Bethlehem (300) Sept. 17, 2004 AMWatchers: Magdalena H. Ruhama Weiss (reporting)Guest: RotemGeneral closure in the territories. Hardly anytraffic.Bethlehem-CP300The CP is almost empty of Palestinians. One vehiclewith students from Bethlehem University tries in vainto cross to Bethlehem. By Tantur we see a young BP(female) officer informing six (female) soldiersabout the area. They divide into 3 groups and patrolthe vicinity.El Khader The place is almost empty of Palestinians, vans orsoldiers. One jeep stands on the side, and a singlesoldiers supervises the Palestinians.A (faded) red line at the entrance to El Khader from themain road marks how far the Palestinians are allowedto get. The soldier pushes them beyond that line. “Yousee,” a palestinian tells us, “this red line markswhere our lives end.” The few Palestinians presenthave come with cartons full of grapes which they wantto load on an Israeli bus going to Jerusalem. There,someone will pick them up and sell the grapes. ThePalestinians themselves are barred from crossing withtheir merchandise. They can only send it by a bus. At8:00, the Israeli bus finally crosses, but refuses totake the grapes. The Palestinians say they will waitfor the next bus. After 10:00, there’ no point sendingthe merchandise any more. The people are very upset.This is harvest time. They use donkeys to get to theirfields. One man says it takes him 2.5 hours to get tohis field, and now he is afraid he won’t be able tosell the few bunches he managed to harvest.In fact, as we drive on, we see dozens of Palestinianfarmers with theirchildren, loading grapes onto donkeys.Happy New Year.