Sawahre Checkpoint, Abu-DisWednesday 19.07.2006, PMIlana H., Hagit S.At the Sawahre Checkpoint:17:00 – (an internal checkpoint that can be seen from the entrance to Sheikh Saed), 4 Military BPs, happy and bored. They tell us that the place is quiet and everything is conducted calmly. Few people crossed. People can cross to the west if they are on list which has over 1000 names. According to the Palestinians, in order to be added to the list, they must ask a lawyer to arrange it in the offices of the Civilian Administration for 200 N.S.We traveled from the checkpoint via the security road until the Cliff Hotel. The gate that blocks the road next to the hotel was left lying on the side of the road and in its place is a rope. A military policeman guards the rope crossing.At the lower Pishpash – we were witnesses to the following that is described following by Ilana Hammerman.”Proportionality” in Lebanon and in Gaza and in Abu-disOn the day that they announced in the evening news about half a million Lebanese refugees and on the average about 3 thousand shells that the IDF sends to Lebanon every day “from the air, sea and ground”. On this day I saw with my own eyes a different military activity, that its operators, believed for sure with all their might, that they are defending the State of Israel: ten Border Policeman, well armed, stood across from 3 Palestinian women under the wall that bisects the town of Abu-Dis near Jerusalem, and did not let them return to their homes, a few hundred meters from there.Until the “event” finished, as it was called soon by the police, no one was allowed to approach the women, a mother and her two eighteen years old daughters. At the beginning only two BPs stood across from the women, and tried to push them back. The three were returning from a visit to their neighbors, who were now separated from them by this wall which grew in the middle of their residential street. They are allowed to live in their house on the “Israeli” side, and they are even allowed to visit their neighbors on the “Palestinian” side, and besides the fact that they have to cross via the Zeitim CP – a kind of huge sophisticated border checkpoint that was built far from them – which makes the distance between all of them even greater. But they decided to outsmart them, and found an opening in the separation fence that was blocked, which went along the houses and gardens and separated only the Palestinians from the Palestinians- and were about to cross the street the shortest logical and most natural way, as they always did. But then two Border Police appeared opposite them and did not let them continue on their way. The girls laughed and cursed, and the Border Police were insulted, and shouted and pushed them back, so that there was a “happening” that got worse every minute: the young women cursed not only the policemen, but the whole State of Israel and all of the Jewish people-according to the Arabic speaking officer who was summoned, and looked like someone who did not believe what he was hearing. The mother threw herself down on the ground and got up and again approached screaming at the police and with her open fingers almost managed to grab a hold of the many layers of clothing and equipment on them. The police either pushed her or were disgusted by her, the daughters continued to irritate them and yell but their eyes were already streaming with tears. Suddenly one of them decided simply to leave, and went further away, waving her bag coquettishly. This was already escape: they ran after her, caught her, she scratched, fought and her nice black bag fell and was covered with dust, and a police car came and a Military Police jeep and the women were now surrounded by a big group of police, some of them also went to take care of tens of angry residents who gathered there, and they distanced them by pushing and with yelling. Until the place will become “sterile” : half a circle of policemen and across from them, between them and between the wall, the three women, humiliated, quiet and shocked. And then one of the girls was put into the police car and was about to be taken from there, and there were left only about 7 policemen, to see that the other daughter, who again went out of her boundaries, would not do what she wanted and chase after the car and join her sister who was arrested. But exactly then it was the mother who did the work: she fell on her unruly daughter, forcefully closed her mouth, hit her strongly over and over and got her out of there. The Bps stood and watched this play with astounded faces and giggled – not one of them still thought to detain the young woman who ran away weeping. And the fact that she infiltrated her own house illegally without being checked by the Border Police, was the reason for this happening, and who knows- so it was said to me by one of the policemen in the midst of the events- definitely she could have been a terrorist, “ and if not today maybe she will be tomorrow” he added, and there he actually could be right.All of this belligerent “proportionality” of Israel, as far as I think, is hidden in the nutshell of this absurd happening, which tens like it and worse and more absurd happen every day next to many of the fences and checkpoints that fill the country, far away from the eyes and hearts of most of Israel’s citizens, who certainly would refuse to see the relationship between this and between what is happening now in Gaza and in Lebanon. And I feel like yelling at them: Look what is happening under your eyes. It is a people that shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations. (Numbers 23)You idiots, how did you fall asleep like this??