Etzion DCO: A pleasure to help decent people

Share:
Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Email
Observers: 
Shlomit Steinitz (reporting), Natanya Ginsburg
May-23-2022
|
Morning

A shift with all the usual dreary stories of those who are blacklisted……including a few cases of people who entered Israel illegally at a young age many years ago and are still blacklisted.

Sad also their desperation. We give them all the details about Sylvia and her team  and many keep coming up to us afterwards and asking if we cannot do something NOW to help them. Is it our explanations that are unclear, or do they really think that we can cure their problems just by virtue of being Israeli?

The lot for the confiscated cars is being cleaned up.  Is that to inspire the army and police to find more reasons for confiscating? One man arrived to find his tractor no longer had an engine and said that he would make a monument of it. We were told that this is not the only case and the feeling is that parts are stolen by the workers of the site, but we have no evidence of that. Sometimes the cars are not claimed by the Palestinians as the fine is greater than the value of the car.

At the moment it is a hive of activity and Shlomit sits and watches.

The son of one man had had an accident with a Jewish settler, and was given a form to fill out by the policeman detailing the circumstances and the damage, which of course the policeman should have filled out himself.  The man said with no difficulty that they had been the ones who caused the damage and that they wanted to repair the car. Shlomit phoned the driver who was very helpful and with his help filled out the form, doing the policeman’s job. Perhaps the policeman doesn’t know how to write, or maybe he’s learned his lesson well about how complicated every incident can be made for the Palestinians. She told them to go up to the police station at the top of the road and later, as we drove out, we saw them and they said that all was well. A pleasure to help two decent men. 

At 11.45 there were six people waiting in the hall. We called and called and eventually someone came to the window but only allowed two men who were waiting for the GSS to go through, even though I called and asked why they were not letting the others through.  Note that the soldiers go to eat from 12.00 to 13.00 so that meant that all had to wait at least another hour, or perhaps longer, because we did not wait to see.  Maybe those 15 minutes which are so important to the Palestinians are needed for the soldiers to get themselves in order to arrive at their well-deserved lunch with faces washed, ears cleaned, hair combed and any other embellishments they need

These two gentlemen came to find cheap labor and did not know where to go. I retaliated in kind when asked where they should go by saying that I did not know.  The small pleasures of life.