Harrison Jacobs/Business Insider Hebron, pictured, is the biggest city in the Palestinian West Bank and is considered by many to be a microcosm of the Israel-Palestine conflict.
- Hebron is the biggest city in the Palestinian West Bank with a population of 200,000 Palestinians and around 1,000 Israeli settlers.
- Many call the city a microcosm of the Israel-Palestine conflict due to its importance to both Jews and Muslims, the many incidents that have occurred there, and the fact that the city is split into a Jewish section and a Palestinian section.
- I recently visited Hebron on a "dual narrative" tour. Half the tour was guided by an Israeli Jew and the other half was guided by a Palestinian from Hebron. Each told their side of the conflict in Hebron. It was an enlightening and tense experience.
It's not an exaggeration to say that if you want to understand the Israel-Palestine conflict - its array of conflicting narratives and the harsh realities that make peace a distant possibility - go to Hebron.
The ancient city of Hebron has been at the center of the conflict since the early 1900s. Like Jerusalem, it is a site considered holy and immeasurably important to Jews, Muslims, and Christians. Events that occurred there are, in many ways, where the differing narratives start and where much of the persisting animosity simmers and boils over.
The city is so contentious that even after the 1993 Oslo Accords brought an end to the First Intifada - a Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza - a separate negotiation process was required to deal with Hebron.
On a recent trip to Israel - my first - I decided that I had to see Hebron to better understand the reality of the country, beyond the cheerful beaches of Tel Aviv.
I decided to take a tour led by Eliyahu McLean, an Orthodox Jew who moved from the US to Israel 20 years ago. The founder of Jerusalem Peacemakers, McLean runs what he calls a "dual narrative" tour of Hebron.
Like the city, the tour is divided: For half the time, McLean leads participants through the Jewish part of Hebron to tell the Israeli narrative; for the other half, a Palestinian guide takes participants through the Palestinian section of Hebron to talk about his and his fellow Palestinians' experience in Hebron.
As McLean joked, the tour might as well be called Israel-Palestine 101. Here's what it was like: