Second Friday of Ramadan Month

This day ended very badly:

But even before it ended it was not good.

What could possibly be good about a day when most of the men are kept from getting to where they yearn to go?

How good could it be when those who are allowed through are marched inside fenced tracks like a herd of tamed cattle? – “Look at them, they’re like donkeys”, said one of the private security firm guards.

How good could it be when human beings in a mass that the eye and the camera cannot contain are violently crowded together and forced at gunpoint to stand endlessly under the searing sun?

It was hard for the man who held out his hand to the soldier, the hand holding a ‘disabled person certificate’, the man who asked to let him and his wife through on a less tortuous and crowded track and was sent way because “this is only for women”.

It was also hard for the young man who came back time and again after having been hunted in Jerusalem near the Damascus Gate a week ago, and was turned back in spite of holding a valid permit: “Come back when you turn forty”.

And it was very bad for a child who fell into the barbed wire thicket and instead of reaching Al Aqsa Mosque was hurriedly taken to hospital in Ramallah.

It was very hard for all the men standing tamed and waiting in line for their turn, because “you’ll be allowed through soon” as they were told, and “we don’t want to let everyone in together so when some room is made you’ll be allowed through”. When that soon was over and prayer time came and the gates were closed, no more people were allowed through. Only then the waiting men realized they had been deceived.