Ar-Ram and Qalandia – 14/11/05 a.m.Observers: Maya B., Efrat D., Anat T. (reporting)6:45: Qalandiya We come from Atarot, by-passing the closed connecting road from Qalandiya to 443. There is an unbelievable traffic confusion at what used to be the Qalandiya roundabout, which has turned into a road junction with no attempt whatever to traffic safety through any of the usual means – traffic signs, traffic police direction, etc. This is not acceptable at all in Jerusalem municipality zone, and the Palestinians accept it like everything else – until there’ll be some accident. We want to protest against this cynical situation! At the checkpoint, women, children and old people pass quickly, but there are many men waiting, whose blue I.D.’s have been taken for checking, not as usual. The process is very quick, and Niv, the very efficient and well-mannered checkpoint M.P. commander refuses to answer why there are such severe security measures today. He says there has been trouble with MachsomWatch women yesterday afternoon, who betrayed the trust relationship with the soldiers. We can’t find out more from him, we gather from the Matak representative that it had to do with unauthorized professional filming inside the machsom. We are sorry for this, Niv is a very conscientious and fair soldier. Anyway, we find out from the Matak Otef Yerushalaim that all the security tightening is because of Condolissa Rice’s visit. We tell this to the constant group of waiting Palestinians (even though they are released quickly, there are new comers all the time). Besides that, the usual long traffic line going south, no humanitarian traffic passage possible. 8:30 Ar-Ram Barely managing to extricate ourselves from the Qalandiya traffic, we arrive at Ar-Ram checkpoint, where everything is quite. Fursan is there – in charge of the checkpoint – and we want to give him credit for his relaxed manner with the passing people – a smile, a chat, help – never harshness or disrespect. His behavior balances the disregarding attitude of the two Magav soldiers, one of them a girl,standing in the pedestrian passage. They almost block the passage, the man with a gun flinging and barely alowing people to pass. We notify Fursan of this, but to no avail. There are 2 detainees, whose complaints are being filled. Income tax comando is here today. We engage in a talk with one of the Magav commanders present about the possibility or non-possiblity of setting such a tax checkpoint in any Israeli city (Kfar Saba, West Jerusalem). We disagree about this – he feels this can happen anywhere where citizens don’t pay taxes regulary. We think this is one more measure of pushing Palestinian Jerusalem citizens to stay in their place. We want also to report a talk neglected to be reported last week with a Navy soldier in the checkpoint. It seems there have been regular weekly shifts of various army units, coming to reinforce the Magav soldiers (since the Hitnatkut and onwards) – and the soldier said he thinks this is very positive to the checkpoint work. It helps fight the human-wear of the regular Magav soldiers and is beneficial also to the relations with the passing population.We don’t have time to go to Anata and Issawiya, though we really wanted to see how are things there.