Zion Square

We found 5 border-police girls standing at Zion Sq. They checked Palestinian IDs and wait for no more than 3-5 minutes, the time for the Border Police to write down their numbers on a list (like in Abu-Dis), after which they get their IDs back . One man who had a Jordanian identification card, was detained for about half-an-hour, until the girls' commander arrived in a jeep, checked the card and sent the man back (he lives in Ras-El-Amud). The BP-girls let us talk to the Palestinians and were civil, both to the Palestinians and to us. But the passers-by or idlers standing around at the square were mostly a hostile lot. An elderly religious American woman approached me to inquire why I was standing there. After a while, she came back with flowers which she distributed to the BP-girls, thus making her point about whom she supports.After a while an armed soldier (parachutist) showed up to guard the square too. We went over to Kikar Zahal around 2 p.m. and encountered 2 Border Police soldiers (one man, one woman), who checked the ID's of Palestinians coming up from the Old City or other surrounding neighbourhoods. Very few Palestinians were passing though at this hour (lunchtime).On our way back, we passed Kikar Zion once more. One of the BP girls approached us and asked very politely, but slightly worried, if we were going to report what we had just seen to the press - like B. Michael did a few weeks ago. We told her, that we had no reason to report anything to the press, as all we had seen had been performed in a civilized manner by them. She then volunteered the information, that B. Michael's observations had been PASSED AROUND BY THEIR COMMANDER FOR ALL OF THEM TO READ !!! Now that was some piece of information! Good show, B. Michael!