Qalandiya
Participants: T.F., Ph. W. and a Guest
(Y.S.)
The morning news reported that the IDF would be relaxing
restrictions at the CP's
but, when we reached Qalandia CP on Sunday at 3:30 PM, there was
litle room for
optimism: the atmosphere was very oppressive and only those with
blue ID's,
those "happy" few holders of tassrichim and people over
50 were being allowed to pass.
Commander of the CP, a Second Lieutenant named Amir, adopted a very
didactic attitude
and cross-examined those who requested his help to get through the
CP regarding
minor and irrelevant details regarding their family members, the
neighborhood where
they live, their employment and business and other matters in a
tone of suppressed
violence. Every few sentences he would ask the interrogee if he,
the commander, wasn't
acting very humanely. And as if that were not enough, two of his
subordinates
put on a show of imitating Palestinian women (and the two
representatives of MachsomWatch)
in falsetto voices accompanied by appreciative laughter.
In view of the "unhelpful" attitude demonstrated by the
unit at the CP we called for
assistance to Neta (filling in for Roni Numa's secretary) and to
Itzik Deri from the
Matak. Both Itzik and another soldier from the Matak (Tomer) were
very helpful and
responded rapidly, to the evident dissatisfaction of the soldiers
at the CP.