Qalandiya Sunday, 4 January 2004. MachsomWatcher Observers: Yael I., Yael, Ronny P. We were met at the checkpoint by an interviewer and camera crew preparing a big report for “Mabat Sheni” [“A Second Look”] a current events analysis program for Israel TV’s main (government) channel. (Interviewing “MachsomWatch” is only a part of it.)Imagine standing there on the hill overlooking the checkpoint – it’s noisy, crowded and for good measure you are totally blinded by the sun. In light of the abovementioned, I felt stressed a bit, but hope I carried out my job well. I refused to agree with the interviewer who said that we need the machsomim [checkpoints] for our protection, and I had some harsh words for the IDF “volunteers” [who help staff some of the checkpoints]. And indeed later we faced one of them: an aggressive, angry man who so perfectly fits the profile of a male who needs to vent his frustrations, sense of inferiorities and pent-up anger and fury on the innocent Palestinians — and this is apparently his inner motive for volunteering for this particular reserve duty. We had a lot of negotiating with Uriel, the commander, whose soldiers initially stated that they were not allowed to speak to us – that only the commanding officer could. However, after a while this rule was ignored. It was a very busy afternoon and very few people were sent back. It seems that people whose documents are not in order, know that it’s difficult and they don’t even try to pass through.When we arrived we were surprised to see a small group of students returning to Ramallah, being held up for a spot check. We promised them that we would return in 15 minutes to see whether the soldier completed his check and indeed, he had. The students left, thanking Yael for caring. We intervened in the case of a teacher whose teacher’s ID was confiscated by Uriel, who judged it to be a fake. The teacher said he crosses every day.It was difficult to communicate with him, so I gave him my phone to call the Moked [Center for the Defense of the Individual]. The Moked called back and it seemed that the problem was not the ID but not having the right documents. And, as often happens, after our negotiation with Uriel fake ID or not, the teacher disappeared and it seems that either he gave up on the ID or that Uriel gave up and let him go. We observed a couple of others who negotiated, got rejected, and in the end slipped through somehow. We experienced an unusual encounter with a beggar woman and her two children whom the soldiers dislike and have dealings with every day. She is there without any documents, making a circuit begging between Ramallah and A-Ram, and eveybody felt sorry for her. People came to us and asked us to intervene,tried to intervene themselves – to no avail. This woman and her two daughters — originally from Gaza, we were told — feeling cold and bewildered, personifies the absurdity of this security business.She repeatedly tried to slip by when the soldiers weren’t looking and in the end someone always caught her and shlepped her back to the exit. She then would return, crying, with tears rolling down her cheeks as the “Heroes” of Israel were constantly busy watching her and bringing her back.We complained to Uriel about one very aggressive and rude soldier, and he listened! — although he offered the usual excuses.There was another soldier who told us he had been there for over 2 years and absolutely hates it. He wanted our compassion. He feels he is stuck there, can’t move on, and “the lucky Palestinians just have to stop at the checkpoint for a short while” (!) People told us that in the morning the A-Ram checkpoint is where the situation is very tense and difficult, and asked us to be there.