Distressing cases in point

Last update - 03:37 14/06/2005

Last week, these pages reported on a new, big and fancy checkpoint being
erected on the northern outskirts of Jerusalem. The IDF prefers to call
the spacious facility a “terminal.” As if it’s nothing but a transit
station between two points. A friend who was on reserve duty at
checkpoints says that every morning, before the soldiers set out for the
Qalandiyah transit point, the commander made sure to remind them that a
checkpoint is not a punitive, but a protective device. When a soldier
confiscated a Palestinian’s identity card, “because he didn’t show me
respect,” the officer ordered the document be immediately returned to
its owner. “You’re not here to get respect,” the commander scolded.
“Your job is to inspect these people. Period.”

But a prison is still a prison even if most of the jailers are pleasant
and the furloughs are generous. There will always be a wicked jailer,
the type that never misses an opportunity to clash with those dependent
on his goodwill. We’ll never be able to know how many suicide bombers
were born at a checkpoint where their sick mother was prevented from
getting to the hospital, or where they were arrested on the way to an
important exam at the university. We’ll never be able to know how many
people owe their lives to the checkpoints on the highways from the West
Bank to Israel. On dirt paths in extensive areas that the separation
fence has not reached, countless breaches are just calling out to
prospective suicide bombers. The security establishment knows that the
main reasons for the drop in the terror curve should be sou ght in the
tahadiyeh (the calm), the quality of intelligence information and the
cooperation between the Shin Bet and the Palestinian security
apparatuses.

Senior IDF officials (including the outgoing chief of staff, Moshe
Ya’alon) argue that the damage done by many of the checkpoints exceeds
their usefulness. They know that in the eyes of the civilian population,
the checkpoints have become the ugly symbol of the occupation. Most
oppressive are the internal checkpoints, the ones that separate a big
city from a small village, a house from a shop, a sick person from a
doctor. The women volunteers of the Machsom Watch organization regularly
observe the activity at more than 40 checkpoints. Less than 10 of them
are located at transit points between the territories and Israel. All
the rest serve for the inspection of people and goods at transit spots
between one point and another within the boundaries of the West Bank.

The org anization’s first annual summary, published yesterday, is
entitled “A View from the Other Side” and offers a peek into the world
of the checkpoints. Essentially, it is the story of the people who have
been passing through these checkpoints 365 days a year, for the past
four and a half years. “It’s very difficult for the IDF to deal with
reports of unethical behavior by its soldiers,” the volunteers wrote,
before Maariv broke the story of the murder of the Palestinian policemen
at the checkpoints. “The Israeli public tries to dismiss these reports
by saying that they’re exceptions. The soldiers for the most part keep
quiet and the testimony of the Palestinians - the victims - isn’t
admissible in the eyes of Israeli society.”

Sadness and despair

The importance of the document, as the authors attest, really lies in
its documentation of the routine of the occupation, in which there
aren’t very many incidents of serious physical v iolence or dramatic
events, but there is a lot of sadness, despair and hopelessness. “Anyone
who has ever seen the apprehensive smile on the face of the man handing
his ID to the bored female soldier at the checkpoint can never forget or
ignore the injustice. We document the harassment, the delays - the
little, ongoing daily humiliations and the ignoring of the humanity of
the Palestinians on the one hand, and the suppressed anger that is ready
to overflow on the other.”

The peace activists also write: “When we look at the soldiers as our
children ... as the next generation of our society - we are troubled by
the terrible psychological experience they are forced to undergo and by
the fundamental values they are trampling.” The day will come when a
young doctoral student researches the impact of these experiences on
male and female soldiers and finds a root or two from which springs the
violence that landed on the prime minister’ s desk this week. The
following is a selection of incidents described in the report, which
have the potential to serve as a common breeding ground for the
Palestinian terrorist and the Israeli criminal.

May 2, Jubara, an internal checkpoint in the Tul Karm district: "A young
man had recently undergone surgery, during which metal screws had been
inserted. The soldiers ordered [him] to sit together with the other
detainees. The young man didn’t sit down, because sitting on the ground
was very painful - he said that if they’d give him a chair he could sit,
but he was unable to sit on the ground. To which the soldier answered “a
chair?! You want me to bring you a chair? Like fuck I’ll bring you a
chair!”

