February 4th 1999  Hebron, Israel.

 

Because of a settler van being shot at and three settler women being injured, the Israeli-controlled area of Hebron was put under curfew for a week.  This was during Ramadan, and included the closing of the Ibrahimi Mosque.  In response, a group of Palestinians, dressed in business suits, attempted a nonviolent march to the mosque to protest the collective punishment, challenge the curfew, and pray at the mosque.  The leaders of the march were committed to nonviolence and insisted that no stones be thrown.

 

CPT agreed to have a presence at the demonstration to help prevent any violence from occurring.  Sara and Pierre were in the front of the group, prepared to tell any soldiers that the march was nonviolent and to intervene if there was any trouble.

 

Suddenly, a group of Israeli soldiers came running down a side street and took up firing positions near the march.  CPTers immediately jumped in front of the guns, shouting “Don’t shoot, don’t shoot!”.  The soldiers did not shoot, but were quite frustrated with the CPTers and wanted to disperse the crowd.  They threw four sound grenades at the demonstrators that exploded in the middle of the crowd.  They are intended only to make a loud noise, but they injured four Palestinians.

 

Instead of leaving, the demonstrators regrouped.  The soldiers stood in a line preventing the march from proceeding, CPTers stood between the soldiers and demonstrators.  There were negotiations between the leaders of the march and military officers.  Then one soldier began aggressively pushing back demonstrators.  Things became tense.  A few stones were thrown.  The soldiers again took up firing positions and again CPTers stood in front of the guns, begging the soldiers not to shoot.  One of our team put her hat over the end of an M-16 rifle, and another her hand over the end of a gun.  CPTers were physically removed from the front line of the standoff.

 

One officer was furious.  This was the second time CPT had directly interfered with soldiers carrying out orders.  He screamed into Pierre’s face, telling him to leave the area.  Pierre explained that the demonstrators were nonviolent and that the officer should keep his soldiers under control.  The officer slapped Pierre three times in the face.  Pierre replied, “That’s going in the report.”  The officer then went to Mark Frey, yelling for him to leave the area.  Mark remained still for a bit, and then moved back.

 

After about twenty minutes the Israeli civilian police arrived.  The angry officer pointed out Pierre and had him arrested.  Sara stepped up and asked why they were arresting Pierre.  They immediately arrested her.  They briefly detained two other CPTers, but they were soon released.

 

The standoff continued.  The Palestinian leaders worked hard to keep things under control.  One Druz soldier was quite helpful, telling his soldiers to back off a bit.  Since he spoke Arabic, he also called on the Palestinians to remain calm.  The protest leaders decided to pray there in the street, putting down cardboard on the street to kneel on for the prayers.  They then announced that the demonstration was over.

 

CPTers decided to leave the area, not wanting to give any support or encouragement for people remaining in the area which could result in violence.  The point of the march had been made.  CPT had done what we were asked to do.  Journalists reported that things remained calm afterward, even thought many people remained in the area.

 

CPT did what we say we  are here for.  We got in the way.  We helped make it possible for the powerless to act.  The curfew was challenged.  We prevented violence.  The soldiers paid a price, in the form of negative media coverage around the world.

 

Why was this action so effective?  First, CPT has had over three years of training and preparation for this event through our experience in Hebron.  The team knew the situation and could quickly assess the dynamics of what was happening.  They were prepared to make quick decisions.  They had developed many relationships here which helped form the basis for trust on both sides.  They did not know what would happen that day, but they had prepared.  Daily prayer gave spiritual grounding for what happened that day.  They also had done nonviolence training.  Having one side clearly committed to nonviolence made CPT’s role much less difficult.  It is much more difficult to intervene in clashes when both sides are using violence.

 

Those involved in that action feel that their standing right in front of the guns made it much more difficult for the soldiers to shoot.  Being very close to the soldiers helped, for the closeness made everything more personal.  To use violence against another person, one must first depersonalize the enemy.  Likewise, having Palestinians eyeball-to-eyeball with Israeli soldiers made it harder to throw stones at the soldiers.

 

The event created an incredible amount of media attention around the world, exposing the situation here in Hebron and what is happening in the occupation.  All over the world, except in the United States.  The United States media does almost no reporting of these kinds of actions.  The events related in this book received almost no coverage in the Unites States media, but many were widely covered in the rest of the world.