Ar-Ram, Qalandiya 28/3/2004 Watchers: Tamar F., Phyllis W., a guest We reached Ar-Ram at 2 PM. A BP unit, under the command of Igor, was not very happy to see us. Igor repeatedly tried to exile us, saying that we should stand at least 10 m. away from the CP. But our stubbornness triumphed in the end. One soldier was examining a line of 20-30 pedestrians. The line of vehicles was not very long. At the southern end of the CP, an ambulance awaited permission to pass. Inside the ambulance was a father holding his 2 yr. old daughter whose eye was bandaged. They wanted to reach St. John’s Hospital but lacked the appropriate documents. The soldiers at the CP, including Haim from the DCO, appeared to be dealing with this problem in a very leisurely manner (when our guest reminded Igor that a little girl was suffering, he answered, “But she’s only a Palestinian!”) We phoned Dalia Bassa who spoke with the father and with Haim. Within 5 minutes, the father and his daughter continued on their way to Jerusalem by cab. When we finished dealing with that, a middle aged man approached and asked us to help him find the ID of his son, that had been confiscated and lost several days ago. We called Ya’akov who was named as responsible for locating lost IDs in one of the MW e-messages. It turned out that he only deals with Palestinian Authority IDs and not with blue ones. We gave the father a Moked (Center for the Defense of the Individual) card and wished him good luck.We continued to Qalandiya at 3:30 PM. We were met by Michael, acting commander of the CP, who was very polite. He told us there were no changes in the regulations (local residents under 15 and over 35 pass without a permit). There was very little pressure at the CP. Two lines of pedestrians were very short. Women did not have to wait at all and men waited less than 10 minutes. The line of vehicles was very long and advancing very slowly. Drivers complained of having to wait for over an hour. We asked Michael to assign another soldier to check the cars and speed the process but he ignored our request. There were no detainees until 5 PM, when two were brought in from Tora Bora. The soldiers told them to sit on the rise near the pillbox where they had fenced off a small area with camouflage netting (to hide them from prying eyes?), and told them to think about what they had done (re-education policy?). Other changes at Qalandiya include barbed wire fencing along the northern end of the CP “plaza”, leaving only a narrow passage for people on their way to Ramallah.On our way back to AR-Ram, we stopped for resuscitation at Jaffer’s. One of the customers told us that the new unit at AR-Ram CP has made life very difficult. Sure enough, when we returned to the CP we found that the line of pedestrians had grown to 60-70 people. Under present conditions at this CP, it was very difficult for them to stand in an “orderly” manner as required by the CP commander. The soldiers demanded that the Palestinians stand in line behind an imaginary border that they signed. Anyone who put a foot over the line, whether because he was pushed from behind or because he was anxious to advance, was punished and sent to the end of the line. When several people crossed the line at the same time, the soldiers closed the CP and waited, like strict teachers with unruly pupils, until the situation was corrected. We inquired as to the regulations for passage and the commander told us that AR-Ram CP now conducts “100% checks”. The particulars of everyone who wants to pass are entered into a hand-held terminal and checked by computer. The soldiers said that the computer was slow and took about half a minute per check, so that the line was growing longer. There was only one crowded line for men, women and children at the CP. 25 detainees were sitting on the sidewalk at the northern end of the CP. They had been taken off buses or caught in the area of Beit Hanina without appropriate documents. Both detainees and soldiers agreed that they had been waiting about 2 hours. We phoned the Humanitarian Center twice and Yuval promised to deal with their release. Two girls of 18, who had been trying to get to Jericho, were also being detained. We decided to stand and fight for them. Tamar joked with the soldier in charge that we would stay at the CP until their release. Wonder of wonders, he let them go within 10 minutes. The educational approach adopted by the soldiers was particularly striking. Again and again, Palestinians were instructed to think about their “sins” and to correct their ways. Requests were dealt with only if their behavior was acceptable to the soldiers. There is something inhuman and degrading about this approach (On the other hand, behavior of the soldiers was more polite and less threatening. For the first time we heard them invite people to present their papers by calling “tefadel” instead of “irja’a”.)