Land of Israel activists have filed a petition with Israel’s High Court of Justice, requesting permission to tour Arab areas in Hevron. The petition comes in response to similar petitions filed by various left-wing groups, following restrictions recently imposed on far-left organized tours of Jewish areas in Hevron. The far-left groups instigated violent confrontations with the city's Jewish community and are requesting that the Court allow their militantly anti-Jewish “tours” to return to the Jewish areas.
Among the petitioners for the Jewish community of Hevron are Jewish activists Itamar Ben-Gvir and Baruch Marzel. In their appeal to the High Court, the two copied tactics used by rival organizations. The Ben-Gvir—Marzel petition mimics, almost word for word, the recent petitions that left-wing groups have in filed in their demands to tour the Jewish community.
B’Tzelem, Breaking the Silence, the International Solidarity Movement and other organizations have for years been leading what they call “tours” of Hevron, in which they teach participants about the history of the Jewish occupation” of the city, with an emphasis on what they allege to be Jewish oppression of the local Arab population.
David Wilder, spokesperson for the Jewish community of Hevron, reveals that these groups manipulate the tour participants by presenting their tours as peaceful, objective tours led by private tour groups presenting an ordinary, neutral tourist excursion to the mixed city. In reality, says Wilder, the tours are anything but peaceful or objective, as the left-wing groups use the tours as a means to further their anti-Jewish and anti-Israel agenda, distorting facts to vilify the Jewish settlers throughout the tour presentation and culminating their tours by leading their participants in attacking, often violently, the Jewish families that live there.
According to Wilder, the tour group organizers "have been classified by the police as 'more dangerous the the extreme Israeli right' because they are trying to cause the fragile peace in Hebron to explode by provocations against Hebron's Jews, waiting for us to react." He added that the groups "also incite against the community, adding fuel the fire."
In a recent response to the left-wing groups’ repeated assaults on Hevron’s Jews, Israel’s High Court has restricted the groups from visiting Jewish areas. Following confrontations that Hevron police say were instigated by the visitors, the Court has barred Breaking the Silence and other groups from exiting their tour buses in the Jewish areas of the city. However, the groups have violated the order several times, with no response yet from Israeli authorities. The groups have since filed an appeal to the High Court requesting that the police lift their ban, in the petition filed by Breaking the Silence in the matter of "tours" of Judea and Samaria. The petition is currently pending with the Court.
Wilder charged the Israeli Supreme Court with "preferring 'human rights' to human lives," resulting in pressure from the court that repeatedly "forces the police to lift a ban on the group and provide them with security whenever they arrive in Hebron."
Ben-Gvir and Marzel have responded to the far-leftists' petition by requesting that Jews be allowed to enter the 93% of Hevron that was placed under Palestinian Authority jurisdiction in 1996 by then-Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu. In writing their petition, the only words Ben-Gvir and Marzel changed from the text of the petition by Breaking the Silence were the names of the neighborhoods. The Justices ordered the government to reply to the petition before they issue a ruling.
High Court judge Elyakim Rubinstein accepted one request of several in the petition filed by the Jewish community of Hevron: to allow the community to join as a side to the Breaking the Silence petition regarding the left-wing “tours.” He refused the community's request to halt the tours, however, and allowed the State's understandings with the pacifists regarding the tours to stand for the time being.
The Hevron community claimed that the pacifist group "Breaking the Silence" is a group of "provocateurs who wish to incite the Arab population against the Jews." The community’s petition states that Breaking the Silence's activity “goes beyond study tours, that it is provocative, entails disruption of the peace, confrontations with civilians, police officers and soldiers, blocking roads while endangering people's lives,” in addition to “agitation of Hebron's Arab populace against the Jews living there,” reports the Haaretz news service.
Rubinstein ruled that the continuation of the tours would depend on the group's behavior and "a restrained attitude on their part", and set an October court date for the discussion of both sides of the petition.