In Divided Hebron, a Short-Lived Joy Gives Way to a Somber Reality

HEBRON, West Bank — Palestinians’ early morning euphoria over the departure of Israeli troops after 30 years of occupation here quickly gave way to a business-as-usual feeling Friday as they faced the reality of living in a divided city under two authorities, not one.

The joy of raising a Palestinian flag or a poster of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat was short-lived. Hebronites welcomed “our brothers” in the newly arrived Palestinian police force only to find Israeli soldiers still positioned farther down the street.

In Palestinian-ruled Hebron, Muslims fasting for the holy month of Ramadan fingered their worry beads and expressed hope that the future will bring them peace. “Inshallah [God willing],” they said.

But in Israeli-controlled Hebron, Jewish soldiers tussled with rock throwers, as they have on so many other days, before slapping a curfew on the Arab market. Settlers wearing skullcaps and carrying Uzi assault weapons stood firmly in the path of Muslim worshipers heading home from noon prayers--an assertion of their claim on this ancient city.

“Of course we are happy to have the Palestinian Authority here,” said Abdel Ghaffar abu Zenah, 53, a father of six. “But we’ll have to see if trouble starts. To me, it is nonsense to have two governments in one kilometer.”

Under the redeployment agreement negotiated by Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, about 80% of Hebron was turned over to Palestinian rule early Friday, while Israeli soldiers regrouped around the Jewish enclaves and the Cave of the Patriarchs, a holy site to Jews and to Muslims, who know it as the Ibrahim mosque.

The redeployment put about 100,000 Palestinians in Hebron under the rule of Arafat’s Palestinian Authority but left more than 20,000 Palestinians under Israeli control near the enclaves of 450 Jews.

Hebron’s Arab market and Ibrahim mosque remain in Israeli hands, as does Shuhada Street, an artery running from downtown Hebron past Jewish enclaves to the market.

“For me, the only change today is that one of the Israeli checkpoints was moved a little closer,” said a Palestinian barber giving a shave at his shop on Shuhada Street. “We hope things will get better. But as long as we have Israeli soldiers standing here, I am afraid there won’t be shalom [peace].”

Tension reigned over Shuhada Street and at Hebron’s “ground zero”--the plaza where the Arab market and the Avraham Avinu Jewish enclave meet and where an off-duty Israeli soldier opened fire on Palestinians earlier this month, wounding five. Hundreds of Israeli soldiers and police deployed along the path as worshipers emerged from the Ibrahim mosque and walked home. International observers and journalists crowded around each minor scuffle and shouting match.

At one point, Palestinians threw rocks, bottles and potatoes at Israeli troops, who responded by sending police in riot gear to close down the market. A curfew was declared, making the zone off limits to Palestinians. Pedestrians who later tried to cross Shuhada Street from the market to their Palestinian neighborhoods were turned back.

“We’ll have to get an airplane to go home,” grumbled Ahmed abu Sileneh.

Col. Jabril Rajoub, the Palestinian security chief in the West Bank, and Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordecai each appeared in Hebron on Friday to congratulate their forces on the smooth redeployment and to assure their people that they will do everything possible to make the agreement work.

But Israeli Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Amnon Lipkin-Shahak added that “redeployment is not the real test. Time will be the real test--whatever will happen from today on.”

No one wanted to make any predictions as settlers engaged in ritual mourning over “the loss of the first Jewish city” and Palestinians voiced discontent over an agreement that leaves radical Jews in their midst. The Jews had wanted Israel to remain in complete control of Hebron, while most Palestinians want the settlers evicted.

“Both sides see any agreement that gives the other an inch of land as immoral,” Yochai Ron, a resident of the Beit Hadassah enclave, explained as sundown and the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath approached. “In that, Jews and Arabs here think the same.”

The 10,000 Palestinians who exchanged Israeli rule for their own Palestinian Authority acknowledged a sense of relief in the long-awaited redeployment. No longer will they be locked in their homes under Israeli curfews five or 10 times a year after every Arab or Jewish attack. Israeli soldiers will not be able to search their homes anymore or arrest their sons at the front door.

But many Palestinians wondered how long that relief will last. They said they fear that a clash, so easy to spark in the electric atmosphere, would send Israelis rushing back into Hebron. Or worse--they wondered if Arafat will one day do what they see as Israel’s bidding by sending Palestinian police in to enforce a curfew.

Most Hebronites, it seemed, focused on what the redeployment did not provide. As merchant Ayub Abdeen, 31, observed: “We cannot go to Jerusalem. We cannot import directly from abroad as we would like. And we do not have an independent state, like any other Arab country.”

Control over East Jerusalem and statehood are among the issues Israel and the Palestinians are to decide in final negotiations, as is the future of Jewish settlements.

In Friday prayers, Muslim leaders exhorted Hebronites to keep their eyes fixed on these goals. “Make a distinction between welcoming your Palestinian police and our ideology,” the sheik at Al Ansar mosque said in a sermon amplified into the street. “You mustn’t forget that Jerusalem is ours.”

Many Hebronites were less upset about what they termed a “weak” redeployment accord than about Arafat’s handling of his own people. Although his Cabinet deliberated over the accord, many here grumbled Friday that Arafat really did not consult with the Palestinian people on the contents of the pact and did not seek their approval of it afterward.

“In order to have real democracy, the agreement should have been presented to the [Palestinian] legislature the way the Israelis did,” said Dr. Assad abu Ghalyoun, 51.

The Palestinians, of course, were all too aware of the limits of their sway in this historic and volatile place. And if that were not already the case, the children on the streets here offered a reminder Friday: As some Palestinian children plunked a picture of Arafat on the gate keeping them from Beit Hadassah, Jewish children on the other side waved back with oversized Israeli flags and shouted curses.