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Gershom Gorenberg: Legacy of the Kiosk Caper

I�d like to tell an incident from Israeli history. I like it because it shows that people are bundles of contradictions, better described by literature than by political theory. But my excuse for recounting the 35-year-old anecdote of the kiosk in Hebron is that it has three (contradictory) political lessons for today.

The kiosk was put up on August 7, 1968, by the Jewish settlers of Hebron. A few months before, the settlers had used a trick to squat in the town: They procured the army�s permission to rent a hotel and hold a Seder in "the City of the Patriarchs," and then proclaimed they were staying permanently, defying military law. Rather than expel them, prime minister Levi Eshkol had settled for a compromise, letting them move into a military compound while the government dithered about its long-range policy on settlement in the lands Israel had occupied a year before. Now, in August, the settlers were celebrating the first wedding among their group. And three of them asked, and got, permission to set up a kiosk for one day next to the Tomb of the Patriarchs to sell soda and sandwiches to the hundreds of guests who would arrive for the happy occasion.

Then, the next morning, they opened the tiny stand again -- thereby violating another agreement with the army. The town�s military governor showed up and ordered that the kiosk be dismantled. The coordinator of activities in the territories, Col. Shlomo Gazit, helicoptered in from Tel Aviv and canceled the permits of the Kiosk Three to stay in Hebron. Of course, the issue wasn�t selling soda; it was establishing that settlers had to follow the rules. And naturally, ministers in favor of settlement demanded a cabinet debate, and the cabinet postponed the issue. Pro-settlement pols asked how a Jewish government could expel Jews from the ancient city over a kiosk -- neatly ignoring the law and the fact that there had been no democratic decision to annex Hebron.

In the Knesset, Eshkol�s stand was clear: "Turning the behavior of the Hebron settlers, who arrived as visitors and created a fait accompli, into a consistent pattern will undermine the authority of the military government. No citizen who cares about national security can agree to that." At first the settlers declared that their "national obligation" to Hebron outweighed military law; then they realized this was an eensy bit undiplomatic, and issued a letter that yes, the law applied to them. Pro-settlement ministers pushed, Eshkol yielded, and the cabinet not only overturned the expulsion but set up a committee on settlement in Hebron, which eventually led to establishment of Kiryat Arba -- center of extremism unto this day.

And one more detail: In Eshkol�s files, amid the countless pro forma congratulation notes for cronies� kids� weddings, I found the note he sent the Hebron couple the day before the kiosk affair, written in lyric words borrowed from liturgy, "Blessed be He who has kept us alive to hear the voice of joy and happiness in the cities of Judea."

This doesn�t mean Eshkol was cynically faking it in his Knesset speech: He knew the government had to assert its authority, especially over an issue like settlement, affecting the nation�s future. It�s just that the people defying him conjured up wild feelings of history and glory. Don�t try to find any underlying consistency except that people are inconsistent.

Still, there are morals to the tale. The first concerns Palestinian leaders, even moderate ones, who never quite crack down on their extremists. Doesn�t Abu Ala know -- and didn�t Abu Mazen know before him -- that a cease-fire isn�t good enough, that his own future depends on asserting his authority? Well, yes, they know. And they yield not just because the extremists have public support. The extremists speak in the name of "ideals" -- the right of return, the Whole Land of Palestine -- that work on the hearts of people who believe themselves pragmatic. This is horrible, especially because the issue is terror, which trumps illegal settlement any day. But we shouldn�t be shocked that leaders can be paralyzed by sincerely believing opposite things at the same time. For further evidence, look at how the sentences of Jewish terrorists were commuted in Israel in the 80s, or how streets in Israel have been named after pre-state Jewish terrorists who attacked civilians.

The second lesson has to do with the origins of Israeli settlement in the occupied territories: As readers regularly write after I question settlement policy, Labor governments set the process in motion. Labor�s Yigal Allon was the patron of the Hebron settlers. Yitzhak Rabin established settlements. Perhaps the most passionate of Labor settlement advocates was Shimon Peres. So what? The Labor pedigree of settlement policy is not a kashrut certificate. Peres has since changed his mind. The Likud�s Dan Meridor and Ehud Olmert, erstwhile believers in the Complete Land of Israel, have changed their minds. Better late than never.

The third lesson: There is nothing new in the sordid drama of the illegal settlement outposts in the territories. Their illegality, the support they get anyway from government ministries, the declarations that they will be dismantled, the bathetic statements of their supporters that Jews mustn�t be uprooted from homes in the Land of Israel, the eventual legalization -- all are part of the pattern set in Hebron. On the one hand, Laborites are guilty of setting that pattern. On the other, that doesn�t make it ineluctable and inevitable. Both our government and the Palestinian Authority must put the precedent of Hebron in a locked drawer, along with the glorious slogans of the extremists, and get down to the business of governing.