palestine: checkpoints
2 feb 2005
beit sahour, palestine

there's so much going on right now it's hard to pick what to talk about...peace
talks scheduled for next week....the ongoing violence of gaza....

i had a hard day, coming from a little farming village where i was visiting
friends in the northern west bank to bethlehem (in the south). i started on
the main road from tulkarem to ramallah (two major palestinian cities), but
there was almost no traffic passing (no taxis, buses...nothing..). a number of
cars and buses passed, but they were vehicles of israeli settlers, and they sped
past me and my palestinian friend at the speed of fear (yeah, pretty darn
fast)....leading my friend to surmise that perhaps a surprise checkpoint had
been set up further north, and the palestinian cars were all stopped there. a
likely scenario, as surprise checkpoints are something that happen every day in
palestine. after an hour of watching israeli vehicles pass us by, a van pulled
up that was just going to the next village, but had two guys in it who were
trying to go to hebron (south of bethlehem)....so, i gained some travelling
partners in the quest for a ride to bethlehem. we got out at the next village
and waited at an intersection with a few other guys who were headed south.

the weather had gotten surprisingly cold for this climate, and my jacket
suddenly didn't seem as warm as it used to be....anyway, we managed to flag
down a minibus that agreed to take us south to the next main checkpoint. the
road where we were waiting was the main road headed to Ariel, the biggest
Israeli settlement in the west bank.....a sign at the intersection says "Ariel"
with an arrow in one direction, and "Tel Aviv" with an arrow in the other
direction....I found the sign quite ironic and strange, given the dozens of
Palestinian towns and villages that are left off the sign. Also, it feels
really insulting to see a sign in a Palestinian area pointing out two major
places that Palestinians cannot go. I wonder how it must feel to see that sign
every day, in hebrew and english (not arabic), and to know that you will never
be allowed to go in either direction -- to tel aviv OR to ariel.

we got out at the checkpoint about 10 miles down the road, and walked across --
all the palestinians had to have their IDs and permission checked -- as an
american, i was allowed right through. this is the same checkpoint (zater),
where a month ago i watched a bus full of about 50 people stopped for hours as
the soldiers checked every person, held them there and questioned them, over
and over again, making them wait outside, in the rain. this type of thing is
also an every day occurrence for palestinians, something that would try
anyone's patience (especially if it happens to you every single day).

at the checkpoint, there were a number of young israeli settlers waiting for a
bus from the ariel settlement. walking past them, i could feel their hostility
-- i felt like asking them how it felt to be living on stolen land.....but i
don't even know if any of them spoke english.....and they probably have a ready
answer, anyway. many settler youth consider themselves to be the front lines in
the struggle for 'eretz israel' (greater israel), and are indoctrinated in a
deep and complex ideology in which israel is always the victim, no matter how
aggressive the action they are taking.

in the area around ariel, settlement expansion is a visible reality -- settler
outposts, made up of 6 - 8 mobile home trailers, a sniper tower, and usually
some military post nearby, are a common sight on the hilltops around ariel.
the mobile homes are soon followed by infrastructure (water pipes and
electricity lines), then construction of permanent buildings and houses. this
all happens quite quickly -- usually within a matter of months, and then the
israeli government can claim that the 'demographic reality on the ground' is
that there are israelis living in that area, and it needs to be included in the
state of israel. it is BLATANT LAND CONFISCATION! And it is possible only
through the extreme imbalance of military power -- Israel can take the land,
destroy whatever homes, farms and olive trees might be there already, and claim
the land for israel ONLY because Israel has the military power to kill anyone
who stands in their way.

am i pro-palestinian? someone wrote to tell me that after my last journal. of
course. anyone who can come here and see the reality of what is happening in
the west bank and gaza strip, and what happened 50 years ago in what is now
Israel, will realize that this is exactly the kind of disenfranchisement that
happened to the native americans in the USA, and justice DEMANDS that we stand
on the side of the oppressed. some, like the christian peacemaker art gish, in
the book i just finished called 'hebron journal', would argue that christianity
demands the same thing. not being a christian, i can't really advocate with
any real authority on that point, but having read the gospels, it certainly
seems like what jesus would do -- he always stood on the side of the oppressed.

anyway, back to zater checkpoint. when we walked passed those settler youth, i
could only imagine what the palestinians around me must have been thinking and
feeling. getting stared down with hostile glances by those who have blatantly
taken your land through force. some of the settlers carried guns. ALL of the
soldiers carried guns. none of the palestinians, obviously, had any guns or
weapons of any kind. the group of us got into a collective taxi that was
waiting just past the settler youth....a shepherd was herding his flock of
sheep past the taxi as we got in....i saw a lot of little lambs chasing their
mamas across the road....the embodiment of peace and tranquillity -- a strange
contrast to the hostility and unspoken threat of violence we felt just a few
yards back.

i had a good discussion in the taxi, broken arabic and english, discussing
whether abu mazen, the new palestinian president, will bring peace. the main
consensus in the taxi (not necessarily representative of anything) was a
resounding no -- he would end the intifada, yes, but the israeli expansion
would continue.....and thus, so would the resistance to the occupation. but
the palestinians have no power in the situation -- one of the guys said that if
marwan barghouti (the jailed fatah leader, currently in prison) had stayed in
the presidential race instead of dropping out, he would have won (he was the
favorite).....but israel and the US would not have accepted the result, and
would have appointed abu mazen anyway. so the palestinians voted for abu mazen
to appease israeland the US -- like a kid in the schoolyard giving the bully his
lunch money so the bully won't hit him again. appeasement......

