Beit Iba, Sunday, 26.03.06 PM Observers: Aliya S., Alix W., Susan L. (reporting) Guests: Jenny, LievaSummary “Longings in the Land of the Checkpoints” is the roughly translated title of a new book by Knesset Member Azmi Bishara. A review of the book this past week end made a point that typified today’s “nothing out of the ordinary” shift. “The checkpoint is both chaos and order.” Exactly: the dual and evil nature of the Occupation is just that. Rules seem to be followed, but rules are also made and changed from moment to moment, so that both order and chaos are used to impose the will of the occupier. Maybe it’s the impulsive and arbitrary nature of what we observe, week in, week out, that accentuates the emotionally draining nature of our labors. Sarra13:50 — There’s mud almost everywhere. The water truck is being filled, parked behind the huge boulders across the entrance to the village, there’s plenty of spillover. The drivers tell the continuing saga of no water at three villages, three to four trucks a day draining water from the pipe which sends this gift to the smug, uncaring settlement a few kilometers away. A Hummer with three soldiers, who don all their gear as they step from the Hummer, apologize more or less politely, telling us that we’re out of bounds, can’t be where we are, that the entrance below is closed (not true, and there’s also no red warning sign, telling us that we’re in lands administered by the Palestinian Authority: chaos and order, order and chaos). Jit Junction14:00 — The orange beribboned cars whiz by, the driver often waving to the soldiers, a young settler couple stands by, on the opposite side of the road to us, nonchalantly waiting for a ride. Life is so safe in these parts for them. For the Palestinians, there’s a Hummer parked, four soldiers slowly examining each driver and his vehicle. A carpenter’s recognizable bag is taken from the front seat of one truck, the soldier asks what he does, pulls out of it, wordlessly, a Japanese paper knife, replaces it, lets the van pass. And so the checking goes on – and on: trucks, mini buses, private cars, slowly, but not really methodically. 14:15 –A blue police jeep arrives from the direction of Kedumim, whereas we are standing on the roadway opposite, coming from Huwwara. Two policemen dismount, put on correct “gear,” including the bright lemon yellow reflector vests, check their guns, amble over to the soldiers. Police and army begin to check vehicles and IDs in unison, and, clearly, in harmony. It is the police who take the IDs from the Palestinians to their jeep, where, from personal knowledge, we know there’s a computer strapped to the dashboard. 14:20 — A white, non-military pickup truck arrives. Out of it steps a captain; police and army confer, the line from Huwwara begins to grow. A shiny silver Mercedes is stopped: yellow Israeli license plates, but the two passengers, we see from the IDs taken, are a Palestinian (green ID) and an Israeli citizen (blue ID). One of the policemen shouts at the Israeli, who is transporting a Palestinian, and like many other vehicle drivers, is told to pull over to the side, in front of the Hummer (where we’re told not to wander). The IDs are taken by the police to the jeep across the road. Drivers are called, or signaled (non-verbal communication is not a monopoly of the army), as the slow process of whatever is going on proceeds. 14:35 — The line from Huwwara grows, checking now carried out by three soldiers and one policeman. The Mercedes, after prolonged negotiation, which we can’t hear, drives off, together with Palestinian passenger and Israeli driver. Other drivers are not so lucky. A minivan driver is given a ticket by the policeman in the jeep, and we note the policeman laboriously writing out a couple of tickets during the time we remain at Jit. The “ah ha” phenomenon hits us: the police are here to give tickets to add to the harassment of the Palestinian population. Order and chaos, chaos and order.. that’s the name of the game. Never mind that the minivan arrived from one direction, the police jeep from another, and so couldn’t possibly see that the driver had no seat belt! (One of the passengers tells us, that, in fact, there are no seat belts in the mini bus)! 15:00 Shavei ShomronThe newest barrier, the newest wall is nearing completion. There’s still a gap for us to wander through to see what is going on. We’re greeted, not only by Jerusalem stone, which frames the sinister grey color of the concrete, but by wide stripes of pale green, sky blue and a deeper blue. On the hillside, above us, a group of men are working on painting each section of the forbidding wall! A man, who turns out to be from Taibe, (Israeli citizen) comes over to us, tells us that all the workers are from there, and to our not so innocent question as to whether the road side of the wall will also be painted, he answers, half in jest, “What do you think?” For him and his mates, he goes on, “this is a job: what can we do?” But his understanding of what this is all about is clear..And, for us, too, the concomitant chaos on one side (who cares what’s on the other side of the wall, of the Green Line, of anything that is not us) and premeditated order — which certainly can’t be called beauty is “only for us.” Beit Iba15:20 — We hear of the chaos that exists at the checkpoint at 7:00 or 8:00 in the morning, but which is cleared by 9:00. To this, A., the DCO representative, who is seen for the first time in weeks, gives his usually nonchalant response, “A bit of pressure when people are coming into Nablus, nothing serious.” Pedestrians coming from Nablus stand in a long, long line, only one turnstile is working. The soldiers are not working badly, just not efficiently, so that the order that could be created here isn’t. Sometimes more than humanitarian cases are let through the humanitarian line, with a flip of the hand, a wave of the wrist, sometimes not — the flip of the hand, the wave of the wrist in the opposite direction… It depends. Order and chaos, chaos and order. Bags are all checked, down to food products, new shoe boxes, etc., occasionally somebody with a huge bag is allowed to avoid the turnstile, through which carrying such oversized gear is an impossibility. At other times, people are sent back, and the age criterion is put into practice with the inexperienced eye of the nineteen year old soldier standing at the concrete boulder facing the hapless Palestinians. A woman from Sebastia comes through the humanitarian line, carrying parcels which are clearly the result of a day’s shopping, chats with us while waiting for her daughter, who can’t come through the humanitarian line, and can’t even be seen from our side of the checkpoint. We time the wait for mother-daughter reunification: from 15:55-16:25. Thirty minutes! (Would that other family reunifications were that simple). 15:45 — The vehicle line is also slow, and thorough checking takes place. But it seems that there are less vehicles than usual today, more pedestrians. Other weeks, it’s the other way around..A bus full of young men, students, has young men taken off. Others stay behind, together with the women students. They stand by the bus, one passenger is given the task of collecting all the IDs which are methodically checked off an exceedingly long list by one soldier. He pulls five students to one side. Surprise: he asks them if they come every day (their students IDs are clearly to be seen in their ID wallets). They nod, and he lets them get on the bus.