Etzion DCL. 15:30 pm:    no news is, in this case, bad news, sad news. The 
scene is exactly, but exactly, as it always is: A dozen or more people 
pressing against the carousels, another half a dozen sitting patiently in 
the seats. Nobody has entered in a while. Some people claim to be 
waiting "since morning". The stories are the usual, too: Medical 
appointment needed, magnetic cards needed, people waiting for hours when 
dear ones need them at home. Can we please, please, please help. We try 
– but besides comforting answers ("We'll let in people soon"; "everyone 
will be serviced today") nothing really happens. Eventually the 
turnstiles turn, and a few people are let in. But the trickle of people 
emerging from inside is so very slow (3 came out in 45 minutes), that we 
can only imagine that those hitherto waiting outside are now waiting 
inside. We feel helpless, frustrated. Of course — so do the 
Palestinians. But we will go home, to where things are different, and 
they are stuck in their helplessness, in their frustration, in their 
humiliation, begging, pleading, for documents they should never have been 
required to obtain prior to any movement to begin with. 



Bethlehem– Checkpoint 300, 4:30 pm:   here, at least, the routine has settled into 
something relatively smooth and quick. Laborers run from the busses into 
the terminal, and emerge within a minute or less on the other side, till 
on the run: Home beckons, after a day of toil for the Jewish bosses. 
Still it must be a relief not to have to plead, either with the soldiers 
or with us, for help in getting across.