Qalandiya
Waiting outside the checkpoint with the East Jerusalem driver for the Gazan patients who are held inside the checkpoint until allowed to exit, helping them board the transport vehicle, load their heavy luggage – some of it personal effects and some gifts for family as well as food stuffs and clothing so badly lacking in the Gaza Strip – this long wait and conversation add knowledge about the procedures that people undergo who have just a few hours earlier been released from hospitals and are on their way home to Gaza. More details come together forming the puzzle picture of the inhuman, controlling treatment meted out by the occupation apparatus to those more inferior in the pecking order.
The recovering patients themselves, escorted by armed DCO officials, do not speak much. They only mention the number of hours they had to wait on the hard metal benches inside.
At a place where demonstration is forbidden and verbal protest is considered impunity liable for arrest, the solution is to yell anonymously at the wall.
And as Monty Python would have it, “Now for something completely different…”:
When I stopped at Jabar’s to buy vegetables, I felt he was hesitating to tell me something. I didn’t pressure him. When I left, Jabar came along and when we were along he said that someone living in settler-colony Adam, whose name is Ilai, owes him a lot of money.
“How much?” I asked. “Three-thousand shekels”, he said. And that every time Jabar calls him, that Ilai fellow hangs up.
I called Ilai from my own phone, introduced myself, and asked why he wouldn’t pay my friend what he owes him. “Do I owe you anything?” Ilai yelled. “It’s not me you owe”, and he repeated, “Do I owe you anything?” And I, again, “Not me”, and so on and so forth.
This non-conversation continued until Ilai said, “Listen, honey…” And I: “Honey?! Don’t you dare speak to me this way. I suggest you repay your debt as soon as possible.” ‘Why, do you represent him?” “Yes, I do.”
Ilai hung up.
No more than 10 seconds later, Jabar received a phone call from Ilai who was no longer yelling, but spoke softly and concluded the re-payment terms.