Abu Dis and Sawahre/ContainerJAN 21,2005 9:30-11:30 amobservers: Tamar A., Rita M. (reporting); Ellen L. (guest) 9:30 - Sawahre/Container: about five taxis/transits going south – but when we looked down the hill at the cars going north, we saw an enormous line just standing there, some 30 vehicles- stuck, nothing moving, just held up, while more and more cars joined the line.people were getting off the cars and walking through the checkpoint on foot – where they seemed to walk through freely without being checked. Then, suddenly, it seemed totally arbitrary - as everything about the checkpoints is always arbitrary - all the cars going south were let through, without checking. And finally, the line going north started to move too, most of the cars were just waved through, barely looked at... So why did they have to wait so long? Then when the BP in charge of this lane walked away, the line stopped, and as soon as he returned, the line moved again. Four northbound transits were told to stand by the side of the road, while from each transit the ID of one person was checked. This took about ten minutes. At a certain point, a BP walked towards the row of stores in construction, where he had spotted three teenage boys who had climbed up the hill instead of going through the checkpoint. He signaled to them to come and they showed their IDs – they all had blue IDs – and we know that Palestinians with Israeli IDs are not allowed to pass at this checkpoint – they must, for some strange reason, enter Jerusalem only through the Bethlehem checkpoint. The boys were told to wait under the roof, and stood there for quite a while. Then they were called to another officer – we witnessed this only from a distance –we don’t know if they were fined or if any other measures were taken against them – but we saw that they had to go back, down the hill, probably to take the long, long way around.People were dressed up in their holiday clothes, on their way to the mosque or to visit their family. Abu Dis – 10:30- 11:30 a festive atmosphere as we drove through A-Tour: lots of people gathered in one of the yards by the road where kids were riding horses. A steady stream of people was crossing through the monastery gate. A new hole has been made in the wall of the monastery near the old ‘bawabe’(pishpash) – right next to another hole that has been closed with barbed wire a few weeks ago. (last week people had to go through the yard of yet another monastery, but now they did not need to take that extra walk).We did not see any border police whatsoever all the time we were in Abu Dis at the hour when the largest number of people pass to go to pray… ("the streets are clean of border police", we remarked to ourselves...) this was in striking contrast with all the four Fridays during Ramadan – when the border police were present in large numbers – sometimes making extra barriers – and would not let anyone through who did not have the special permit to pray at the mosque in Jerusalem. Whatever the government claimed, there was no freedom of religious practice during Ramadan. Now, in ‘Id lAdha, it was a different story – could it be that our government is giving a chance to Abu Mazzen? People were walking down the hill that was blocked with a barrier of stones and earth and no buses were picking them up on the road near the ‘bawabe’. So we drove down, towards the second gas station – the one with the roundabout – to see if there were any BP there – and lo and behold, people were boarding the buses freely. Further towards Jerusalem, where there are often flying checkpoints, we did not find any. And when we approached the old city, we saw tens of people walking towards the mosque.