LS: We will gain the Land of Israel in our merit. You will lose it.
A7: You come here once a year for a few shekels. I am raising my children here, thank God, a third generation.
LS: You get a salary. We are volunteers. So don’t say ‘a few shekels.’
A7: I, each morning thank God, receive a sea of cash. Do you know from whom? Every morning I pray beside the holy patriarchs and thank God you come hear once a year …
LS: I also pray every morning ..
A7: You come here once a year. For two years you weren’t here, right? Two years, right? What happened?
(end of footage)
Machsom Watch is comprised of a group of Israeli women who monitor the checkpoints between the Palestinian Authority and pre-1967 Israel, and the IDF military courts. The group is a leftist, self-described “politically pluralistic” human rights organization, with some members who consider it their duty to protest the existence of the checkpoints.
The group disrupts the work at the checkpoints and has in the past entered restricted areas without permission. Members also harass IDF soldiers and residents of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.
It’s important to note that in Hebron, relations between the Arab residents and Jews who live there and in Kiryat Arba are very complex. The situation there is not black and white, and things are not as simple as they may appear. In years past there were many times when the Jews of Kiryat Arba and the Arabs of Hebron did not fight, and trade was brisk at the open air market in the ancient holy city.
Women from the Jewish suburb would walk the short distance to the market — albeit always in a group — to buy their fresh produce and legumes for the week in the years prior to the first intifada. To this day there are those among the older generation who remember those days and despise the extremism that caused the slide of the city’s economy and the downfall of its good relations with its Jewish neighbors.