Rihan

Rihan, Saturday, December 25, 2004, AMObservers: Dvora M. , Irit R. (reporting)08:30 - 10:3008:30 - 09:00 - Cold , clear mountain air. Very few pedestrians pass through, with no delays. One man from Barta'a calls us, explaining in Arabic that his married daughter who lives in the village of Ya'abed (in the West Bank), did not get a permit to enter Barta'a and he wants to arrange such a permit for her, because there is a family wedding coming soon and he wishes his daughter to attend. We tried explaining that he should try applying to the District Coordination Office (DCO), which he already did.09:00 - 09:30 - We go down to the Palestinian parking lot. There are very few cars and no transferring of merchandise. There is a great deal of dirt, evidence of recent activity at the site. We met a young fellow with a thermos and we bought the coffee which we had yearned for. There is an emptiness that causes us distress.09:30 - 10:30 - At the vehicle inspection post we watch an unpleasant clash between soldiers and a Palestinian cab. They do not let the car into the West Bank, apparently because of one of the passengers. We didn't quite get the core of that problem. The passengers were furious, asking for our intervention to avoid a violent escalation. One of the passengers wanted to hit one of the soldiers and the cab just drove off.I tried talking to a soldier, asking why he doesn't let a Palestinian cab drive into the West Bank? I was confronted by a hostile refusal to answer my question and I was referred to the checkpoint commander, who was busy at the pedestrian inspection post. He claimed that there is no reason to ban movement of Palestinian cabs into the West Bank, emphasizing that he wasn't aware of the incident we described.A Palestinian stands at the CP; he does not have the proper passage permit. He tries clarifying with a military policeman the details of the permit he needs to obtain. He simply wants to understand, something so simple and so trivial, but the soldier doesn't think so, and in a rude, aggressive way orders the guy to "Fly off!" I wait a few minutes, turn to the soldier and offer him a leaflet of MachsomWatch, which states the importance of a human, tolerant attitude. The soldier does not respond, treats me as if I were invisible. I offer the same page to the officer who is watching the embarrassing incident. He takes the leaflet willingly. Yes, he is updated through the Internet. I hope he reads this report and realizes that such behavior is unacceptable.