July 10, A-Ram, a checkpoint on the northern outskirts of Jerusalem:
During a security check, a border policeman attacked a Palestinian, a
resident of Jerusalem, with a screwdriver. Another policeman banged his
head on the iro n staircase. Despite the blood flowing from the man’s
face, the policemen refused to call an ambulance and handcuffed him
instead. The injured man arrived by ambulance (at his own expense) at
Hadassah University Hospital. His treatment was delayed because the
policeman accompanying him refused to remove the handcuffs. Machsom
Watch women saw most of this incident, and gave evidence to the police.
Border policemen used verbal violence toward the women, threatened to
confiscate their camera, and said “We don’t understand why you’re worked
up. This sort of thing happens 10 times a day.”

Burst of gunshots

July 14, Anata, a checkpoint at the entrance to Jerusalem: A man of
about 50 is on his way to the doctor. He has a back problem and
apparently kidney disease, too. Once a week he comes to get an injection
and presents a referral for medical treatment. A female police officer
and two male soldiers laugh and speak crudely. One of them imitates the
man and the other says mockingly, “My grandfather is 80 years old, too.”
The man has to sign a form for people who are in Israel illegally and is
sent back.

July 25, Beit Iba, an internal checkpoint at the western entrance to
Nablus: Some students are trying to get home, but “according to the
law,” this is not one of the days when students are allowed passage. One
of them goes up to a soldier and has a quiet conversation with him,
trying to convince him to let them through. The soldier suddenly shouts,
“No one calls me a liar,” punches the student in the stomach twice and
hurls his face against the concrete barrier so that he starts bleeding.

The student runs away and the soldier takes off after him, takes a gun
from one of the other soldiers and we hear a burst of gunshots ... The
Palestinian who was attacked is led to the checkpoint. His arm appears
to be injured and his face is bloody. Soldiers treat the wounded man,
whose name is Mohammed Kna’an. He’s a music student and a cellist. Will
he be able to play again? The soldier is arrested and found to be
suffering from a personality disorder. The report notes that the Machsom
Watch observers at Beit Iba had warned about the soldier’s behavior
before the incident and that his commander was aware of it.

October 4, Hawara, an internal checkpoint at the southern entrance to
Nablus: An ambulance carrying a cancer patient from Nablus waits for the
ban to be lifted from the private Israeli ambulance that has been
waiting for him (as previously coordinated) for over an hour. According
to the testimony of the Israeli driver, the soldier at the checkpoint
claims the patient’s picture on his ID card does not look like him. In
fact, the man’s face is swollen as a result of his medical treatment.
The driver is very upset. “If I tell this, no one will believe me,” he
says to the volunteers who t ry to help.

November 18, Hawara: Women and children are crowding before the
“carousels” - the turnstiles that the Palestinians pass through one by
one, when a soldier presses a button. A woman and her three children are
stuck. The children are crying and the mother is humiliated and at her
wits’ end. “Our request to the commander that he activate the turnstile
got this response: `You’re disturbing me in my work.’ The commander does
not allow us to escort the little children through, who are being
carried in the arms of the mothers who are getting pushed and shoved in
the crowd. No, he is not at all concerned by the crush of people or the
danger to the little children in the turnstiles.”

The Machsom Watch volunteers aren’t getting excited about media reports
of easing conditions at the checkpoints. They’ve learned that
checkpoints that are closed to great fanfare may well quickly reopen in
utter silence. Last July, for example , they received a list from the
chief of staff’s office of checkpoints and roadblocks that had been
removed. Observation of the relevant sites showed that some were left in
place from the start and others were restored. In the course of their
observations, they discern a noticeable influence from the settlers,
including some in uniform. “To me you’re a murderer,” a soldier at the
Beit Furiq checkpoint said to a Machsom Watch activist. The commander of
the checkpoint apologized: “They really exaggerate sometimes, but you
have to understand - they’re settlers.”

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