Beit Iba, Sunday, 12.03.06, PMObservers: Aliya S., Alix W., Susan L. (reporting)Summary: Why should Cole Porter’s words to “Night and Day” come to mind during a typical MachsomWatch afternoon in the Occupied Territories? “Beneath the moon and under the sun”: maybe the hypnotic rhythm of “Day and Night, Night and Day” echo the endless repetition of what we are familiar with in the Occupied Territories. “Like the beat, beat, beat of the tom-tom… like the drip, drip, drip of the raindrops.” And so it goes, day in, day out. And yet, sometimes at the checkpoints, we experience a complete contrast from one week to the next: a difference between night and day. 15:15 — on the way to Beit IbaA nasty road accident between a truck and a car, the Palestinians waving us on, not wanting to bother us. A contrast to a mirror image road accident, on the way home, near Tayibeh, where the police were only involved with the cars involved, not with the traffic trying to pass. Night and day?Rolling checkpoint at Junction 57/60. About 12 cars, the usual Hummer standing across the roadway on Route 60. A slightly shorter line on the way back from Beit Iba. Beit Iba15:30 — as we arrive, near the kiosk, we meet Ali, one of the “waiters” from a well known humus place in Jaffa: hard to know who is more surprised, he or us, and we have a great reunion, the locals surprised that we know each other… Evidently, he has a place in Funduq, not far away and is a friend of the Hawwash carpentry brothers, since he, too, is a carpenter!16:00 — O. is the new commander, a second lieutenant, a day and night difference from last week and the week before. Tells us that he’s not seen any MachsomWatchers for the past few days (strange)! He hardly checks the men’s line coming from Deir Sharaf, tries to problem solve an Israeli (blue ID) who’s coming out of Nablus, holds him in the detention compound for forty five minutes, makes numerous phone calls (to find out if his wife is indeed from Nablus), then lets him go. The same for a detainee who is there on our arrival.Today is the first time that we see a commander actually “leading,” showing his men what to do and how to do it. Interestingly enough, when a captain arrives, he does the same with the soldier who accompanies him. Both officers greet us, treat us as human beings, with a right to be there and to do our job, as they do theirs — again, a night and day difference from the treatment we’ve been accorded over the past month or so. At the same time, when O. is not around, the soldiers, both at the vehicle checking post and at the main checkpoint, seem less assured, point their guns straight ahead, check ambulances thoroughly, etc. O. waves on all vehicles bearing a red crescent, anything to do with medical services.At the vehicle checkpoint, the line from Nablus is long, as usual, about 10-12 vehicles, from Deir Sharaf; very short, by the time we leave, no vehicles at all. 16:30 — all the young men are pulled from buses or mini buses, while the women stay inside, and soldiers go in and check their IDs. The young men’s IDs are checked against the list, one, from Qalqiliya is told that he can’t proceed. He waits, one soldier takes his ID back to the main checkpoint, it is returned to him, and the young man sprints to catch up with his bus.When O. arrives a the same time as a large bus, O. asks one young man to gather all the IDs, asks him to hand them over to a soldier. O and another soldier go through the bus, O. then supervises the soldier going through the fourteen IDs, tells him to hand the IDs back as a group, and a young man is seen handing them back to their owners as the bus moves on. An old, old car with three young men and a young woman is checked, the passengers told to disembark, but the entire procedure takes thirty seconds. 16:40 — at the main checkpoint, a woman student is told she can’tpass: she’s from Tulkarm, begins to cry; O. happens to be passing, looks at her ID, waves her on. A few minutes later, another woman student, also from Tulkarm, more self assured, is told she cannot pass although her friend has already done so! She’s not the type to cry, instead is on her cell phone, we plead with O., who is now adamant, and the young woman turns back, indicating to her friend that she will try another checkpoint (but it’s getting late). Her friend makes her way, alone, towards home. The hypnotic rhythm of occupation continues, day and night, day in, day out, but, at the same time, there can be differences between the atmosphere at a checkpoint, the disparity between day and night.