Beit Iba, Wed 26.11.08, Morning

Beit Iba

  What a lovely, beautiful day. At 07:00 the Beit Iba checkpoint looks clean, welcoming.  The checkpoint – a checkpoint.  The turnstiles – turnstiles.  And the soldiers pleasant, cute. No yelling, no “Get back, get back.”  Whoever’s asked to empty his satchel on the table they improvised especially for that purpose does so without complaining.  Whoever’s asked to remove his shoes puts them back on calmly.  No one urges him to move on, to leave the checkpoint before he’s managed to zip up his fly.   A lovely, beautiful day.

Because everything’s so peaceful, and there’s no pushing, and no yelling, a sweet young soldier allows himself to come over to us, in full uniform, body armor, weapon dangling, and ask: Tell me – are you paid to come here?  Like – what’s the deal, why are you here?  Great, we’re pleased.  He wants to know, and we’re here to explain to him.  What could be better?  So, first of all, we made sure that he won’t rush off to sign his mother up.  No, we’re not paid.  And then we told him we come to the checkpoint as part of a protest against the occupation.  What occupation?, wondered the sweetie.  What are you talking about?  We’re talking about the Six Day War, ’67, you know, there was a war, we occupied.  He thought that was really funny.  Occupied what?  Captured from whom?  It wasn’t theirs, they didn’t have a state.

We captured from the Jordanians, we said, continuing the history lesson.  So it belongs to the Jordanians, he replied.  Not theirs.  So why did you say we captured it from them?  And, if that’s the case, then the Americans should also leave and the country should go back to the Indians.

Since we saw that we were failing History we talked about the suffering that the checkpoints and the policy of certificates and roadblocks causes the civilian population.

His eyes opened a little wider.  What suffering?  Do you see anyone suffering here?  Everyone goes anywhere they want.  Look, see how quickly they go through the checkpoint.  Nobody delays them.  Nobody bothers them.

Aren’t you bothered by how they’re humiliated?  Remove your belt, empty your bag, turn around.  The kid’s response was inevitable: Don’t they check my bag when I go to the mall?  You come here, you’re just imagining things, that’s all.  Look how quiet it is, really great.

We were on the verge of tears.

We persisted:  Can everybody who wants to, go through?  No restrictions?  Nobody gets stopped?  If someone happens to show up without an ID card, does he also get through?

What do you want, anarchy?  Of course you can’t go through without an ID card.  Things here are organized, whoever’s allowed to go through, does so, whoever isn’t allowed to go through, doesn’t.  If the GSS needs someone, we hold them until they come.  What do you expect?  That someone without permission will also go through?  Don’t you think there are laws?  Do you think everyone can do whatever he wants?  What will that lead to – just a mess.  I’m standing here for them, so everything goes like clockwork.

 And with those words he went back to making sure to run their lives like clockwork, the way it should be.