There was a account of the history of Hevron recently aired on the Jordanian English News that is worth examining in an attempt to fully understand Arab revisionism of Middle East history. According to the report, Arabs and Jews lived in the city of Hevron peaceably together enjoying all the benefits of sectarian harmony until 1929. Until that point in time, maintained the news report, the city of Hevron was a quiet place, housing two religious communities. Hevron was holy to both Moslem and Jew alike because the prophet "Ibrahim" had lived there and purchased property to bury his wife and other prophets who had come before him. The crowning glory of the city was the building of the holy mosque on the site of Ibrahim's burial purchase. However, strangely enough, in 1929 the Jews of the city left and were replaced by "settlers" who had no claim to the land whatsoever. Indeed, not only did the new, foreign elements have no claim on the land, but the heirs of those Jews that departed in 1929 have given "press statements" declaring that they no longer have any desire for the land that their relatives abandoned so very many years ago. By the way, the report stressed that the Jews of Hevron before 1929 should be referred to only as Hevronite Jews, the implication is that these Jews were more a part of Arab Hevron than any Jewish-Zionist creation. Therefore, when all is said and done, the Jews of "settler" origins are usurpers, thieves, and the enemies of peace. The "settlers" in Hevron are used by the government of Israel as a excuse not to allow the implementation of the autonomous aspirations of the Arab citizens of Hevron.

There is one "small" problem with this Jordanian rendition of historical events. The Jews that "left" the city of Hevron were the remnants of those that were massacred by the loving and neighborly Arabs of the city. Sixty-seven Jews were butchered in 1929 in the city of Hevron and their property, lock, stock and barrel, was taken by the Arabs of Hevron. Mezuzot were gauged out of the doorposts of the houses previously owned and inhabited by the murdered Jews of Hevron. In 1929 there was a pogrom in Hevron that in its wake left the city "Judenrein." This pogrom was a full eighteen years before the "Zionist entity" was created that so enraged the sensibilities of the Arab population that they were led to war and terrorism against the Jewish State. This mass murder was no less than thirty-eight years before the "aggressions of 1967" that saw "vast areas of Arab lands occupied by the Zionist entity" and further damaged Arab pride and led to the "righteous" posture of belligerency resulting in more terrorism and the war of Yom Kippur in 1973.

To rewrite the history of Hevron is to rewrite the history of Arab-Jewish relations in the Land of Israel. The historical revisionism gives no date to the "encroachment of the settlers," who are characterized as mostly "Brooklyn-born American Jewish fanatics like [Dr.] Baruch Goldstein." (Dr. Goldstein, by the Jordanian account, "massacred 49 moslem worshippers in the city's worst bloodbath." Non-Arab accounts of this event have the death toll 29 persons not including the killing of Dr. Goldstein. A further note regarding Dr. Goldstein, who was a resident of Kiryat Arba not Hevron, is that he was in possession of information, as were leaders of the Kiryat Arba community and the IDF, that an impeding pogrom on the scale of 1929 was to occur within days against the Jews of Hevron.) The fact is that the Jewish presence in Hevron was renewed after Jewish forces took Hevron in the Six Day War of 1967. The Arabs were preparing to leave the city in mass fearing that the Jews would do to them what they would have done, and had done, to the Jews were the situation reversed. Instead, to the amazement of the Arabs of Hevron, they were asked to remain by Moshe Dayan and the government of Israel and live within the Jewish State. To this they gladly agreed as did the Arabs of all existing villages and towns in Judea and Samaria. The right of Jews now living in Hevron are the same as that of any Jew living in Judea and Samaria, but more so. The same grounds used by the World Jewish Congress and the Israeli Government in demanding the right to investigate and claim the property and wealth of Holocaust victims must be applied to the Jews of Hevron.

Seldom are Arab accounts of the historical events in the Land of Israel willing to go back further than yesterday's "time immemorial" claim to a particular tract of land. In Hevron, however, there is good reason to historically Arabize the former capital of King David's kingdom. Like everything else in the world-view of Islam, all things that were once Jewish are now legitimately Moslem. As the true heir of the word of G-d, Islam has the right to claim as its own all holy sites of the Jewish pre-Islamic world. It is no accident that nearly every Jewish holy site within Islamic reach in the Land of Israel has a mosque constructed upon it. From the grave of the Prophet Samuel to the site of the Jewish holy Temple in Jerusalem, there sits a mosque or Moslem monument. Today, the historic revisionism of the Arab world has as its target Hevron, the ancient Jewish city. Tomorrow, the Arabist tales of Jerusalem will be center stage and following that the remainder of Eretz Yisrael. Arab revisionism aside, faith in the truth of Jewish rights to the land of Eretz Yisrael must not be put asunder for without it, holding on to any part of the Land of Israel is indeed a slippery slope to climb.
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