Hebron store owner: Eviction was a façade
Owner of one of stores in city's wholesale market invaded by Jewish families tells Ynet evacuation will not change a thing: 'Everything that took place there was mainly meant for the cameras, but there were no clashes. The army and the settlers have the same goal'
"The so-called clashes between the IDF and the settlers are one big façade," Ziad Sarsur, the owner of one of the two stores taken over by Jewish families in Hebron's wholesale market, told Ynet on Wednesday.
The evacuation of the two families and hundreds of right-wing activists was completed by large police and Border Guard forces on Tuesday morning.
"Yesterday the merchants and I saw the commotion on television and laughed. What a poor and unsuccessful façade," Sarsur said. "Everyone knows that the army and the State of Israel and the settlers all do the same thing.
"One settler walks down the street accompanied by two jeeps, so how will they suddenly clash? The settlers are also much stronger and more influential than the army and I have no doubt that they will reinvade our businesses."
In 1993, after the massacre carried out by Baruch Goldstein against Muslim worshippers at the Cave of the Patriarchs, Sarsur and hundreds of other Palestinian merchants were removed from their businesses and stores in the wholesale market.
Now, as far as he is concerned, the evacuation of Jewish families from the areas is meaningless.
"Whether the settlers are inside the market or were evacuated from it – I don't see a difference, because I cannot return to my business and my store. I have been expelled for more than 13 years. In order to enter the street where the business is located – not the business itself, but only the street – I have to coordinate with the Israeli side, and even then they don’t give us permits."
According to Sarsur, before the settlers invaded the market he had approached the army and asked to take some of his belongings, but was turned down.
A day after the eviction, Sarsur recalled how he and his friends were evicted after the 1992 massacre.
"I was evacuated from a business which cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, from which I would distribute fruit and vegetables to many stores in Hebron," he said.
"No one thought about providing us with an alternative or compensating us. The family lives of dozens of people depended on this business, and in one day we found ourselves on the street without any livelihood."
Sarsur in Hebron. No compensation or alternative (Photo: Samih Shahin)
A number of High Court discussions did not convince the State to let the Palestinian merchants return to their businesses and homes in the wholesale market area.
Months after he was evacuated from his business, Sarsur paid 86,000 Jordanian dinars (about $120,000) and opened a store in the alternative market built by the Hebron municipality. He is still there, waiting for the day he will be allowed to return to the old market.
Soldiers and settlers together, on same road
"The funniest thing is the talks about large army and police forces arriving to prevent the settlers from reaching the confrontation area," Sarsur said, in reference to Tuesday's evacuation. "Whoever says that is either lying or did not see what went on here.
"Soldiers and settlers walked down the same road and street together. Everything that happened there was mainly for the cameras, but in practice there were no clashes. Both the army and the settlers have the same goal, which is to rob the Palestinians of their property.
Abdel Hadi Hantash of the Palestinian Land Defense Committee in Hebron said that disagreement is over the identity of the houses' rightful owners.
"The truth is that all these houses and stores are Palestinian property with documents, and therefore what happened yesterday is ridiculous. Two thieves arguing over who the property belongs to. This is an argument which is a façade, and by no means an evacuation, because the settlers' presence is illegal," he said.
Palestinians sources reported that not far from the scene of Tuesday's clashes there were at least another 10 Jewish families living in stores and houses they had taken over in the area.
"One or two places are enough for a façade. They don’t need a set around every 10 stores, although I know there are at least 30 such stores and houses," a local Palestinian activist said.
