They, with their pointed rifles, their menacing question, the clicking keyboard at their fingertips, issuing (or not) permits for grace or doom - here are some of the things they say about and to the people whose lives, health, fragile routine and even death they manage. Their musings, inarticulate comments, brutishness - all these come back to us as from a mirror directly reflecting our collective image. We must level our gaze at it. Some of them say outright, never hesitant or ill-at-ease, that the Palestinians are not human. For them they are like animals. Dogs or donkeys, mostly. From ...

On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen; all day and all night... Isaiah 62.6 Tens of thousands knocked on the gates of Jerusalem last month (Ramadan - August/September 2009), but the walls of bureaucracy remained blocked and the gates of right and justice stayed locked and sealed to most who sought to exercise their right to religious worship and the customs of their culture. From OCHA Report (15.9.09): "Nearly 60 percent of Palestinians, including all of Gaza's population and over 40% of the West Bank population, have been prohibited from entering East ...

Many many days from now I shall find the one whom I have been seeking. I shall find the peace I have been seeking And draw my full measure of peace. (from In Praise of Peace of Mind by Daliah Rabikovitch) This Spotlight aims to illuminate ‘the other', to make present - even if slightly - the voice and words of those checked at the checkpoints, forced to stand at the checkpoints, subjected to the arbitrary brutish gun and the one who wields it - their aspirations, frustrations, anger and pain. It is written honoring those who have now been surviving the Israeli Occupation ...

'This is not a state that has an army, it is an army that has a state'. [from the French] (Count Mirabeau, talking about 18th century Prussia). In a free translation of the above quote, it is possible to say that in recent years the IDF enforces 'the law' in the territories of the West Bank, as if it is subordinate to the settlers and serves as their subdivision of operations. Many IDF soldiers posted at CPs, like many Israeli policemen who have responsibility for enforcing the law, grew up in the settlements and were nurtured from an early age in the schools of thought ...

"The principle of holding a public trial is one of the fundamental principles on which a fair process is based. In the absence of a public trial there can be no public scrutiny, and without public scrutiny concerns about miscarriage of justice grow." that is how the basic assumption for a due trial is formulated in  Yesh Din's report  about the Military Courts in the Occupied Territories "Backyard Proceedings", p 14) In the beginning of 2005 we began monitoring military courts, where the hearings of Palestinian prisoners take place. In order to have access to ...

Time is a matter of awareness more than a product of the chronological order that exists in nature or in society.  (Dr. Amal Jamal, Head of the Faculty of Political Science, Tel Aviv University) Time is a resource that Man has created, tamed, and mastered.  People divide time into segments and direct and define their world according to time.  The hands of time are in constant motion and cannot be moved backwards.  Stolen time cannot be returned, and punishment or fines will not return lost time.  Can children be compensated for having to grow up without a father who was taken ...

You who stand in the doorway, come in, drink Arabic coffee with us and you will sense that you are men like us, you who stand in the doorways of houses come out of our morningtimes, we shall feel reassured to be men like you!   Under Siege, Mahmoud Darwish Two and a half million Palestinians live on the West Bank. Nearly half, more than a million, are minors, not yet fifteen years of age (UN and Palestinian statistics). Two and a half million human beings transparent in the eyes of most Israeli soldiers, their commanders, and most citizens of the State of Israel. Fear is ...

Everybody has a story, and that of a Palestinian under the Israeli occupation will always be sad and harsh, full of despair and bitterness. From a report: Beit Iba Checkpoint (Nablus), Wednesday, 25.6.08 am Observers: Rina Z, Inbal R (reporting)  No changes in the checkpoint routines. Not especially long lines. And yet, one morning, one checkpoint, two stories... How to Create a Shahid - Interview With a Young Palestinian Muhammad, resident of Bani Naim in the Hebron Mountains, speaks a quiet Hebrew, is skinny and very short, perhaps suffered from malnutrition. Aged 18, he ...

Huwwara Checkpoint Observers: Meky S, Noa P (reporting) 15:00 Shouting can be heard. By the isolation lockup we discern A. (apparently the checkpoint commander), his back to us, and a Palestinian facing us, his back pushed against the concrete wall. The Palestinian is saying to the soldier: "I didn’t make you any problems whatsoever!" And the soldier – raises the cuffs he holds and whips the man’s hands! Red welts cover the hands. I. from the DCO (District Coordinating Office) arrives quickly and talks with the man. Alongside him, soldier A. does nothing but talk while ...

Harsh Confrontation with a Checkpoint Soldier Beit Iba Checkpoint, Thursday 17.4.08 Observers: Zvia S, Dalia G An experience that has not let me be for a few days happened on Thursday afternoon at Bet Iba Checkpoint. My partner Zvia and I saw five Palestinians being led by soldiers to the detainee compound. We did not know how many were sitting in the "pen" because it is difficult to see from the checkpoint plaza. The checking hut blocks the view. I walked over to the compound to see what was happening, listening carefully for and shouts from behind calling me back. ...

No Defense for Palestinians Against Attacks by Settlers and Soldiers Who will defend Palestinians against settler and soldier attacks? Who will bring the attackers to trial? If the enemy is the one who has to protect you – he will not make an effort for you. Extract from Hebron shift report, Wednesday, 19.3.08 Observers: Tzippi Z, Michal S (reporting) We met Michael and Fawaz, both active in Btselem. Together we climbed to the Jebel el Ruheima neighbourhood, behind Tel Rumeida. We saw that it was easy to cross from there into the area of H1. There is no obstruction or ...

A Simple Story Becoming a Nightmare: A Via Dolorosa of Checkpoint and Arbitrary Road Bloc The road of tribulation travelled by a man living with his family in the village of Sara on the West Bank, working (with permit) in Kfar Sava, staying overnight on workdays in Qalqiliya. All that he wants – to travel mid-week (Wednesday) from his workplace in Israel to his home in Saara, to his six year old daughter’s party (honoured as outstanding in her school), and to return to work in Kfar Sava next morning (Thursday).

Beit Iba Checkpoint (entrance to Nablus), Thursday, 28.2.08 Observers: Shoshana Z, Biria L, Nina S (reporting) 08:50 – a quiet morning. Few vehicles in line to enter. Passage is fast. There is a dog and minder. At the entrance to Nablus we meet a man, who tells us tyhat at Jit (on his way from Sara to his job in Kfar Sava (in Israel), at 04:45, a soldier stopped him, took his ID card and work permit and left... Though he waited two hours, they did not return his papers. It seems that it was forbidden for him to leave Saara to Jit. Finally he gave up and continued to Beit Iba and, at ...

Route 443, Tuesday 15.1.08, am Observers: Tamar B, Anat S (reporting) 05:00 - 06:15 On Route 443, five minutes from Modi’in and the communities of Maccabim and Reut, in the freezing cold of morning, starting at 05:00, the IDF brings together six conscript soldiers and 600 Palestinian workers, holders of permits to build the State of Israel. Under the indifferent eyes of hundreds of Israeli drivers, who pass down the road without a glance, the escalation flourishes. From 04:00 the workers crowd the area, hoping to be the first to pass and then start their day’s work. They light ...

At many checkpoints across the West Bank, separating between one Palestinian village and the next, routine has become fixed. The soldiers, working like bored union clerks, seal themselves tight (apparently by order), and allow passage at the checkpoint by permit only. That the permit is attached to a human being is an immaterial fact. That there are human beings without permits, but with a need to pass, is insufferable. Such imperviousness is the opposite of applied judgment. The occupation does not permit the checkpoint soldiers to use their judgment, lest they are tempted to see the ...