Hillel Fendel Hevron, The Day After

Hillel Fendel Hevron, The Day After

A tense and cheerless quiet has fallen over the Hevron Jewish Community, following the violent and quick eviction of 18 Jewish families and their supporters from Beit HaShalom on Thursday. Some blame the unrestrained behavior of some of the youth, others say it is the fault of a post-Zionist society – but apparently everyone agrees that Defense Minister Ehud Barak pulled a deceptive, irresponsible and dangerous trick in conducting talks while in the very midst of planning the eviction just hours later.

The 14 families that lived in Beit HaShalom for the past 20 months have returned to their previous apartments; none of them had rented their homes out, for fear that the government would throw them out of Beit HaShalom – as it in fact did.

As for their clothes and other belongings left behind in Beit HaShalom, the families were abruptly informed at 11:15 Friday morning that they could come and claim them a half-hour later.

"It Will All Work Out in the End"

Yisrael, who lived in Beit HaShalom for 20 months with his family, as did his daughter and son-in-law, told IsraelNationalNews, “One thing is clear: It will all work out in the end. We thought that our possession of Beit HaShalom was a step in the Redemption process, but apparently G-d has different plans. We have to act in this world, and we have to serve G-d, and the brige between them is prayer; prayer is the key...”

Asked if his children felt betrayed or disappointed at the perceived “theft” of the Jewish-owned building from under their noses by the government, Yisrael said, “They’re beyond that; they never had any expectations that the government would treat them fairly in the first place. It’s us, the adults, who grew up thinking that the State of Israel could do no wrong… What happened in Gush Katif three years ago was meant to open our eyes, to make us see that we should not worship the State institutions as we did; we have to infuse these institutions with real content, not the post-Zionism that we see today.”

“While Barak was talking with the heads of Judea and Samaria,” Yisrael said, “giving the impression that a peaceful arrangement could be found, the Yassam policemen-in-black were spread out around the area, even in Arab houses, waiting for the exact moment when we were eating lunch peacefully to burst in and begin the eviction. This shows that he had no intention of working out any kind of compromise, even as he was giving the opposite impression.”

The "Unrestrained Youth" Didn't Help the Cause

Yisrael acknowledged that the “unrestrained youth,” most of whom do not live in Hevron, refused to follow any authority and did not help the situation. “But in the end, no matter how we would have acted, the media refuses to portray us in a positive light, so it’s a lost cause from the beginning.”

Shragai: "Unrestrained Youth Hurt the Cause"

Columnist Nadav Shragai of Haaretz newspaper does not agree. “It was because of the violent minority that the settlers lost the struggle” over Peace House, he wrote in Friday’s edition of the paper.

“The small number of people in the building [at the time of the evictio was not only a result of the [police’ element of surprise,” Shragai wrote, “but mainly because of the objective fact that over the last few days there were only 200-300 activists and settlers there each day.” Though the Hevron Jewish Community says that there were actually many more on Tuesday, for instance, there is no dispute that on the day of eviction there were far fewer.

Shragai explains the critical decline in numbers: “The sometimes crazily violent character of the struggle kept the central stream of settlers away from the place – including those who originally planned to come. Some of those who came, quickly left. In addition, the fact that the struggle appeared to have no guiding hand, and was one in which everyone did what they wanted, greatly deterred high school principals from sending their students to Hevron.”

Another Resident's View

Another resident of Hevron said that he largely agrees with this analysis, and “wouldn’t mind if those who spurred on these youths would be served with orders distancing them from Hevron for the next four years…”

Still and all, however, he apportions the lion’s share of the blame to Barak: “He couldn’t care less about the rule of law, the educational or social ramifications of his decision, or anything else. With Labor Party primaries coming up, he had to fight the ‘settlers of Hebron,’ and there was no chance that he could ever allow these ‘extremists’ to remain in the building. The fact that we have all the papers proving our ownership, or that the Supreme Court did not require him to do the eviction – none of this mattered to him in the least.”

Doctored Film Doesn't Show Jewish Self-Defense

Jewish Community spokesman David Wilder railed against the misinformation being disseminated against the Jews of Hevron and Kiryat Arba. “They’re saying that a policeman was hurt with acid – but there was no such thing,” he said.

“In addition,” Wilder emphasized, “they’re disseminating a doctored film showing a Jew who shot two Arabs. But the film was doctored, and does not show that he was under attack when he fired. This was a man from Kiryat Arba who was climbing up the hill to get his son, and Arabs began throwing rocks on him from above. Border Guard policemen were standing by doing nothing, and the man shot in the air to warn the Arabs away. They continued to throw rocks, however, and I understand that the man then fired towards them in order to save himself. The Arabs descended upon him, dragged him into one of their houses and began beating him. Finally, some Jewish youths were able to drag him out of the house, and he was then taken to a hospital where he received treatment. But none of this is reported; the film was faked to show the opposite.”

Matar: Eviction Took 4.5 Days, Not One Hour

Nadia Matar, leader of the Women in Green organization, spent most of the past week in Beit Hashalom. She was beaten during the eviction, spent Thursday night in a Jerusalem hospital, and now says she is recovering nicely. Her view of the events:

“The office of Ehud Barak is saying that the eviction went smoothly and took less than an hour. We must find every way to correct this lie: The fact is that the expulsion from Beit HaShalom took at least four and a half days. The forces came originally on Monday, and all indications were that the eviction would begin then. But because of the thousands who arrived and stayed, and because of our wonderful youth who did not remain apathetic and who responded to the Arab attacks, the security forces did not succeed in carrying out their plans.” .