Qalandiya

In the beginning was the hill.

One day, Ehud Olmert, Mayor of Jerusalem at the time, thought up the idea that Israel’s capital needed a checkpoint resembling the one at Erez (bordering on the Gaza Strip). Thought and acted accordingly.

Heavy equipment was brought, bulldozers, drills, digging and boring into the bedrock, upturning the soil, shaving down the hill, turning it into a pile of rubble, flattening the ground and building a many-headed monster on it which the regime calls “terminal”, and he military – “Qalandiya crossing”.

Not a terminal, nor a crossing – this is Qalandiya Checkpoint. As Palestinians witness it – the worst of them all.

And now once again someone thought the idea that it is not enough, changes must be made. This time they are called “renovations”.

Once again heavy equipment was brought, bulldozers that drill and bore and turn the soil over and destroy infrastructure and tear up paved lanes and once again the place looks like a pile of rubble.

But its essence? That has not changed, nor will it.

The monster stays put behind the growing dirt piles and behind the scattered smashed rocks and among the concrete and metal barriers that transform pedestrian lanes. The monster stays put and - lawful and authorized – continues to make life unbearable for the humans who must enter its gates.