Etzion DCL

If you want to know where your money is going .... more and more roads for the settlers.

 A quiet day....and unbelievably, mercifully the waiting room was quiet.....nothing was  being piped in. Maybe because it was so quiet and there were no Palestinians to suffer. The big news of the day was that the policeman would not be back until next week. Of course, there are no other policemen who could take his place. Probably too busy beating up demonstrators.

A man had an Israeli girlfriend up in the north who promised to help him to get an ID. He said that when he wanted to leave her, she accused him of having beaten her and made a complaint. He sat in jail for about two weeks. The public prosecutor had told him to plead guilty and he would get him a light sentence.  Now he is married with three children but is prevented until 2038.

As always there is no one at the window and the Palestinians have to squeeze through the turnstile to get through like a thief in the night.  Anything to humiliate them.  Anyone who is too plump to do so has to sit and wait until a miracle happens and a soldier deigns to make an appearance or until someone already inside can persuade one of the overworked staff to open the turnstile. One wonders what happens when we are not there.

On the way back something funny happened. There had been an accident and there was a traffic jam. Both Israelis and Palestinians were driving illegally along the shoulders of the road and cutting in. Shlomit shouted at one man who immediately apologised. He was from Beit Sakhur and is a guide. Learning that we were from a human rights organization he said that he had a friend who was prevented so we gave him Sylvia's details as well as that of St. Yves and Leap. Seeing that we were stuck there, we simply passed them from window to window. He offered to lead us through Bethlehem and Beit Jala but we preferred to sit and wait.