we made it to the qalandia checkpoint 15 miles away within an hour, and were met
by a crazy scene -- hundreds of people waiting in the 'wind tunnel' created by
israel when they dug through the middle of a hill to build the checkpoint --
strong, chilly wind, people huddled together, standing behind vans and taxis to
somewhat block the wind......we heard that abu dis checkpoint (the next one
before bethlehem) was closed -- rumors of a bomb threat -- the israeli army
spreads these rumors a lot (they are usually not true), to justify the
continual closing of checkpoints, the random closures that make any kind of
schedule or plan absolutely impossible. so there was a crowd of at least 50
people who were trying to get to bethlehem and hebron, pushing into one van
that had decided to take the chance and make the run, despite the rumor that
the checkpoint on the way would be closed.

meanwhile, qalandia itself was extremely crowded, things were moving achingly
slow, cars were lined up for at least a mile and were honking like crazy.
night was falling fast, and the worried looks on faces of people trying to get
home safe before dark became a quiet desperation...the culture of infinite
patience began to wear thin as people pushed their way in to the last available
seats on the taxis that were leaving. the guys who i had joined in the van at
the beginning of my journey were thinking about staying with friends in
ramallah instead of risking being stuck at a closed checkpoint after dark. i
thought about my friend who told me about sleeping overnight at a checkpoint in
gaza last week because he couldn't get through, and my jacket suddenly seemed
even thinner than before...

i decided to go through jerusalem....something the vast majority of palestinians
canot do. only those who have permission from israel can enter the city of
jerusalem, despite the fact that the city is almost half palestinian. the
permits are extremely difficult to obtain. but i can enter and exit fairly
easily as an american.....I felt horrible leaving the two brothers who were
headed to Hebron.....we had had such a good discussion in the car, they were
good guys.....and I felt like I was abandoning them in the cold because I
happened to have the privilege of an american passport.

I got in the bus to jerusalem. after battling the traffic jam for half an hour
we made it to the next checkpoint, where everyone's IDs and permissions,
including my own, were thoroughly examined by the soldiers in charge.
sufficiently convinced of the legality of all of our existences, we were
allowed to pass, and enter the holy city of jerusalem (al-quds, for the arabic
speakers). I got to the bus station, and walked a few blocks to where i could
get a collective taxi to the place near bethlehem where palestinians go across
--legally or illegally, they climb over a hill, and taxis wait on both
sides....an israeli military tower sits on a hilltop nearby, but doesn't often
disrupt the crossing -- except for the occasional raid. this is one of the
reasons why all the checkpoints are so ridiculous -- people always find a way
to get where they are going. even the construction of the illegal annexation
wall will not prevent palestinians from entering israel or vice versa. but
that's not really the point of the wall.....the point is to enclose more of the
west bank into israel....and in that, at least, the wall is succeeding.

one more collective taxi, then a short taxi ride and a half-hour walk and I made
it back to bethlehem. five hours after I began my journey, an odyssey of epic
proportions -- all of this, to go a measly 30 miles. this is a typical trip
for a palestinian to take -- even if you own your own car, you still have to go
through the checkpoints, and that can sometimes even take longer than crossing
by foot. in some checkpoints, like huwwara checkpoint near nablus, it's not
even possible to cross the checkpoint by car.

the family i stay with recently went to an engagement party for their niece in
nablus,and had to go through huwwara checkpoint. salibeh is 60 years old and
recently had a heart attack. he rarely even leaves the home....his wife is
extremely sensitive to cold -- she doesn't go out if it's less than 40 degrees.
and their son is retarded -- but the soldiers don't care about any of this.
they all had to walk through the cold dusty wind for almost a mile to cross the
checkpoint, with dust and sand blowing into their faces, ruining their dress
clothes, and challenging salibeh's fragile health condition. a british friend
told me about meeting an eighty-year old woman crying at a checkpoint a couple
weeks ago who the soldiers wouldn't let through. turns out the woman had just
had surgery!! eighty years old!! and was standing in the cold at a
checkpoint, just two days after her gallbladder was removed. I'd be crying
too! I mean, being forced to _walk_ two days after surgery is bad enough, but
being held at a checkpoint for hours? like i said, these are conditions that
would try anyone's patience.

this is the daily life of palestinian people. and the checkpoints are just one
aspect of the occupation. 400 of them, all over the west bank and gaza. and
now the israeli government wants the US to give hundreds of millions more
dollars (we already give six BILLION dollars a year in aid and loans to israel)
to build high-tech crossing terminals inthe illegal israeli annexation wall.
how about tearing down the wall instead, as was ruled by the International
Court of Justice in the Hague? too bad the court has no enforcement power, and
Israel has the backing of the most powerful country in the world, the US. with
a friend like that, I guess it's possible to step on whoever you want -- no
matter what the international court of justice may say, or rule....might makes
right, after all.