Hebron’s Jews Feel Betrayed by Agreement, Netanyahu

HEBRON, Israeli-Occupied West Bank — Rivka Zerbib stood in the doorway of her pleasant home here Wednesday and allowed herself a moment of hope and faith. The resident of one of the Jewish settlements at the heart of this city said she believed that an agreement aimed at ceding most of Hebron to Palestinian control might still be stopped.

“It’s not final. They can still change it,” she said of the hours-old Israeli-Palestinian accord, as three of her 11 children took turns clinging to her long denim skirt. In any event, she added, “Only God will decide. And if he wants to turn it around, he can do it.”

Hours after Israel and the Palestinians completed their long-delayed agreement to pull Israeli troops out of most of this city, quiet prevailed in Hebron, along with a sense of foreboding as thick at times as the dark clouds that lingered overhead for much of the day, dropping a chilly drizzle.

In a statement that underscored the tensions, the militant Islamic group Hamas said Wednesday that it rejected the deal and warned President Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority to refrain from cracking down on extremist groups. Hamas is believed responsible for a wave of suicide bombings last spring aimed at derailing Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking.

Outwardly, Hebron seemed little different than it has on other recent days, aside from increased numbers of Israeli soldiers deployed to thwart protests. Throngs of Palestinian shoppers filled the central market, bargaining over tangerines, cabbages and live chickens. Jewish seminary students, some with Uzi submachine guns slung across their shoulders, walked up the central street, drawing little more than glances from the Arabs they passed.

But at the heavily guarded basement headquarters of Hebron’s Jewish settlers, leaders of the movement huddled all day, anxiously awaiting what would be an 11-7 Israeli Cabinet vote approving the redeployment agreement.

The Hebron settlers, who number about 450, have fiercely opposed the deal, asserting that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is agreeing to give away much of a city that is considered the holiest to Jews after Jerusalem.

“We want this agreement not to exist,” said Noam Arnon, a spokesman for the settlers. He said the group had sought before the Cabinet vote to persuade several sympathetic or wavering ministers to demand last-minute changes in the agreement, evidently hoping to scuttle the U.S.-brokered accord.

The settlers have said security arrangements in the agreement--including buffer zones, building restrictions and limits on the weapons that Palestinian police may carry--are inadequate to ensure their safety.

On the wall behind him hung a blue-and-white poster, a reminder of a time a few months ago when the newly elected Netanyahu was regarded as a hero and ally by settlers. “Welcome, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,” it says.

“We assumed and we hoped and we were led to believe,” Arnon said, that Netanyahu would comply with his preelection promises to accelerate the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and not withdraw from further West Bank territory. “This is not the way we voted for and this is not the man we voted for.”

But to a large degree, the Israeli pullback from Hebron is already done, accomplished little by little as negotiators haggled. Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordecai has estimated that the partial withdrawal, under which Israel will turn about 80% of Hebron over to the control of Palestinian police, now can be completed in hours.

In coordination with Israeli forces, plainclothes Palestinian police--in small numbers--already are operating in the area they will control after the hand-over.

Under terms of the agreement, Israeli troops will retain control of a section of Hebron that includes the Jewish enclaves and the holy site known to Jews as the Cave of the Patriarchs and to Muslims as the Ibrahim mosque.

Anticipating the turnover, Palestinians put up welcome signs near the city’s entrance for a still-unscheduled celebration visit by Arafat.

But virtually no one interviewed here seemed joyful. Many Palestinians shrugged off the agreement as still too little and far too late.

Wael abu Zeine, 24, who runs a paint store, was among the few who said he welcomed the accord. “The agreement is definitely something excellent for the Palestinian people,” Zeine said.

More typical, however, was the reaction of Idris Zahadi, 48, who lives near one of the Jewish enclaves. Zahadi said Arafat should not have agreed to a deal that did not include the evacuation of the Jewish settlers from the city. “When you have the government of the Palestinians here, you don’t want to see the settlers here,” said Zahadi.

Muhammad Hasan of The Times’ Jerusalem Bureau contributed to this report.