Etzion DCO: Countless bureaucratic problems

11.34 - 13.15

I think that one of the most disheartening moments of the day even though we were not really surprised was with one of the three soldiers who were busily engaged on the bonnet of their car next to the area of confiscated vehicles…. the bag and pride of the day.

Shlomit was busy speaking one of the soldiers who was happy and proud to tell her that they had ambushed Palestinian cars on road 60. They had found what looked like to us about 8 cars which should have been taken off the road. This was not surprising as both a friend of mine and myself  (NatanyaO) had both had cars declared by Israeli insurance companies as TOTAL LOSS  and then seen the same cars in Israel on the roads of Israel. I guess it is naïve but if cars are total loss surely they should have been sent immediately to the scrap heap and not brought to the confiscated car lot at Etzion. While there I saw a vehicle loaded with about 8 of these cars being carted off and the question is to where?

The same soldier told us and, blessed are they who believe, that at this ambush he had not been allowed to take his gun…. he is a sniper… interesting is it not? He had seen two Palestinians coming along with backpacks from which they had removed Molotov cocktails which was to be thrown at a bus of Israelis. He was not allowed to shoot and kill them. He was very very sad at this. So one asks at what distance were these terrorists? Why were they not pursued? How did he know that they wanted to attack a bus and not simply a car? Why did they come so near that they could be seen? And all this with a broad smile on his face.  He must watch even worse action movies than I do. I hope his aim as a sniper is as bad as his literary efforts.

We have never seen the two soldiers so engrossed in their task while our brave soldier, Svejk, sat on a cement block happily swinging his feet like a child at play and dreaming of the rifle so sadly left behind. He told me not to photograph him and I told him I would not dream of it.

We were also told by this young man….by the way there is an addition to the axiom of  He who knows not, and knows not he knows not, is a fool; shun him. He is worse than a fool but who can find a suitable word to describe him. He told us that he does not read the newspapers or watch the news, he called Yediot Achronot a leftist newspaper, he knows nothing about attacks by settlers on the Palestinians and is not interested in hearing about such. This is not part of his job but we did not manage to extract from him what his job is. He only knows he has to protect the State of Israel. But if he knew that such incidents were taking place he would deal with them. At this point we did not ask how.

So this is the salt of the earth. And by the way even though I know this has no place in the report Wikipedia reports…..Salting the earth, or sowing with salt, is the ritual of spreading salt in the soil of conquered land by the conquerors, in order to, either symbolically or literally, prevent crops from ever growing there again…….

We arrived to find much action at the parking lot with many Palestinians. One has to be very careful what one reports as at first we understood that these vehicles had been confiscated for one reason or another but then, according to what the soldier mentioned above said, these were all cars which were total loss. The question is was this so or were these cars which had defects.

One man had come because his bugger (also the name of a vehicle) had been confiscated because had been working on “state land”

A man arrived the checkpoint and was told that he had to report to Moriah even though he a permit to enter. He was accused of being a car thief but there was nothing on the computer. For two weeks all went well and now two weeks later the same thing had happened. He had come yesterday but there had been no policeman.

A man had come to a wedding in Haifa of a relation. His family all have blue IDs. He does not. He put his magnetic card on the post and the gate opened. His 18 year old relation who had never been to a checkpoint before went through. He did not notice this because he was busy with his children. When the soldier saw what happened he said to him that he should just send the young man back. But instead they  took him to Atarot for questioning and took his permit from him. His permit was for six months as he has a wife who is ill and he accompanies her to Hadassah hospital. He also has made an application for family unification. A man of many problems. He said he has his own lawyer and we left  it at that.

A man found that an unknown contractor had put his name down as one of his  workers . He does not know who the man is and wants the man’s applications to be cancelled as there is someone else he wants to work for. Not the first time that we have come across that either. Shlomit phoned a number which was on the form he was given and the Israeli who replied  gave us the name of the contractor and said that if we sent the man’s permit to him he would ask the contractor to cancel his request.

A man came looking for his 17 year old son who had been taken away at night and he thinks that he is here at Etzion. His is also one of the cars that was confiscated. One wonders if there was a connection. This all happened on the same day.

And so what can we say about the day. We did not help anyone to their immediate satisfaction. We each time give them Sylvia and her team’s details, the details of Malik (Leap) and pass the buck. And with saying all that we wonder about the hours and days that people flounder at this inhuman bureaucratic post which does  not even see these people as humans.  Then they do not even get the flimsy first aid we give them. And yet they thank us.