| Levant-The Rising: Photographs of Israel-Palestine by Skip Schiel |
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©Skip Schiel, 2004 |
Soldier talking to delegates, Hebron Hebron is the city of Abraham, Hagar, and Sarah, illustrious forbearers of the Islamic, Judaic, and Christian traditions. I met the soldier in the old city, a few steps from the Tomb of the Patriarchs (and Matriarchs)/Ibrahimi Mosque/Cave of Machpela. This site is where an American Ultra-Orthodox Jew, Baruch Goldstein, and others, massacred some 90 Muslim worshipers, claiming they’d hidden weapons under the mosque floor. I met the young soldier, Mr Shly, when he, commanded by his superiors, blocked me from attending a museum, Avraham Avinu, in the viciously divided city of Hebron. The reason for the blockage—I’d left my passport on our tour bus, the bus was inaccessible. And the museum—showing a massacre in Hebron of Jews by Palestinians in 1929, exactly what I’d need to further my insights into life from the Israeli perspective. However, I did then have the opportunity to chat with him, away from his peers and mine. The gist: I am fearful, said he, enemy is all around us. They could strike at any moment. I am protecting my country. What would you do, I asked, if those kids over there (pointing to a group of 3 small boys) threw stones at you? I’d point my weapon. If they didn’t stop? They’d stop, they always do, they are afraid. |
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