including Anata

Ar-Ram/Qalandiya, Sunday 26.12.04 AMObservers: Chana A., Neta E. (reporting)Qalandiya: to begin with, few people seeking passage. Around 7:00 pressure builds up. Following our wondering why there is no special line for children and humanitarian cases, such a line opens and traffic begins to flow. We feel that without our presence (and our camera’s), the lines would have remained long and crowded, with women, children and men all in the same queue. After the special line opens, the soldiers try to regulate the men’s line, an act that, like always, looks humiliating and pathetic. All in all, movement flows on. Again a dull feeling of indifference as long as no outside eye witnesses the goings-on.Only one detainee, and the vehicle line-up moves at a relatively fast pacein two routes. The soldiers, who have obviously been instructed not to speak to us, play deaf-and-dumb, evidence of the attitude of the CP commander or officers higher up to our presence at the CP and a critical eye.Ar-Ram: almost no line. Just one Border Patrol woman who answers to the name Anat, and rudely tells us to get out of there and not ask questions.Courtesy of the Border Patrol brand…Anata: we apparently arrived after the big crush. Scant vehicle and pedestrian traffic, and Border Patrol men who have not been instructed to show hostility.