Bethlehem, Nabi Yunis, Fri 13.3.09, Morning
09:45 AM, Bethlehem Checkpoint: all the hall is open without partitions. Three stations are open and people are passing almost without waiting. Here and there, men are compelled to place their hands time and again on the scanner in the hope that it will work. Perhaps it’s broken again. We drew the security guard’s attention to it. It didn’t interest him. On the other hand he did show interest in the MachsomWatch site. Contended that he logs on often, but that in his opinion “they only write nonsense.”
10:00 AM, Nabi Yunis: we had a date to meet a Palestinian and return him money and documents following a legal treatment.
10:15AM, Talita Qumi: we had an appointment with an older man who worked 30 years in Israel, and suddenly received notice that he is blacklisted. Sylvia is in the process of getting the blacklisting removed. He signed a power of attorney so that we could bring him his wages.
If only it was possible to publish and disseminate these stories and not let the public relieve itself of the troubling fear that is helped by the evident thought “if the Shabak decided to impose a blacklisting, of course there must be a good reason...”