The rains came on the Negev, the term for Israel's large southern desert that separates Eilat from the more temperate and populated north. Military camps and small fort-like towns dot the long stretch of empty highway, and the long bus ride north was enough to put most on the vehicle to sleep. Although the low mountain ranges were mildly scenic, desert is desert, and Israel has so much of it altered to suit its own needs that very little remains in its natural state.

Rain was falling viciously as we arrived in Beer She'va. I dashed under an awning and proceeded to search for the information desk. Being coy, I was asking how to go north on highway 90, but the lady, who spoke english well, was digging for more information.
"Where is that you want to go?"
"Well, uh, north sorta, on highway 90," I said. Road 90 is the one that runs north-south through the West Bank.
"Yes, but where? Which town."
"Hebron?"
"Ohhh! You vant to go to Hchchchchebron!" She said, with a definite "hch" near-spit sound to pronounce Hebron. "You must go to Kiryat Arda, and from there you can get to Hebron."

The answer shocked me. I was expecting a "no, it's not possible from here" from her but I received quite the opposite. The bus arrived about an hour later and was half full. Under the rain and clouded sky we headed north on highway 90, into the West Bank, on an Israeli bus.

Most passengers left long before Kiryat Arda. And indeed, all of the Israeli towns in the West Bank were surrounded by chain link fences, with electronic gates and lookout posts. More forts than towns, these colonies were certainly for only the brave Israelis who can somehow rationalize this neo-imperialism.

As we persisted on, Palestinian homes began appearing on the hillsides, along with their orange minibuses and taxis grinding their way through muddy roads. Not a single one could be seen on this finely paved highway, only our single bus. We wound up a hill, around again, and in bitter cold and driving rain arrived at Qiryat Arda.

I was totally soaked and found an underpass where a group of people appeared to be waiting. Totally disoriented and able to see nothing in the lousy weather, some asian-looking fellow in a small truck asked me where I was going "Hebron?" I offered. He beckoned me in, turned in the opposite direction, and drove me about three blocks to another bus station. In the distance was a large steel gate, slightly ajar. I stood at the bus shelter as the rain died away, and watched the clouds stumble over themselves in the sky.


It became obvious no bus was coming. I slung my bags over my shoulder and walked out onto the street, past the gate. A city stood to my left - low, cluttered, clutching along the sides of steep hills. Hebron seemed to be a valley, and I was following a road into its pit. Sunlight began to peak through the clouds. I walked along the side of the road, on a shattered garbage strewn sidewalk. Little faces peered from behind corners at me. The neighbourhood was silent.
These people were Palestinian. Yet the occasional vehicle drove past, with obviously Jewish people inside. Further I wandered, into a patch of apartment blocks, and on their rooftops I noticed camouflage netting and tinted windows. I felt as though I was being watched, and perhaps indeed I was. Putting on my best stupid tourist face, I continued.

Bulldozed apartment blocks to my right were leaking mud down the steep roadway. A large Israeli bus drove around the corner, and I arrived at an intersection. The main road continued to my right, but to my left was a narrow street which was littered with iron barriers and shards of concrete. It looked combat ready; or recently abandoned.

At the bottom of the hill, I followed a bus that had just arrived from my direction. It brought me to an Israeli roadblock, eerily quiet, with two soldiers about my age standing on either side, casually, looking wholly uninterested in their situation. Wandering over to one, I pulled out my passport. He looked at it, and acted friendly.
"You are welcome," he said, pointing to past the roadblock.
I was a bit more curious about the layout of this town though. "Is this the Palestinian side?"
"No no, this is Israeli."
"..And where are the Palestinians?"
"Over there," he said, pointing.
"Is it safe to go over there?" I asked him.
"Sure," he said, smiling, "just hold a sign up saying I'm not jewish."





I smiled back, thanking him for his help. Wandering through derelict streets, I arrived at shopfronts all abandoned with the Star of David spray painted on their metal shutters. The streets were empty, as was the noise. It occured to me then -

This is a frontline.

