Yesterday and today have been filled with sights and sounds but not enough time to write about them. Coming to Israel and Palestine to see what there is to see while simultaneously writing about the experience seemed like a good idea, but if you’ve been reading this blog for the past couple of weeks you know it gets hard to keep up. I’m glad I’m on the FFIPP tour, even if the hectic schedule doesn’t leave much time to sit and blog other than when I should be asleep, like right now. I like to think I will eventually fill in the many gaps, but you and I both know that some impressions will be lost forever.
So the only thing I want to describe right now is last night’s trip from Ramallah to Jerusalem. What should have been a 20-minute bus ride took two hours. First we had to cross the Qalandia checkpoint, which meant getting out of our taxis with all our stuff and walking through the turnstiles, emptying our pockets, and showing our passports. A soldier told me to open my pack, and as I maneuvered to do that and finally did as she said, she changed her mind and told me to go through. Most of us got through easily, though after 10 minutes or so a couple of us went back to see what happened to the others. They were just getting through, having had trouble persuading the soldiers that they were both Americans and Israelis and thus did not really need U.S. visas.
We then had to find our scheduled bus, but that took a while. We walked in the dark along the Wall, with taxis zooming by. FInally, after some cell phone communication, we got into two taxis, and eventually the drivers found our bus and we piled in. Within minutes, though, we got to another checkpoint. This time we didn’t have to get out, though that would have speeded things up. Instead, we waited for more than a half hour while the soldiers seemed to be checking and rechecking a car a short way in front of us. Eventually they pushed that car to the side — it apparently just broke down. A few minutes later a soldier got on our bus and said he needed to see all passports, and as we started to fish them out he looked at a couple and then said he we could drive on.
We were supposed to get to our hotel early enough to eat dinner before meeting with people from Campus Lo Shotek (The Campus Is Not Silent). We didn’t make it, so we ordered pizza to eat during the meeting. So what was for us an irritation was manageable.
For Palestinians who have to go through these checkpoints every day, the inconvenience is more serious. “Inconvenience” is too mild a word, though. Israelis are inconvenienced by security measures when they have to open their bags before going into a restaurant, but that takes a few seconds. Palestinians can completely miss doctor’s appointments, classes, visits with relatives. They lose jobs. They drag groceries through mud and rain. They never know what to expect.
This is from today’s checkpoint visit, on our tour of Jerusalem-area Jewish settlements, roads, and walls.
Since I don’t have time to write more, here’s a photo sampling of yesterday and today, all of which I will write about at some point. Really.
Qiryat Sefer encroaches on Bil’in. The Jewish religious settlement grows toward the Palestinian village, and Israel will build a Separation Wall on Bil’in land (west of Ramallah), cutting villagers off from their olive trees and grazing land:
Fatah 40th Anniversary Celebration, Ramallah. At Bil’in, the villager who showed us around said there’s been “no fighters in this this village, but in the next generation….”
The Wall at Abu Dis, just east of Jerusalem:
