Religion, Nationalism, and Terror

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Held-at-Einab-Junction-In-by-Anna-Baltzer-081124-442.html, Nov. 24, 2008

Held at Einab Junction: Inside Israel’s New Terminals
By Anna Baltzer

Anna Baltzer, a Jewish American activist, was born in Berkeley, California. She graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Mathematics and Economics. She first travelled to the Middle East while studying in Turkey on a Fullbright Grant. She travels to the West Bank every year as a volunteer for the International Women’s Peace Service documenting human rights violations. She supports nonviolent resistance to the Occupation. She is the author of Witness in Palestine: A Jewish American Woman in the Occupied Territories. For more information see www.annainthemiddleeast.com.

When I first visited the West Bank in 2003, checkpoints were controlled by young Israeli soldiers, nervously clutching their weapons and yelling at Palestinians to stay in line. When I returned in 2005, I found many checkpoints replaced by metal turnstiles into which Palestinians were herded to wait for soldiers to push a button, letting them through one by one or sometimes not at all. Each year I return, the method of control over Palestinian movement is further institutionalized, most recently Israeli terminal-style buildings, entirely separating soldiers from the Palestinians whose movement they are controlling.I first encountered one of these terminals after visiting a women’s cooperative in Tulkarem to purchase embroidery to send home. Because there are no reliable postal services in the West Bank, and because I did not want to risk the products being damaged or confiscated by Israeli airport security if I transported them in my luggage, I knew I would have to send them to the US from a post office in Israel. I had traveled from Tulkarem to Tel Aviv once in the past by taking a shared taxi to the nearby Einab junction, where I had walked from the Palestinian road to the Israeli one and caught transport into Israel.

This second time, I was traveling with my backpack and six plastic bags full of embroidery, and I assumed the trip would be as straightforward as it had been in the past. When I arrived at Einab junction, I found a large new building, fortified by several layers of metal fences, walls, and gates. The first layer reminded me of rural parts of the Wall-wire fence reinforced with electric sensory wire and razor wire with a heavy iron gate. The gate was open but nobody was on the other side. I walked through and came to two large iron turnstiles surrounded by a wall of iron bars. The turnstiles were locked. Frustrated, I put down my six bags to rest for a moment. Maybe someone would come back? I waited, but still there was nobody.

I called out. “Hello? Anybody there?”

“Please wait a moment,” a staticky voice above me blared. I looked up to find a speaker attached to the turnstile.

I didn’t have much choice but to wait.

Whoever was operating the turnstiles didn’t seem to be in much of a hurry, so I took out my camera.

“Excuse me!” the voice snapped.

“Yes,” I answered as I took my first photo.

“Please put your camera away immediately!”

“Please let me in immediately,” I answered.

“I said to wait,” said the voice, and I answered, “And I am waiting.”

The light above the turnstile turned from red to green and I put away my camera and picked up my bags to walk through. It was difficult squeezing into the tight rotating cage with all my bags, and by the time I’d made it to the other side, I was hot and cranky. In front of me was a metal detector surrounded by iron bars. I began to walk through but the voice called out from another speaker above:

“Stop!”

I continued through the metal detector and groaned, “What?!” into the air, wondering where he was watching me from.

“Go back and put down your bags.”

I went back through the metal detector and set down my six bags, which were feeling heavier by the minute. I took the opportunity to take another picture. The soldier didn’t bother protesting this time, but ordered me to walk through the metal detector again.

I tried to pick up my bags again but he ordered, “No, without your bags.” I walked through. Nothing happened.

“Now, go back.”

I closed my eyes with a sigh, walked back, picked up my six bags, and walked through again before he could give me the order to do so. Somehow this seemed so much worse than the turnstiles and metal detectors I had seen at Huwwara checkpoint. At least there you could see the people humiliating you. Or maybe it was more upsetting because I wasn’t used to being the one humiliated.

Beyond the metal detector was another set of turnstiles, locked again. I took a deep breath and stared at the red light, hoping to see it turn green rather than let the guard hear my voice crack if I spoke. Thankfully, the turnstile buzzed and I squeezed through to reach the building itself. That was the end of the pre-screening. Now it was time for the real screening.

The inside of the building reminded me of an airport terminal-high ceilings and multiple floors, and multilingual signs for travelers. The ones here read, “Prepare documents for inspection” in Hebrew, Arabic, and English. The signs didn’t clarify where one was supposed to go, however. There were a series of five doors with red lights on top, and I called out, “OK, my documents are ready… Now what?” I had yet to see a human face.

This time nobody answered, so I asked again. Again, nothing. I set my bags down, annoyed. My back was hurting, I was sweating, and I didn’t know where I was or what was going to happen to me. I yelled, “Is anybody there?! Hellooooooo!”

Eventually a second staticky voice came through from a speaker on the wall. “Please proceed to the door.”

“Which door?”

“The one on the left.”

“Left of what? Where are you?”

“I can see you,” the voice said. “Walk backwards and go left.”

I saw a door behind me on the left and carried my bags over to it. Above the door was a red light, which I stared at. Nothing happened. I was ready to cry. “Now what?” I yelled. Silence. I yelled again, even louder.

“What am I supposed to do?!”

“Calm down!” yelled a cheerful soldier walking by on an upper level above me. He was finishing a conversation on his walkie-talkie, and put up his hand for me to wait. I glared at him. “Go there,” he pointed to another door near the one I was standing at, and began to walk away.

“No, please!” I blurted out, forgetting my policy of not pleading with soldiers. “You’re the first human face I’ve seen and I’m starting to lose it.”

He motioned towards the door and promised that if I stood there, the light would eventually turn green. I picked up my bags, approached the door, set them down, and waited. Eventually, the light turned green, this time accompanied by a little buzz that unlatched the full iron door. I expected to find a soldier on the other side, but as the heavy door slammed behind me I found myself in a tiny room with white walls, no windows, and a second iron door. That door eventually buzzed as well, and I struggled to open it as I held my bags, settling to kick one in front of me instead.

The next room had three walls and a double-paned window with a soldier on the other side. The soldier asked for my ID and I slipped it under the glass. He tried to make small talk and asked me what part of the United States I was from. I told him flatly, “For the first time in my life, I want to blow something up.”

He must not have heard me because he let me through to the next tiny windowless room. The next buzzing heavy door led out into the other open-spaced side of the terminal, where I picked up the pace, hoping to get out finally, an hour after I’d arrived. No such luck.

One more soldier behind a window beckoned for my passport again. “Where’s your visa?” he asked, not finding the stamped slip of paper issued by Israel when the passport itself is not stamped. I answered truthfully, “They told me at the airport that there were none left and that it would be OK.” As the words came out, I realized how absurd this sounded, and I kicked myself for falling for it when I’d flown in the week before. How could the airport run out of visa sheets? Wasn’t it more likely that they were deliberately trying to inhibit my travel in the Occupied Territories?

It was hard to blame the soldier, since, for all he knew, I’d snuck in over the hills of Jordan. “Whatever,” I sighed. “Call airport security-I promise I’m in the system.”

I knew it would be a while, so I sat down again. I thought I was past the point of anger until I noticed a line of 25 or so Palestinians waiting outside to come in from the other direction, heading back to Tulkarem. Had they been waiting there all this time? Why weren’t they being processed? I asked the guard holding my passport and he said he’d tend to them after I left.

It was one thing to feel frustrated and humiliated, but another to know that my ordeal had held up dozens of Palestinians from getting back to their homes and families. “Wait,” I said. “Are you telling me that in your fancy new facility you can’t process people coming in two directions? Don’t let the problem with me delay these people any longer.”

He told me not to worry, that the Palestinians were used to waiting. This made me even more upset. I insisted that I would rather wait longer myself, and eventually he beckoned the group forward. I marveled as they waited patiently and yet somehow not submissively, beacons of dignity next to my defeated and angry presence. I took out my camera and took a few photos. Within seconds, a guard appeared next to me-in person, nothing but air between us!-and said sternly, “Come with me.”

I followed the guard back towards the section of the terminal from which I had just come. We passed through the windowless rooms and into a new room with crates on the floor. From there, the guard opened another, even heavier iron door, and motioned for me to pass ahead of him. Expecting the guard to follow me in, I turned and instead found him placing my bags into the crates. Realizing that soldiers were going to go through my bags, I demanded to be present during the search to ensure that nothing would be damaged or stolen. “That’s not possible,” the guard said flatly, and the door slammed shut between me and my belongings.

I kicked the door with frustration, realizing that all my contact information for Palestinian organizers and friends was still on my computer. I realized that I still had my phone in my pocket and quickly called my friend Kobi, an Israeli activist. I told him where I was and asked if he might make some calls on my behalf. He said he’d do what he could and we hung up.

I looked around the room. It was empty except for a chair and an empty crate on the floor. There were no other doors, but there was a two-paned window with a soldier watching me from the other side of it. “What are you looking at?” I snapped at the soldier, and he walked out of view. Another soldier appeared, a young woman. She spoke into an intercom so that I could hear her through the window. “Please take off your clothes and put them in the container on the floor.”

It took a moment for the words to sink in. Once they had, I looked the soldier straight in the eyes, and I began to undress. I removed each piece of clothing slowly, not once taking my eyes off hers. I watched her with a look of hurt. I wanted her to see that she was not just searching me-she was humiliating me. Several times she looked away. When I was down to my underwear, the soldier stopped me; she said that was enough. A part of me wished that she hadn’t. Perhaps if I were completely naked, she would more likely recognize the extent of my humiliation and her role in it.

The iron door behind me buzzed and the soldier told me to place the crate containing my clothes and phone into the room where I had last seen the guard. My other belongings were long since gone, and I could hear soldiers in the next room going through them. When I got back to the room, the soldier in the window was gone. I sat down on the chair and waited. The soldiers next door were chatting and laughing. I imagined them examining my personal photographs and letters. I was too upset to sit still. I stood up and started pacing back and forth in the small room. I had to do something-anything-to express my emotions. If I could hear them, then they could hear me. I began to sing.

I sang an old song that I’d learned at summer camp as a child. Its words were meaningless, but I sang it at the top of my lungs. Within seconds, the female soldier was at the window, looking alarmed. I waved. I sang that stupid song until my voice hurt. It felt good to sing-I felt empowered. It was easier to act like a crazy person than a prisoner. If I was unpredictable, then they had lost the power to control me.

Half an hour passed. Or was it an hour? My energy had worn off and I sat down miserably on the chair. I was tired. The soldiers were gone from the next room now. What was taking them so long? It was cold in the room, and I had nothing to cover myself with. I began to shiver and rock back and forth on the chair. I had no more energy to yell. I began to cry. I cried for what felt like a long time. Eventually, the female soldier appeared in the window. I could tell she felt bad for me. I looked away. The door buzzed and she instructed me to open it. On the other side was a jacket and a cup of water. I put on the jacket and drank the water to soothe my throat, but I was unimpressed. I didn’t want a jacket or water. I wanted my freedom to leave. I wanted my dignity back.

Time passed. I stopped looking at the soldiers and talking to them. I stopped thinking of ways to pass the time or express myself. I didn’t even feel like myself anymore. I felt empty, defeated. I just sat and waited, with a feeling of profound loneliness.

After what felt like an eternity, the iron door buzzed and I opened it to find all my clothes and bags in a large pile brimming over the tops of the containers. The soldiers had emptied every single item separately into the crates. The papers from my notebook were strewn about loosely. Each piece of embroidery had been removed from its protective wrapper and crumpled into a pile. A can of tuna had been opened and left amidst the hand-sewn garments. Even the boxes of Turkish delight-a soft sticky candy covered with powdered sugar, which I’d brought for some friends-had been opened and rummaged through.

The only thing stronger than my anger was my desire to leave. I sat down miserably and folded everything back into my bags. I was crying uncontrollably, but I bit my tongue each time I was tempted to speak. When I was dressed and ready, I stood up, collected myself, and tried to open the door. It was locked.

“The door’s still locked,” I informed the soldier watching through the window.

“Yes, please wait a little longer.”

“Why?” I asked. “You saw everything I have. You know I’m not a security threat, and surely you know by now that I have a visa.”

“I’m sorry but you’re going to have to wait,” she said.

I couldn’t hold myself back any longer. I lost it. I opened up my bags and took out what was left of my canned tuna. With my fingers, I began to spread the oily fish all over the window.

“What are you doing?” asked the soldier, disturbed.

“You don’t respect my stuff, I don’t respect yours,” I answered.

Next, I opened a box of Turkish delight. “I’m not going to stop until you let me out,” I announced as I began mashing the gummy cubes into the hinges of the iron door.

“OK, OK,” said the soldier’s voice over the intercom. “You can go now.” The door buzzed.

I gathered my bags and walked out. A soldier was waiting for me on the other side. He gave me my passport and said I was free to leave. I called Kobi as soon as I was outside. He said it was the US Consulate that had helped get me released. The army claimed they were holding me because of the photographs I had taken inside the terminal. Interestingly, they hadn’t bothered to delete the images from my camera when they searched my bags.

I told Kobi what had happened. I felt as if I had lost a part of myself inside that terminal as I had slowly lost control. Kobi reminded me that even the option of losing control was a sign of privilege-Palestinians who behaved as I had would not likely have been freed. I tried to imagine what it would be like to endure such an invasive screening every day of my life.

Kobi told me a story about his Palestinian friend, Sara, whom he’d met in Maryland. Sara would frequently travel back and forth between her home in Palestine and the United States, where she was studying. Each time she returned to Palestine, she was able to walk right through the checkpoints. She had enough confidence to just assert her will and go through, simply by the fact that she was used to being treated like a person. And each time, after a few months in Palestine, she would lose that ability.

In just a few hours I had gone from empowerment to craziness to submission to destructiveness. What would I become after months of such treatment? What about a lifetime of the even worse treatment that Palestinians experience?

It was dark outside the terminal as I hung up the phone. I had been held for 3 hours, and there were no more buses running. I could see the lights of a settlement on a nearby hill. I began walking in what seemed like the direction of Tel Aviv. I stuck my thumb out to the occasional passing car, and eventually a settler stopped. He moved his gun out of the front seat so that I could get in. Feeling lousy about it, I accepted a ride to the nearest bus stop from where buses were still running to Tel Aviv. I boarded the first bus out and cried the whole way back to the city.

Gideon Levy, Twilight Zone / Blindfolded – Haaretz, October 3, 2008

Take a quick look at the photo before you. [Photo not in online English edition.] We took it last fall by chance. In the course of another interminable wait at the Hawara checkpoint, on our way to another story in Nablus, we saw this man being arrested. Bingo, the game of the checkpoint soldiers. We didn’t know his name, why he was arrested or when he’d be released, if ever. But we noticed his proud bearing – solitary, upright. His eyes were already covered by the IDF-issue flannel, the type meant for cleaning guns, and his wrists were about to be bound with plastic handcuffs. We seemed more upset by his sudden arrest than he was. After 41 years, the Palestinians are used to it, that on any ordinary day, on the way to or from work, everything might be abruptly turned upside down.

This was a routine year, another year of the occupation of which no end is in sight. From Rosh Hashana 5768 to Rosh Hashana 5769 our forces killed 584 Palestinians, 95 of them minors. Many fewer than in 2002, when 989 were killed; many more than in 2005, with 190 killed. Eighteen Israelis were also killed in the past year, many more than in the previous year, when just five were killed, and much less than in 2002, when 184 Israelis were killed. All in all, an average year for bloodshed.

All of this was observed by Israeli society with eyes covered. Even the nearly 60 Palestinians who were killed on one black summer day in Gaza barely earned a mention in the newspapers. With eyes covered, Israeli society continued to look at the routine of the occupation, the mothers in labor who lost their babies at checkpoints, the farmers victimized by lawless settlers, the night raids, the unemployment, the poverty and the hope that died long ago.

In the past year we’ve barely heard about life under siege in Gaza. For two years now, we, the handful of Israeli journalists who seek to fulfill their journalistic mission, have been prohibited by Israeli orders from entering Gaza. When I questioned Defense Minister Ehud Barak a few weeks ago he seemed unaware of the ban. He instructed an aide to look into it, but of course we never heard back. us. It’s not all that surprising that Israel’s defense minister hasn’t heard about Israeli journalists being prevented from covering Gaza under orders from his own defense establishment: Gaza doesn’t interest anyone in Israel.

And so another year has passed, and our eyes remain blindfolded.

Gideon Levy, Twilight Zone / Dead on arrival, Haaretz, September 19, 2008

Nothing helped. Not the pleas, not the cries of the woman in labor, not the father’s explanations in excellent Hebrew, nor the blood that flowed in the car. The commander of the checkpoint, a fine Israeli who had completed an officers’ course, heard the cries, saw the women writhing in pain in the back seat of the car, listened to the father’s heartrending pleas and was unmoved. The heart of the Israeli officer was indifferent and cruel. For over an hour, he would not let the car with the young woman in labor pass through the Hawara checkpoint on the way to the hospital in Nablus. Not to Tel Aviv; but to Nablus; not for shopping, not for work; but to get to the hospital in an emergency. Nothing helped.

Nahil Abu-Rada is not the first woman to lose her baby this way because of the occupation, and she won’t be the last. At least a half-dozen checkpoint births that ended in death have been documented here over the years, and nothing has changed. No punishments, no lessons, not even a request for forgiveness from parents who lose their children because of the coldheartedness of soldiers.

The occupation kills – never has this slogan sounded so true as on that night, two weeks ago, at the Hawara checkpoint south of Nablus. No convoluted excuse or explanation from the Israel Defense Forces spokesman (military sources were quoted the day after the incident, making this outrageous comment: “This baby would have died anyway”) can erase the simple, chilling fact that for officers and soldiers in the occupation army we have established, human feeling has become alien, at least when it comes to Palestinians. Or the fact that there are still officers and soldiers in the IDF who behave with such lack of feeling toward a woman in labor who is about to lose her child.

What went through the mind of the officer who refused to let Nahil pass? He saw her in agony, he heard her husband’s desperate pleas, and he surely knows how children come into this world and how they can leave it just as easily, without lifesaving medical treatment.

Gideon Levy, Twilight Zone / ‘Tossed out like a dog’ – Haaretz, August 21, 2008

In the lawless South Hebron Hills, things are wild as usual: The settlers continue to attack shepherd children with clubs and stones, to steal their sheep and to make their lives miserable, while the Israel Police continue to abuse anyone who tries to file a complaint against the settlers.

Mahmoud Abu Kabaita, whose children and flocks were the targets of settlers from Beit Yatir and Susia, was left outside the Kiryat Arba police station in the burning sun for four hours, until they even allowed him to enter. The members of the Abu Awad family, some of whose children suffer from a serious skin disease, have already been victims of a cruel pogrom by the settlers of Asael, as described here three weeks ago. Relatives waited outside the police station for two hours, and left without filing a complaint, after being attacked once again last Shabbat. That is how the Israel Police enforces the law here.

After writing in this column about the Abu Awads, all of whose meager property was destroyed and looted by the rioters from Asael, some readers offered to help the penniless family. One prominent figure, who is well known in the political establishment and not necessarily from the left, and who wanted to remain anonymous, gave the family a personal financial contribution which is considered huge by local standards. There was great joy in the miserable encampment, but it was short-lived: Last Shabbat the children and their sheep were attacked once again by the Asael people. A wonderful way to welcome the “Sabbath bride,” as is customary every week.

The Abu Kabaitas, whom Israel decreed would have to live outside the separation fence, along with and adjacent to Beit Yatir, were not very fortunate either. They were also attacked by rioters from the neighboring settlement. They were also abused by the Israel Police, which are supposed to protect them.

Thus there exists, with a distance of an hour and a half from Tel Aviv, a region with its own rules: The settlers rampage as much as they please, and the police don’t lift a finger and even treat the victims of the violence rudely when they want to complain. In the past weeks, as everyone knows, the rioting has mounted, for some reason, but for the police it’s business as usual.

Gideon Levy, Twilight Zone / Free passage, Haaretz, August 7, 2008

She walks from the pool to the stylish portico of the Bethlehem Intercontinental, a bikini showing beneath shorts and a revealing shirt. There’s an anklet on her leg, her hair is dyed a reddish brown, and she’s holding a French Gauloise cigarette and a red cell phone. She has come for a weekend at the Intercontinental, for a wedding: When you drink you don’t drive, so she stayed at the luxurious hotel, five stars at $130 a night, which was bustling with vacationers – Israeli Arabs from Haifa.

She is not allowed to be in Bethlehem, where we met her; she is not allowed to visit Ramallah, where she has been living for years; she is not allowed to travel to the beach in Tel Aviv, as she does several times a week during the summer; and she is not allowed to go to Jerusalem for entertainment or work purposes, yet is there almost every day. She is in the north, but her heart and her family are in the south. A native of Rafah, she arrived 16 years ago to study at Bir Zeit University and has been stuck in Ramallah ever since, far from her loving family. She carries a “Gaza ID card” and despises the whole idea of it. It is supposed to be impossible for her to live in the West Bank and travel in Israel. At any given moment, at any checkpoint, she is liable to find herself expelled back to Rafah. That’s how it’s been for all these years.

Courageous and determined, she has built a full life for herself, between the checkpoints. “Anyone who was born near the sea can’t live without it,” she told me when we sat over coffee in the lobby of the Intercontinental. Her “passport,” she wrote me a few days ago, cost her $300 and was worth it: Elegant and confident, with her Giorgio Armani sunglasses, she passes through all the checkpoints.

Areej Hijazi lives without borders. But her longings for her parents, her siblings and her relatives, and for her childhood landscapes in Rafah, repeatedly arouse in her a sadness that is reflected in her eyes.

A few days ago she sent me an e-mail on behalf of a group of Gazans who are stuck in Ramallah: “As for Gaza, it is a one-way ticket; we can go back there without ever dreaming of coming back to the West Bank! … We missed the opportunity to have a normal life that all people around us simply had and still have, just because we hold [a] so-called Gaza ID (by the way I am sick of this term); to visit your family on holidays and school vacations, to attend your siblings’, cousins’, friends’ weddings or graduations, to welcome new members into your family or bid a warm farewell to those who leave, to grow up around your beloved ones, to have your family around you in your wedding or to make your parents, while getting old, happy to see their grandchildren, to benefit from a scholarship abroad and to advance your career, to enjoy times with your parents that you simply didn’t enjoy as a rebellious teenager before you left your family home … to have your mom around you when you’re heartbroken, to complain to your father about how crazy the world is getting, to share with your sister your love stories or to chat with her about life and men and success and failure, to visit your school or to pass by those places where you had crazy childhood encounters.

“Now comes the fun part. I have what my friends call ‘the checkpoint syndrome’ – you know, those times when you feel helpless and hopeless, and where all becomes meaningless, due to pure personal reasons sometimes. I go to one of the Jerusalem checkpoints and try to pass. Why, I don’t know. It could be that at those times you need to do something crazy to regain some of your internal balance, and in my case the craziest thing ever is to challenge the so-called ‘Israeli security and checkpoints system.’ Success is 100 percent: Each time I tried to pass, I passed not only to Jerusalem, but also to Tel Aviv, Jaffa, Haifa and Nazareth. My passport was my curly hair and the Giorgio Armani sunglasses that I bought only for the checkpoints, and guess what? I believe the $300 investment was worth it. It is so funny that I cannot see my family in Gaza for years, while I spend most of the summer swimming in Tel Aviv or having fun in Jerusalem. What a brilliant security system!

An IDF soldier and a Palestinian man arguing as West Bank residents wait to cross a closed checkpoint into Hebron on Sunday. (AP) Haaretz, July 27, 2008.

Levy, Twilight Zone / ‘Worse than apartheid’ – Haaretz, July 10, 2008

I thought they would feel right at home in the alleys of Balata refugee camp, the Casbah and the Hawara checkpoint. But they said there is no comparison: for them the Israeli occupation regime is worse than anything they knew under apartheid. This week, 21 human rights activists from South Africa visited Israel. Among them were members of Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress; at least one of them took part in the armed struggle and at least two were jailed. There were two South African Supreme Court judges, a former deputy minister, members of Parliament, attorneys, writers and journalists. Blacks and whites, about half of them Jews who today are in conflict with attitudes of the conservative Jewish community in their country. Some of them have been here before; for others it was their first visit.

For five days they paid an unconventional visit to Israel – without Sderot, the IDF and the Foreign Ministry (but with Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial and a meeting with Supreme Court President Justice Dorit Beinisch. They spent most of their time in the occupied areas, where hardly any official guests go – places that are also shunned by most Israelis.
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On Monday they visited Nablus, the most imprisoned city in the West Bank. From Hawara to the Casbah, from the Casbah to Balata, from Joseph’s Tomb to the monastery of Jacob’s Well. They traveled from Jerusalem to Nablus via Highway 60, observing the imprisoned villages that have no access to the main road, and seeing the “roads for the natives,” which pass under the main road. They saw and said nothing. There were no separate roads under apartheid. They went through the Hawara checkpoint mutely: they never had such barriers.

Dan Izenberg, High Court ruling keeps Palestinian village in limbo, Jerusalem Post, July 10, 2008

The 200 Palestinians living in El-Nu’man, a village in the extreme southeast corner of Jerusalem, will continue to live in their never-never land, trapped without status between the West Bank and Jerusalem, in the wake of a High Court of Justice decision handed down earlier this week.

Israel does not recognize the residents of Nu’man as living in Jerusalem and has never granted them residency status. It claims that they moved illegally from the West Bank into the city after a post-Six Day War census that determined exactly which Palestinians lived in areas annexed to Jerusalem as a result of the war. Since the war, the city of Jerusalem has not provided the village with municipal services, including water and garbage collection, nor has it collected city taxes.

Since for many years there were no travel restrictions between Jerusalem and the West Bank, Nu’man residents had strong day-to-day ties there, including employment, commerce, social, family and religious connections.

Despite the de facto exclusion of Nu’man from Jerusalem, Israel built the West Bank separation barrier to include the village within the city, cutting it off from the rest of the West Bank. In order to maintain their West Bank ties, residents have had to pass through the fence gate and be subjected to security checks by soldiers. The residents claimed that the soldiers would regularly abuse their power and humiliate the residents.

Akiva Eldar, A binational reality – Haaretz, July 7, 2008

How nice that this time, too, the terrorist was a “lone wolf,” a drug addict or just a nut case. Just so long as Jerusalemite murderers are not acting on behalf of terrorist groups. “Wild weeds” can grow in any garden. We also once had a strange doctor who carried out a massacre in a mosque; his family erected a glorious tombstone in honor of the “saint.” No one proposed razing the family’s home for the purpose of “deterrence” – and justifiably so. If we assume that this was the case of a deviant, demolishing the home of his family will deter the next deviant in the same way that the death penalty deters people who decide to blow themselves up in a bus, in the hope of having fun with 70 virgins in paradise. Deterrence is relevant when it is applied to trends in the mainstream, not in the sidelines of society.

The murderer at the Mercaz Harav yeshiva and the terrorist with the bulldozer did not represent an organization. Worse still: They reflect the mood of thousands of residents in Israel’s capital. A terror organization can be tracked down, declared illegal and its leadership can be arrested. Discontent that originates at the grassroots needs no guidance, is not controlled by anyone’s decisions, and it is much more difficult to contain.

Among the most shocking passages in Bernard Chazelle’s account of his recent trip to the West Bank are these:

Fifty shekels!” shouted the cab driver. I said fine but warned him that, for that price, it had better be an interesting ride. It was. The driver, an immigrant from Morocco who had served as a tank crewman in the Six-Day War, let me in on his peace plan: “Kill them all! Men, women, and children: all of them, like you did in Hiroshima.”

If going to Ramallah was easy, returning was not. I’ll fast-forward a few days and tell you why. The bus stopped at the imposing Qalandiya checkpoint and several passengers got out for X-ray screening. The line inched along at a snail’s pace until a female soldier boarded the bus to check our papers. She was strikingly beautiful, a sort of James Bond girl in training. She stepped in and smiled gently at the children in the front rows. Then suddenly, unprovoked, she metamorphosed into a rottweiler, barking orders at the parents in Arabic. Why a 20-year-old would feel the need to yell at older people sitting quietly is a mystery to be filed under “Pathology of the Armed in the Presence of the Unarmed.” She singled out an elderly couple and ordered them off the bus. The man protested meekly and followed his wife out. I turned around and through the rear window watched the old couple shuffle away in the dark, carrying their belongings in small garbage bags. They would have to wait for a bus back to Ramallah. Not sure if it was the old age, the hobbled walk into the night, or the raggedy plastic bags: all I know is that it was a sight of crushing sadness.

The Ramallah-Jerusalem trip took 3 hours and 45 mins. The two cities are 6 miles apart.

A woman reminisces about her high school friend who had to run the “beauty line” gauntlet at checkpoints. Israeli soldiers would divide up the women’s line into two: the “pretty girls” line and the “ugly girls” line. To spice up the fun, they would force the women to choose the suitable line and shove them to the “correct” one if necessary. Another woman tells me how a guard ordered her to kiss the men in the line. And so on. Humiliation is the dominant theme.

For up-close-and-personal encounters, there’s nothing like the Hawara checkpoint. Travelers split into three lines: women; men under 35 (often denied entry); others. The mood in the line is somber. The soldier who checks my US passport comments, “You were born in France, it says here.” He pauses, then asks, “Why?” Why? “You know, those things happen,” I reply ruefully. He smiles. He is young, friendly, and completely out of his depth. He seems distraught, fearful, and, perhaps, ashamed. He shakes his head in disbelief as, a few feet away from us, a frail elderly woman is verbally abused by soldiers while she stands squeezed in a dusty cattle chute, waiting to be processed. Guards laugh as they turn away a large family.

Bernard Chazelle’s West Bank Trip in March 2008

For all the Americanization of Israeli society, Tel Aviv is very much a European city, not an American one. I hadn’t been there in a decade and I was struck by the changes: not so much the glittering skyline of shiny high-rises but the stunning Bauhaus buildings renovated to their former glory. Tel Aviv is easy to like: it is a city of cafés, beaches, conversation, and cats-and, for me, friends and memories.

The bus ride to Jerusalem was packed with religious passengers. It was so eerily quiet on that bus I wondered if perhaps I hadn’t volunteered by mistake to join one of those Jewish monastic orders known for their vow of silence. Then I remembered there was no such thing, so I relaxed and dozed off. Once I reached my destination, I got past the metal detector and left the bus depot for my next stop, Damascus Gate. “Fifty shekels!” shouted the cab driver. I said fine but warned him that, for that price, it had better be an interesting ride. It was. The driver, an immigrant from Morocco who had served as a tank crewman in the Six-Day War, let me in on his peace plan: “Kill them all! Men, women, and children: all of them, like you did in Hiroshima.”

Laurie Copans, Ex-Israeli generals denounce checkpoints, AP, USATODAY.com, Feb. 13, 2008

JERUSALEM — A group of retired Israeli generals has launched a campaign urging the army to remove West Bank roadblocks, warning on Wednesday that the travel restrictions sow Palestinian hatred of Israel and stymie the peace process.

The 12 top former commanders say the hundreds of checkpoints dotting the West Bank are excessive and other military means can be used to prevent suicide bombings in Israel.

The Palestinians have long demanded that Israel remove the roadblocks as a way to build faith in recently renewed peace talks.

The generals have written a letter to Defense Minister Ehud Barak in an effort to persuade him to gradually remove the checkpoints, which severely restrict movement of the some 2 million Palestinians who live in the West Bank and have crippled their economy. Israel maintains the checkpoints are vital for its security.

“You have to understand that there is damage in having the Palestinian people with its back to the wall, not seeing a light at the end of the tunnel, unable to improve their economy, unable to move from place to place,” Ilan Paz, a signatory of the letter and a former head of the army’s administration of Palestinian civilian affairs, told Israel Radio. “This creates a reality that creates terror, and we have to remember that.”

