The City of the Dead - Part 1

by Aron Trauring

For a long time I promised Asaf that I would write about my experiences in the army, especially my tour of duty in Hebron. I didn't realize how deeply traumatized I was from the experience until the Wye Plantation negotiations in October of 1998.

Bibi Netanyahu was negotiating a partial withdrawal from Hebron. I'm a person who never has problems sleeping. But that week, I tossed and turned. I had an almost physical need for those negotiations to end positively. I was obsessed. When the agreement was signed, I felt a great burden off my heart.

But now the Israeli army is back in full force. And Sharon intends to greatly expand the settlement of Hebron. Once again I am obsessed. So now, finally, I have to write.

A Base in Hell

It was mid-April of 1990, right after Passover. Yitzhak Shamir was the Prime Minister of Israel. The national unity government had just collapsed, and Shamir led a narrow right-wing government. Moshe Arens was the new/old defense minister. Our unit got its annual call. This time - 30 days in Hebron. We had been there once before for a brief stint of 10 days, actually more in the outskirts. That first tour of duty is blurry in my mind. I can't really remember what happened. But these 30 days - they are forever burned on to my heart and mind.

We got to our new "living quarters." A half finished building on the road leading out of Hebron to the Kiryat Arba settlement. 30 of us were stuffed into a large room, which also served as the radio control room, the kitchen, the commons. Our toilet consisted of a hole in the ground in the basement. Our shower was a plastic pipe that ran from a faucet outside down into the basement. We used this same pipe to flush down the "toilet". You had to be careful how you pointed that tube, or you would get splattered with crap. Sleep was almost impossible. The close quarters, the dangers of our duties, the constant noise - all this led to many arguments among our usually close knit group. Everybody got on everybody's nerves.

The dangers of our mission were impressed upon us daily. We were deep in "enemy" territory. We were forbidden to leave this "base" if we were not on duty. Given the conditions there, we consistently ignored that order. The Israeli army doesn't show much concern for its soldiers. Not only were the conditions abysmal, the food supply was spotty and bad. Considering the sanitary conditions, eating less was actually better. Nonetheless, we would often go down to the bakery around the corner to buy fresh hot pita or "bagels." The taste of a hot bagel in my mouth is the only pleasant memory I have of those 30 days in hell.

Hebron was crawling with soldiers - there were probably a couple thousand soldiers to protect the 400 settlers. It seemed like everyday we were there, a new unit entered the city. Shamir wanted to protect his right wing base. Each unit had a very specific and well defined area to protect. Our main job was to guard the street below the entrance to the "Maarat Ha'Machpela" - the Cave of the Couples, where our ancestors Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are supposedly buried, along with their wives, Sarah, Rebecca and Leah. At the street level was a souvenir shop belonging to the settlers and above that a Yeshiva. We would often go into the souvenir shop to buy cold drinks, although that too was against the rules.

The Settlers

We were given very strict instructions about the settlers who lived in Hebron - we were not to interfere with them in anyway. When we first arrived, someone told us the story of how the previous reserve unit had a run in with Moshe Levinger, founder of the Hebron Jewish settlement.

First a bit about Levinger, from a B'Tselem report:

On September 30, 1988, Rabbi Moshe Levinger opened fire with live ammunition in the center of Hebron, killing Qa'id Hasan Salah and wounding Ibrahim Bali. Levinger was detained for questioning and released on bail. On April 12, 1989, he was indicted on charges of manslaughter, causing serious bodily injury in aggravated circumstances, and causing malicious damage. His trial opened on May 22, 1989, in Jerusalem District Court. Levinger pleaded not guilty to all the charges.

The trial proceeded for two years. On May 1, 1990, following a plea bargain between the Jerusalem District Attorney's Office and Levinger's lawyer, Levinger was convicted of causing death by negligence, wounding in aggravated circumstances, and doing malicious damage. The two original serious charges - manslaughter and doing serious harm - were dropped, and Levinger agreed to plead guilty to the lesser counts. Jerusalem District Court Judge, Shalom Brenner, immediately imposed a twelve-month prison sentence, seven of which were suspended.

Levinger's attorney requested a two-week delay before his client would commence serving his sentence to enable Levinger to arrange personal matters before entering prison. The judge consented. On May 14, 1990 [right toward the end of our tour of duty], Levinger entered Eyal Prison in the Sharon District.

He was released on August 14, 1990, after serving three months of the five-month sentence, a third having been deducted for good behavior. His followers celebrated his release.

Apparently, unlike most murder suspects, Levinger was not being detained. More than that, he was actually provided a luxury car and driver courtesy of the Israeli army. One fine day, he and a bunch of other hooligans went through the Arab casbah (market) in Hebron, overturning stalls and shuttering stores. This was a common practice - the settlers believed it was necessary "to show a Jewish presence" for otherwise the "Arab animals would lift their heads (i.e. get uppity)."

The head of the reserve unit, probably a leftist Kibbutznik, went to confront Levinger. Levinger looked him in the eye and said. "You are only a Major. I don't talk to anyone with a rank lower than Colonel." And that's how the incident ended. So, us lowly soldiers were to have nothing to do with even the rank and file settlers.

At first we didn't have many encounters with the settlers. They would walk by us on the way to prayers. But on occasion, we would be sent out to guard other parts of the city and our encounters with them increased. On more than one occasion I saw young settler children kick a passing Arab and call him "dirty pig" or some such curse. As I noted earlier, we were forbidden to intervene.

What rankled was how the settlers seemed to take our presence for granted. Many times when we were on tours of duty in the territories, Israelis from neighboring towns would come to us and bring us cake and cookies on the Sabbath. It seems like such a little thing, but considering the lousy food we had to put up with, being isolated and far from home, those little sweets were an expression of gratitude that just made us feel good. But unless you wore a kippa (skullcap) and therefore were invited to celebrate the Sabbath with them, the Hebron settlers usually ignored us, looking through us as if we didn't exist.

"Collaborators of the Defeatist Shamir"

Sometimes they did talk to us. That was even worse. For their curses were not just reserved for the Arabs. Once we had a brief discussion with some adult settlers. They turned to us with a look of contempt and said: "You are collaborators in the defeatist government of Yitzhak Shamir." In their eyes, Shamir was a traitor because he formed a national unity government with the "leftists" from Labor. The "weakness" of the national unity government - its failure to deal with the Arabs with a "forceful" hand was the cause of the Arabs "lifting their head" in rebellion. So they told us. The fact that we weren't beating up Arabs or worse, disturbed them.

The word "defeatist" was especially jarring to me. It is a favorite of fascists in general, and Nazis in particular. Here is a speech of Hitler's in 1939 after the invasion of Poland:

"I had to reorganize everything beginning with the mass of the people and extending it to the armed forces. First, reorganization of the interior, abolishment of appearance of decay and defeatist ideas, education to heroism."

One of the crimes for which a German could be put in "protective custody," i.e. sent to a concentration camp, was expressing a "defeatist attitude." And it goes on.

As I have noted elsewhere, Nazi-like terminology and thinking has permeated the Israeli right for a long time. But being called a "collaborator" by these fanatics send chills up and down my spine.

One day we were heading out to guard duty when we encountered a soldier from one of our co-units. He was white as a ghost, shaking with anger. He told us how settlers had just shouted at him, calling him a "Nazi." He ranted on and on, complaining about the humiliation of our living conditions, the constant personal danger. All these made the insult incredibly galling. "We risk our lives protecting these fucking bastards. Look how they talk to us," he said. In retrospect, though, I can only think of the irony of the settlers' curse: look who called the kettle black.

[to be continued]