Palestine: Tourism - settler style

When I visit a new city, personally I prefer to explore it on my own - I find it the best way to engage with a new place, wandering the streets at my leisure, finding the city's secrets myself. Despite this, I do understand that some people prefer guided-tour style tourism, where you can really learn some history and interesting titbits of information about a new area.

But, I do rather reject the idea of visiting in a group of more soldiers than tourists. Especially when the city you are visiting is part of the occupied West Bank and you are an Israeli settler. This is what happens every week in the city of Hebron. For the last two weeks, I have had the pleasure of tagging along on the tour, because in the past, there have been attacks and harassment of Palestinians by the 'tourists' and by the soldiers 'protecting them'.

Before the settlers have even arrived, the soldiers 'secure the area'. This area that desperately needs to be secured is where Palestinians are getting on with their lives. It's their market, it's their homes, it's their shops. The 'securing of the area' often consists of breaking into houses, pointing guns into doorways and around corners and climbing onto Palestinian roofs. GB and I followed three soldiers who had climbed onto someone's roof - just as the soldiers were walking past, a little girl opened the door of her apartment. Not who I would like to find walking down my stairwell - unsurprisingly, she speedily shut the door again.

Just hypothesising, but I suspect that if that had been a young man who had shut the door, the soldiers would immediately have suspected wrongdoing and taken some action against it. The past few days, I have seen innumerable Palestinian 20-something men stopped and detained by soldiers. I ask why these men are being stopped - the soldiers admit they aren't looking for anything, they are just following orders. This is so often the case of these soldiers, pawns in the Israeli occupation. They don't know what they are doing, nor why. (Not that this excuses them of their actions. We've heard the line 'I was just following orders' before.)

So after the soldiers have finished invading people's houses and harassing people before the tour, it's time for the settlers to arrive. They come out of the illegal settlement right in the middle of Hebron city centre. Then they go directly to a Palestinian playground. Imagine 40 soldiers and a tour group arriving into a playground where you played as a kid. Imagine all the soldiers are heavily armed. Imagine that they do not care what happens to you, they care only for the tourists that they are 'protecting'.

In Hebron, some of the kids are so used to it that they try to carry on with their game of marbles. The soldiers clear them out of the way. Other kids stop and stare, or run away. The group of smartly dressed settlers wander through the park, hearing Zionist version of the history of Hebron - at one point, the Christian Peace Team and B'tselem (other observers watching the tour) get a mention by the tour-guide as busybodies who want to stop them enjoying their day out. (Benefit of ISM not having uniforms - we don't get name dropped by settlers as much!) Many of those on the tour are women younger than me. Their glares at me are piercing.

Continuing the tour, the soldiers shove their guns around corners as the tour group enter the winding paths of the souq. They stop Palestinians from walking past the settlers, only occasionally letting them edge by, squashed between the soldiers' guns and the walls. They are required to wait until the tourists have passed them - anyone who tries to pass on their own streets is liable to be pushed back by the soldiers.

Eventually, they retreat back into the settlement and lock the gates behind them.

Recently Israeli television channel referred to Palestine solidarity activists as 'hate tourists'. That label would be more correctly applied to these settlers. 

yallah bye settlers

P.S. finally, a tribute to my fallen comrade GB who will no longer feature, due to his yallah-bye-ing outta Palestine. Sad day.