Abu DisWednesday PM, 8.3.06Observers: Daniela G., Laura S., Maya BH (reporting)Abu Dis wall: No soldiers at the Pishpash or further down or anywhere else.A thin trickle of people. The Wall sections grow, but it is still open inmany places. Some time later, soldiers walk down from the Cliff Hotellazily, and start asking people to show their documents.We drove along the Wall from the new Olives CP, and found ourselves in thebackyard of the Monastery, but on the other side of the temporary wall atthe Pishpash. We clocked the distance from the Pishpash to the Olives CP –1km. There were many concrete wall section lying about on the ground, aswell as on about half a dozen trucks, each carrying a single section.Apparently the crane that removes the blocks and sets them up within thewall was out of order. The sight was quite amazing. Someone created atromp d’oeille on the wall. From close by we could see that it was notpainted on, it was glued on. Again — quite a sight.It is quite a task to figure our where one would be once this meanderingwall is in place. It is like a Moebius strip — you think you are on oneside of it, but you are really on the other.At the Olive passage itself there were more soldiers than passers. Theparking lots are shiny new, and fit to hold many busses and cars, but nowlooks like the brand new ghost town that it is. Of course, equipped withthe ubiquitous loud decibel intercom system.Abu Dis DCL: The windows were manned (or, more accurately, womanned), butno clients at them. A family of 3 — Hebrew speaking son and his elderlymother and father — were waiting in the shed. The son was hoping for amerchant’s pass, the parents for a humanitarian pass to visit an eyeclinic. They had more patience waiting than we had to just listen to it.Container CP:Although we arrived at a changing of the guard, the meagertraffic in each direction was moving smoothly along.We drove to Ar-Ram to join the joint Jewish-Palestinian Women’s day march.We had occasion to see the long line of cars waiting to cross the CPsouthwards. Upon our return from Qalandiya to Ar-Ram we were made tostand in the pedestrian queue, such as it was, and proceed one by onewhile showing our ID. “Here we treat you like anybody else”, we weretold. “Quite so”, we answered, “we request nothing else”.