated that roughly 300 are children, 250 are 
yeshiva (seminary) students, and 250 work outside the 
settlements.  He estimated that around 25% of the funding for 
the settlements' daily needs came directly from the GOI, 45% 
from the Hebron Fund (a US-based tax-exempt fundraising 
group), and 30% from other private donors in Israel and 
overseas.  Note:  According to a 2009 report produced by the 
Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH), the Hebron 
Fund supplies around 1.5 million USD annually to Hebron 
settlements, in addition to GOI benefits such as income tax 
deduction and subsidized housing provided to residents H2 due 
to its status as a National Priority Area.  End Note. 
 
¶5.  (C)  Shaul noted that levels of settler-Palestinian 
violence had declined.  He claimed the trend was partly in 
response to a B'Tselem's project "Shooting Back," which 
provides video cameras to Palestinians in H2 to document 
incidents of settler harassment.  Pointing at rows of 
shuttered and derelict shops and apartments, Shaul said, the 
situation cannot fundamentally improve so long as settlers 
are present.  Based on his service in the IDF, he claimed 
that the greatest fear of any IDF officer is to fail to 
protect Israelis.  In the case of Hebron, this means the 
settlers.  "The 166,000 Palestinians (in Hebron) are not a 
part of the (political) equation," he added. 
 
FAMILIES MANEUVER AROUND MOVEMENT RESTRICTIONS 
--------------------------------------------- - 
 
¶6.  (C)  In the company of Dina Jabaari of the International 
Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), PolOffs visited 
hairdresser Hana Abu al-Khaider, who lives in the Tel Rumeida 
neighborhood with her elderly mother and young daughter.  The 
al-Khaider home abuts an Israeli settlement; since the year 
2000, the IDF has closed the access road to the house to all 
non-settler vehicular traffic.  According to ICRC, ambulance 
crews periodically transport al-Khaider's mother to her 
regular medical treatments by carrying her on a stretcher 
over an IDF-manned roadblock and for a distance of several 
city blocks to the nearest permissible road.  Hana Abu 
al-Khaider said that IDF had refused to issue her daughter, 
who bears a different last name, a permit given to other 
families, allowing them to use their front access road as 
pedestrians.  As a results, she said, her daughter exits the 
house by climbing through a hole in the roof, and walks to 
school via neighboring farmlands. 
 
¶7.  (C)  Abu al-Khaider asserted that her family had lived on 
the 14-dunum plot for 180 years.  "In 1997," she claimed, 
"(Amcit pro-settlement investor) Irving Moskovitz came to the 
house, and offered 20 million (USD) for it.  And he offered 
to get us U.S. citizenship.  I refused.  This is a tough 
economic situation for our family -- we're applying for 
loans, we have medical bills.  But I am proud to be a member 
of this household, and I will keep struggling."  She said the 
family was subject to regular harassment by neighboring 
settlers, who had on several occasions thrown stones at 
ambulances approaching the house.  Still, she said, she was 
open to any practicable form of co-existence that allowed her 
family to remain in their home and resume a normal movement 
regime.  "I will even protect the settlers if someone comes 
to attack them," she said, "because I know it's in my 
interest." 
 
H2 SETTLERS POINT TO ABRAHAMIC MANDATE 
-------------------------------------- 
 
¶8.  (C)  Post contacts in the settler community are generally 
candid about the frustrations faced by H2's Palestinians 
residents, but claim a scriptural mandate to settle in the 
city's heart, citing Abraham's burial of Sarah at the Cave of 
the Patriarchs, the presence of Arabic-speaking Jews in 
Hebron in the 15th century, and a "communal right" to avenge 
the 1929 massacre of Hebron Jews by local Arabs, in which 67 
Jews were murdered.  H2 settlers are primarily of an 
ideological slant that rejects the secular Israeli state.  A 
number of settler houses in H2 fly an orange flag featuring a 
crown, known as the "State of Judea" flag, which symbolizes 
opposition to GOI disengagement from  the West Bank.  H2 
settlers are also frank in noting that they face few of the 
obstacles to daily movement encountered by their Palestinian 
neighbors.  David Wilder, spokesperson for the Hebron Jewish 
Community, told PolOffs that he and his fellow settlers don't 
feel any need to restrict their movements, asserting that 
they travel more freely that diplomats do in the West Bank. 
 
CURRENT TRENDS IN SETTLEMENT EXPANSION, SECURITY COORDINATION 
--------------------------------------------- ---------------- 
 
¶9.  (C)  TIPH Political Advisor Simon Agerberg told PolOff 
that the TIPH regularly witnessed evidence of settlers 
breaking into shuttered Palestinian shops in H2's market 
area, citing break-ins of 15 stores since August 2009. 
PolOff observed signs of human habitation in several shops 
identified by the TIPH on a tour the same day.  H2 settler 
David Wilder told PolOff that the Hebron Jewish Community 
intended, eventually, to occupy every property in Hebron's 
downtown area in which settlers believed there had once been 
a historical Jewish presence, saying, "we will continue to 
build here, and attempt to purchase more homes."  Wilder 
noted that there was "plenty of Jewish property in Hebron" 
that "we can't access now due to U.S. pressure."  But, he 
continued, "we know where all the properties are, and we will 
eventually take it all back." 
 
¶10.  (C)  Meanwhile, according to the TIPH's Agerberg, the 
IDF's limited mandate inside H2 -- which is restricted to 
protection of Israeli settlers -- and the inability of 
Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces to access the area 
left H2's 30,000 Palestinian residents without an effective 
security regime.  "There's a lack of law enforcement in H2 
(with regards to the Palestinians)," Agerberg said.  "Law 
enforcement (in H2) is in the hands of the clans."  ICRC's 
Jabaari concurred, adding that while security in H1 (the 
portion of Hebron under PA security control) has improved due 
to the deployment of PA security forces, the situation in H2 
has deteriorated.  "It's become a shelter and a sanctuary for 
criminals.  Palestinian security forces aren't allowed to 
access the area without coordination with the IDF, and even 
then, they have to enter in civilian clothes," he noted. 
 
HEBRON AS MICROCOSM OF THE WEST BANK 
------------------------------------ 
 
¶11.  (C)  Yehuda Shaul concluded that Hebron "is not an 
exception," he said.  Instead, he described the political 
evolution in H2 as a "microcosm" of the settlement enterprise 
in the West Bank.  The introduction of a settler presence 
creates a need for the IDF to secure those communities, Shaul 
noted.  With Palestinian considerations only marginally 
relevant to IDF behavior, he said, rules of engagement on the 
ground are driven almost exclusively by a desire to maximize 
settlers' security.  Major acts of Palestinian violence 
result in tighter IDF control on adjacent Palestinian 
population areas, he added.  Shaul said that in his view, the 
situation can only be reversed if the settlers are physically 
relocated from Palestinian population centers. 
 
 
 
 
RUBINSTEIN