The Wall Between Us: Notes From the Holy Land by Matthew Small

Author:Matthew Small [Small, Matthew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Israel & Palestine, Personal Memoirs, Middle Eastern, Biography & Autobiography, Peace, Political Science, World, Middle East, History
ISBN: 9781910266311
Google: PvTJDAAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 28139839
Publisher: Legends Press
Published: 2013-03-01T00:00:00+00:00

Breaking the Silence

I thought I’d seen it all already. There couldn’t be anything more harrowing then seeing the empty streets, the shops wielded shut and the sombre faces of the Palestinians as they were searched by a soldier for the simple crime of returning to their homes. Yet I thought wrong about Hebron. Unfortunately, there was yet more to see.

Seated in a large bus full of internationals I returned to the largest city in the West Bank with the organisation Breaking the Silence. The organisation was established in 2004 by a group of soldiers who had served in Hebron, and who felt compelled to speak out about their experiences in the Occupied Territories. Today, over 700 testimonies have been compiled, bringing perhaps one of the strongest voices into Israeli society, revealing the true nature of the occupation through the accounts of serving soldiers. But, still, does Israel see? Will it listen to its own children?

“As long as there is no political will to change the situation, this is how it is going to look,” our guide, and ex-soldier, told us as the bus tore through the West Bank, with the large settlement of Kiryat Arba filling the horizon before us, also to be our first stop.

Kiryat Arba has a population of over 7,000 and is the largest of all the settlements found in and around Hebron. It also has a park with a tomb in it for a man named Baruch Goldstein. Why on earth were we stopping to see a tomb to an American-born Jew, who had lived in this settlement? I’m afraid this story makes my stomach turn some, and even more so as this man is now remembered and his grave frequently visited by people who praise his actions in life. So the tour of Hebron began; our guide led us to the tomb and explained why Goldstein is a legend to the people of Kiryat Arba.

In 1994, dressed in his army uniform and carrying a rifle, Goldstein entered the Tomb of the Patriarchs in central Hebron and began to open fire on the Muslims who were at prayer inside. He was able to kill twenty-nine Palestinians and wounded another 125 before he was wrestled to the ground and beaten to death. So tell me again, why has this mass-murderer now got his own tomb in a green park in an illegal settlement in the West Bank?

To some, Goldstein’s actions were pure and true to the Nation of Israel. However, mainstream orthodox Jews denounced him, and the Israeli government at the time was quick to condemn the attack. But still, this does not change the fact that I was looking down upon a white stone tomb, with pebbles placed on it showing that it had recently been venerated. Who would revere this man? Ultra-extremists, be they settlers or not, and people who I find it hard to be sympathetic towards.

Before we start to get into a debate about anti-Semitism over my disgust with the choices and actions

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