Understanding Checkpoints, Israel Policy Forum, March 19, 2008

One of the most onerous aspects of the situation in the West Bank is the system of checkpoints which block Palestinians from getting to work, school, hospital or even to visit friends a few miles (sometimes a few blocks) away without being stopped and delayed, often for hours. This is well-known here in the United States, especially because the Bush administration has made clear that it wants many of the checkpoints removed. Less understood is that very few checkpoints separate Israel from the Palestinian areas. The overwhelming majority of them are internal barriers which serve not to protect Israel from terrorists but simply to ease life for settlers and which, in the process, make Palestinian lives miserable. In fact, no one suggests taking down any checkpoint or border crossing that separates Israel from the West Bank or Gaza. The entire controversy is over the internal checkpoints and their harmful effects on Palestinians trying to go about their lives.

Terrible as the situation is, some people find humor in it, so ridiculous is the rationale for aspects of the checkpoint system.

Like this for instance: A “Hummous Hut” employee is stopped by a soldier who misunderstands “hummous” for “Hamas.” A woman driving with her dog is stopped at a checkpoint and explains that, while she does not have papers to enter Jerusalem, her dog does. These light-hearted vignettes—from the 2005 Oscar-winning short film A West Bank Story and Suad Amiry’s book Sharon and My Mother-in-Law, respectively—use humor to explain the physical barriers scattered throughout the West Bank in simple, human terms.

For Israelis, the reason for instituting roadblocks and checkpoints since the beginning of the second intifada in which over a thousand Israelis were killed is also simple and human—to stop suicide bombers from entering Israel. “The method of roadblocks has proven itself,” Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak told a group of soldiers on January 29th. “There is no way to effectively fight terrorism without actual daily control of the area,” he said.

However, according to a group of twelve retired Israeli generals, some of whom were involved in setting up West Bank barriers, the system of over 560 roadblocks and checkpoints, which increased by 50 percent in two and a half years, needlessly harms Palestinians and ineffectively protects Israelis. (According to the Israeli human rights group, B’tselem, as of November 2007 there were 99 permanent checkpoints, 36 of which were on Israel’s border and 63 within the West Bank. The remaining 486 barriers [as of November 2007] are roadblocks, such as dirt mounds, concrete blocks, fences, trenches, and gates.)

At a Van Leer Institute conference on February 13th, these experts, informally called the “checkpoint team,” presented a position paper, which they also sent Barak. In it they assert that, while some barriers stop terror, others damage the Palestinian economy, breed resentment, and, in turn, create more terror. According to Shlomo Brom, one of the group’s members and former chief of the army’s planning committee, quoted in Laurie Copans’ February 13th Associated Press article, “The feeling of humiliation and the hate the roadblocks create increase the tendency of Palestinians to join militant groups. . . .”

World Press Photo, 2007 Exhibition, Photo of the Year

Nathan Dvir/ Independent photographer
Naim Eliam, Palestinian resident of Jabalia Refugee Camp waiting at Erez Checkpoint with the body of his three-month old son, who died after treatment of congenital defect at Tel-HaShomer Hospital. The checkpoint was closed in this period due to Hamas having taken control of the Gaza strip. June 18, 2007. Digital photo.

Daniel Gavron, Start with the unmanned roadblocks! – Haaretz, December 21, 2007

This week’s request from French President Nicholas Sarkozy, made at the conference of nations donating money to the Palestinian Authority, that Israel remove the roadblocks in the West Bank is hardly new. World Bank reports have been saying for years that the roadblocks are a major impediment to Palestinian economic development. Tony Blair, the Quartet’s special envoy, one of whose briefs is to help develop the Palestinian economy, has also made the same point several times.

Sarkozy, Blair and the World Bank are not talking about the checkpoints between Israel and the territories. They are referring to the barriers that prevent Palestinians from traveling and transporting goods between Tulkarm and Jenin, Nablus and Ramallah, Bethlehem and Hebron, and between all of those places and East Jerusalem. They are also talking about those barriers that block entry to and exit from almost every village in the Palestinian territories.

According to a report in Haaretz last month, there are 572 roadblocks in the West Bank, 97 of them manned. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that the manned checkpoints do prevent terror, inasmuch as people passing through them are searched and questioned. These checkpoints may stop a potential suicide bomber from attacking targets inside Israel by halting him early on, and certainly help to protect the settlements in the territories from would-be attackers.

But what on earth is the function of the 475 unmanned obstructions? Is it seriously contended by anyone that a mound of earth, a ditch or a series of concrete blocks can stop terrorists from moving around? Do these barriers serve any function other than embittering the lives of the Palestinians? The sick and the elderly, pregnant women and people carrying shopping baskets undoubtedly find it more difficult to get in and out of their barricaded towns and villages. Indeed both B’Tselem and the organization Physicians for Human Rights have documented cases of sick people being unable to receive treatment because they couldn’t reach their doctors or clinics – while anybody planning a terrorist attack can easily clamber over the mounds, traverse the ditches or circumvent the blocks.

YouTube – Bethlehem checkpoint, 4am, accessed December 19, 2007