I found another bunch of soldiers in a building and showed them my passport. The fellow was a little more adamant about the situation. "With this passport, we will do nothing to you," he said, "but who knows about them," he said, pointing to the Palestinians.
Ah, well, I know what they'll do to me. I was just covering my ass by conversing with these soldiers, telling them I'm a tourist, pointing out that yes, here I am, Don't Shoot Me Thank You Very Much. It was then that I began my trek up the hill on the Palestinian side - in the middle of a road most intimidating: concrete blocks scattered along it, flipped over cars on its side; Israeli gun bunkers with their doors flung open and their six inch bullet proof glass shattered by bullet holes. A mess of military garbage, this would appear to be one of the sole entry and exit points along the frontline to the Palestinian side. I wandered up.

Ten minutes of walking revealed groups of Palestinian boys looking my way, who I smiled and greeted, and they smiled and greeted me back. Stares and smiles greeted me, all manner of curiousity, all manner of informal welcome. Yes, this is what the Palestinians will do to me - greet me, and treat me with respect. And in fact, by treating both sides with such simple rules, travelling between the two sides of Hebron became relatively painless. Thanks, of course, to my own nationality and demeanour.

After half an hour of walking I realized how large Hebron was. I hailed a taxi and asked him to take me to a hotel; one of only two in town, the price for a single was USD80, far too much for me. I bargained the fellow down to USD60, for a king size bed, and lounged in opulent luxury on the Palestinian side.
Perhaps it would have been possible to stay on the Israeli side, but I had wanted to put my money into the Palestinian economy. Certainly the Israelis here get more than their share of funding to support their cause; then again, so do the Palestinians. My opinion? We shall see.










The following morning I took a taxi back to the Israeli side; or, as close as I could get to it. The frontline divides the two communities, and it runs right through the city centre. A taxi dropped me off where the street began, and on the other side of an imaginary line all of the shops were shut tight and only a few souls could be seen walking around. It appeared that people still lived in these buildings; but perhaps due to regulations they were forced to keep people off of the street here. Certainly, in these few blocks, one is being tracked by the 4000 strong defence force assigned to Hebron.

So why is it this way? That's what I was going to see. The Cave of Macpeleh, a sacred site for Arabs and Jews alike, in Hebron's centre. A group of a few hundred hard core Jewish settlers had made their way into Hebron and claimed the Cave as their holy site. The Israeli Defence Force was charged with protecting them; so they have isolated themselves in this massive city, around this holy site, and cleared all non-Jewish businesses from around it. Roads run from Kiryat Arda down to the Jewish part of Hebron, and the other roads into the Palestinian side are blocked off. One can walk, but one cannot drive.

As you can imagine this has created some of the most fierce fighting in all of the West Bank. Hebron is the most dangerous city in all of Israel.

Past roadblocks I wandered and up to more soldiers, who saw my passport. Up some steps and through hand searches and metal detectors I walked, talking with the several dozen soldiers guarding the entrance to the sacred temple. Jews were inside the temple reciting verses like mad, the most devoted perhaps, or the ones who had chosen to live here. On my way out an Israeli tourist bus had dropped off a group of a dozen english speaking Jewish people decked out in their digital movie cameras and backpacks as they came to see this sacred "Jewish" site. It is convenient to forget that it is known as the sacred Ibrahimi Mosque in Islam.

It struck me as horribly perverse that all of this was to make this site available for Jewish tourists - the partitioning of Hebron, the clearing of commercial space, the blocking off of roads and jamming razorwire down alleyways so no one could sneak up to a checkpoint. Not to mention, of course, endless gun battles between the IDF and Palestinian militias as well as sneak attacks on Kiryat Arda. This stands as perhaps one of the most twisted motives for persisting in the destruction of the Palestinian people.

To Bethlehem, and Jerusalem.



Back