Sho’afat, Ar-Ram, Qalandiya, Road 443 23/5/2004 Watchers: Rachel R., Ilana D. (reporting) 6:30. At the Sho’afat refugee camp, there were ten detainees. A taxi driver, who was not allowed entry into Jerusalem, had been picked up at the otherentrance of the refugee camp. He claimed he didn’t know that he was notallowed to be there. The car owner (to whom he had paid US$ 1,000 to driveit for a month to make some money) had quickly come for the car, but thedriver’s papers and driving license were confiscated until he would returnthe car. An elderly BP man approached us and told us not to be “unpleasant”.So far, we had not done anything. A young fellow told us he had come from Tulkarm to find work and hadn’t known that he was not allowed to enter Jerusalem. The taxi driver produced a Moked (Center for the Defense of the Individual) card, which he had received from one of us in Ar-Ram. A young BP man, apparently the commander of the CP, told us to move away and not talk to “his” detainees. We left. In Ar-Ram, there was hardly a space to stop. Almost all cars, with the help of the BP, were stopped and if they failed to pay the annual fee, they had achoice to pay up or leave their vehicle behind. A man was charged for feessince 1999, 4,600 Shekels, despite the fact that he only got married in 2001 andhad lived at home till then. When we asked the execution people why theydidn’t come to Rehavia, the reply was: “Why don’t you come to the bereavedfamilies?”Igor, the commander of the checkpoint, told us that we were not allowed to bethere. He was told that we would call his commanders and as per instruction by yesterday’s Email, we called Ilan, the officer in charge, who promised tofind out. When called later, he said he had asked his superiors and indeed, we were not allowed to be there. He was told that we would report that he had denied us access to the CP and he asked us to stand on the opposite side of the road. He was told that the CP was invisible from there. One could only see cars, since the execution officers were investigating them all. He asked whether we had been checked too and when we said: “No, because we are white.” He replied: “I understand.”We decided to join the queue, which seemed short, about 35 people, all inpossession of blue IDs. However, it took an hour with a few games, wherepeople were told to move back and meanwhile the checking was stopped(punishment) before we reached the end of the line. A teacher was furious,because his students were waiting. The others, some with babies on theirarms, seemed resigned to the situation. An elderly man told us he had beenheld up for two hours yesterday, late at night. Although he has a blue ID,he had been frisked and lost 200 Shekels in the process. Our particulars were also duly noted and called in. In Qalandiya the bagel vendor had a bandaged hand. The soldiers broke hisfinger, he said, but the man next to him smiled. One-day old chicks are nowsold as well as mulberries. The soldiers were friendly; there were nodetainees, nor queues. Dave has left and the new elderly volunteer inquiredwhether we had paid our dues to the Labor Union.Since we knew the wait in Ar-Ram would be lengthy and had already tried theHizme CP as alternate route last week, which had proved so much faster, wedecided to try the CP on route 443. The van in front us made a U-turn beforethe turn left and sure enough. The execution officers were there with the BPand the queue (according to some angry inhabitants of Modi’in had been verylong. We got out of the car and for our sake (“of course, Jews too”) asettler from Giv’at Zeev was also held up and served with an inflated bill.