Qalandiya - 1st Friday of Ramadan
Israeli leadership overdid itself repeating stuff about freedom of worship and eased conditions for Palestinians during the Ramadan month. I came to Qalandiya on the first Ramadan Friday looking for all that ease, and expected to witness freedom of worship.
I Sought it and found nothing.
No lighter restrictions of age, nor of gender.
Where there is no freedom, there cannot be freedom of worship.
Where there are no human rights, there cannot be freedom of worship.
The cell phone screen has replaced the computer screen and has been added to the soldiers’ gear. Everyone – men and women, persons allowed through or refused – is inspected, in a manner reminiscent of the ancient Roman emperors’ thumbs pointing either up or down at the gladiator ‘games’.
Compassion or listening to people’s pleas are not a part of the army and police tool box. Soldiers and policemen had no mercy for the elderly and the afflicted when they ordered them back in a matter-of-fact voice, cold and detached.
In the general dark, a single phrase lit up my day.
And this is how it went: A bored officer tried to strike up a conversation with me, in English – assuming I was a tourist – and then switched to Hebrew.
When he heard where I live, he said joyously: So you’re one of us!
No, answered him a Palestinian youth whom I have befriended ever since he was a child: she is not one of you, she’s ours!