Checkpoints

The checkpoint is a daily part of Palestinian life, in parts of the West Bank that are under Israeli military occupation. People get stopped, sometimes for a few minutes, sometimes for a few hours, while soldiers hold their identity papers or search them.

Israel claims that the checkpoints are a protective measure against Palestinian violence. It is true that some Palestinians have at times used violence- sometimes deadly- to attack Israeli soldiers and civilians. I believe that all attacks against civilians, regardless of the reason given for the attack or the nationality or background of the victim, are wrong. Palestinian parents and Israeli parents feel the same grief when their children are buried, regardless of who fired the bullet or dropped the bomb or fired the rocket or lit up the gasoline the victim was drenched in while still alive, before being set alight.. As a Palestinian man told me on the ride to Ramallah, "on both sides there are people who hate".

Having said this, it is true that Palestinian civilian deaths at the hands of Israelis usually greatly outnumber Israeli civilian deaths by at the hands of Palestinians. It is also true that while armed Palestinians who kill Israelis (soldiers or civilians) are hunted down and either arrested and imprisoned or killed- sometimes their families are also punished by having their homes demolished- Israeli soldiers and settlers who kill Palestinian civilians don't need to fear an extrajudicial killing or destruction of their property. When prison sentences are handed out, they usually are relatively light.


The checkpoints, according to the Israeli government, are meant to prevent "terrorism".

It is interesting that in Hebron, the only people going through these stops are Palestinians. In my last week here, Israeli settlers have brutally attacked and hospitalized several Palestinians as they were spending the night at their place on Saturday, have broken into a man's basement on Wednesday, and on Monday, threatened four men with an automatic weapon. Settlers walk on the streets with guns, yet they commit a lot of violence against civilians. A Palestinian walking around in Hebron with a firearm, unless he was part of the PA, would immediately be shot.

Another interesting thing is that the checkpoints are very arbitrary. The checkpoint dividing H1 from H2 has a metal detector, yet soldiers will sometimes let us pass, and at other times they will have everyone remove their belts, watches, keys. Sometimes, Palestinians are waved through, at other times they are made to stop and held up. That they are on their way home from work or the market to see their families, or that they may be in a hurry to get somewhere, is irrelevant.


Many people say that the checkpoints have far less to do with security than they do with harassing the Palestinians who live here, and making life as difficult as possible. Many Palestinians do end up leaving their homes, and emigrating from the West Bank.

A friend walking towards the checkpoint between H2 and H1. The metal detectors there seem to be more for the purpose of harassing people than security.

 

 

 

 

A group of Palestinian men, detained close to our house. We don't know when they were stopped by the soldiers, but after we got there we watched for 15-20 minutes, until they were released. Prior to this picture being taken, an Israeli settler was standing by the soldiers, watching on. After about 20 minutes after we arrived, the soldiers returned the men's papers and released them.