Legal Breaking and Entering

By Greg Rollins

I don't know about you, but where I come from, breaking and entering, and stealing is illegal. If you are caught in the middle of the act, or sit in the place you have broken into and refuse to move, you will be arrested plain and simple. You can't tell the police that you will just go home and forget it happened, you're under arrest. Recently here in Hebron settlers have been breaking into Palestinian stores and stealing everything inside. The settlers have broken into gold shops, clothing shops, shoe shops, and general goods stores. Most of the stores are beneath, or beside the Israeli settlements, and all the settlers have to do is punch a hole in the wall and they are in.

Most recently settlers broke into three Palestinian shops beside the yeshiva (religious school) of Beit Romano. The settlers broke a hole in the back wall of one of the stores and then used doors that connected the three to get from one to the other. They cleaned the three stores out, barred the front doors from the inside, and refused to leave them. When the shop owners wanted to enter their stores, Israeli soldiers and police denied them entry. They were told they could do so the next day. When they showed up then, they were made to wait again.

It shocks me when these things happen because in most cases the crimes have taken place a short distance away from Israeli soldier checkpoint. This particular incident behind Beit Romano happened only several yards away from the checkpoint at the building's entrance. It would have been impossible for the soldiers not to hear or see the settlers smash a hole in a cement wall. The fact that the soldiers ignore these kinds of things and protect the perpetrators reinforces the settlers' goal to take control of Hebron.

This is how the settlers take over places here. They break in, refuse to leave, and the soldiers and police do nothing to make them leave. The Palestinians are told they cannot go into their own stores for a few days. When they come back, they are told to wait a few more days. After a while the settlers turn the place into something of their own, a store, an apartment, or an office, whatever they want. Legally the title or deed for the place states that it still belongs to Palestinians, but the courts and the settlers ignore this. The Palestinians are left without a store, without a livelihood, without any compensation and without any justice.