UMW Regional GeogBlog

Jerusalem. Wednesday June 25, 2008.

I had a truly memorable experience today, the fourth day of my visit to the Middle East. I passed through an Israeli checkpoint in the West Bank, and got a tiny glimpse of the everyday lives of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation.

I am in the region to try to learn more about this complex and fascinating part of the world. In particular, I came here to try to understand better the region’s complex political and cultural geography. The lands between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River today consist of a hodgepodge of different jurisdictions and areas of control. There’s Israel proper, that is Israel as defined as the land controlled by the State of Israel between the end of the 1948 war and the beginning of the Six Day War in 1967 (bounded by the so-called Green Line.) Then there’s the area under ultimate Israeli control since 1967, that is Israel plus the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights, and East Jerusalem. Of these areas, Golan and East Jerusalem have been annexed by Israel, and are regarded by Israel (but nobody else) as part of the State of Israel. The Gaza Strip is under the control of a Palestinian government controlled by Hamas, except that Israel controls all of Gaza’s borders, its coastline, and its airspace. And if all of this seems complicated, consider the West Bank.

The West Bank is divided into several types of territory, including:

• Areas under the security and civilian control of the Palestinian Authority (so-called Area A.) Under Israeli law, Israelis may not enter these areas.
• Areas of joint Israeli and Palestinian security control, but where the Palestinian Authority has civil control (or where, as a Palestinian put it to me, “Palestinians are in charge of anything that costs money.”) This is Area B.
• Areas where Israel has full control of security, planning, and construction (Area C.)
• Israeli settlements and outposts occupied by Israeli citizens and controlled by Israel, but on land outside the Green Line. Most of these settlements are linked to Israel proper by roads which Palestinians are not allowed to use.
• Israeli military installations.

(For some excellent maps showing these areas, take a look at the web site of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

The movement of Palestinians within and between these various areas is strictly controlled, and is enforced by means of numerous military checkpoints. I have read about the West Bank, seen maps of the checkpoints, and looked at photographs of the area on Google Earth. But I wanted to visit the place for myself, to try to understand it better, and to try to get some insight into what life is like for the 2.5 million Palestinians who live there.

And so it was that yesterday I traveled from Jerusalem to Ramallah, the commercial capital of the Palestinian territory and seat of the Palestinian Authority. I was there to meet with Sam Bahour, a business consultant who runs the e-mailing list and website epalestine.com.

Although Ramallah is only about 10 km from Jerusalem, the complex political geography of this part of the world makes travel between the two cities a complicated business. Ramallah itself is defined as Area A, under Palestinian control, whereas my hotel in West Jerusalem is in Israel proper, inside the Green Line.

What makes travel so complicated, though, is that Palestinians from the Occupied Territories (including Ramallah) may not travel to Jerusalem. Israelis, in terms of Israeli law, may not enter Ramallah. And to get from the city of Ramallah to the main road to Jerusalem, travelers must first pass through the massive concrete barrier that snakes through parts of the West Bank. It is here that the Kalandia checkpoint is located.

Getting from my West Jerusalem hotel to Ramallah was easy. Ismaeil, my taxi driver was a Palestinian citizen of Israel (a term most Jewish Israelis wouldn’t use; they would refer to him as an Israeli Arab,) and so could travel within Israel as well as West Bank. He picked me up at my hotel at 10 am, and even though we took a photographic detour en route, I was in my room at the Grand Park Hotel in Ramallah by 11.15. We stopped briefly a checkpoint, but were waved through without any questions.

I could have asked Ismaeil to come and pick me up this morning for the return trip to Jerusalem. We would have been stopped at the Qalandiya checkpoint, but with Ismaeil’s Israeli ID and my US passport I assume that this wouldn’t have taken too long. But, at Sam Bahour’s suggestion, I decided to pass through the checkpoint on foot, the way most Palestinians have to. He said this would be an interesting experience for me. He was right.

At 9 a.m. I took a cab from my hotel in Ramallah to the large complex that is the Qalandiya checkpoint, Even if I had wished to travel further by taxi, I wouldn’t have been able to, since my Palestinian taxi driver lacked the necessary permissions to pass through to the other side of the check point.

The Qalandiya checkpoint (or Qalandiya terminal, as it is officially and euphemistically called by Israel) is a large complex of buildings, fences, vehicle checkpoints, and holding areas. Stretching away from the checkpoint on either side is the huge concrete “security barrier” constructed over the past few years by Israel for the stated purpose of preventing terrorist attacks inside Israel. Overlooking the checkpoint/terminal is a tall concrete military watchtower, with cameras and floodlights atop it (The photograph below shows the entrance to the checkpoint complex, not the complex itself.)

It was 9.25 am when I entered the terminal/checkpoint. Inside, I found five lines of people, separated from one another by steel fences. At the head of each line was a locked turnstile, operated remotely by the Israeli soldiers running the checkpoint. Every ten minutes or so, a buzzer sounded, and the turnstile unlocked. The line would surge forward, a handful of people would pass through, and after 10 seconds of so the turnstile would relock. Usually there was at least one person in the turnstile when it relocked; at one point three men were crushed in, and had to wait ten minutes until the next unlocking to get out.

Near the Qalandiya checkpoint (or "terminal" as the Israeli authorities prefer to call it.)

Needless to say, I was rather overwhelmed and more than a little confused about what was going on around me, particularly since most of the signs and all of the announcements over the public address system were in Hebrew or Arabic. A woman standing in front of me, recognizing my predicament, explained to me how the procedure worked. As we waited, she told me that she lived in East Jerusalem and worked for the United Nations. She was on her way from Ramallah to Bethlehem to make a presentation at a UN conference. She usually passed through checkpoint in her official UN vehicle, and with her UN identity document; her car had broken down this morning, though, so she had to pass through the checkpoint on foot, a much lengthier and more cumbersome process.

I asked how long it usually takes to get through the checkpoint. “It all depends,” she said, “on how long the line is, what soldiers are on duty, and what kind of mood they are in. Women soldiers are worse than men, because they want to show that they are strong. But the worst are the new immigrants, especially Russians and Ethiopians.” (In recent years, there has been an influx Ethiopian Jews to Israel, and a much larger influx of Russian Jews.)

After about 45 minutes, I got to the front of the line, and after being stuck inside the turnstile with my bag for ten minutes or so, I made it through to the other side. There I found myself in another line, waiting for another turnstile to open. This time, instead of steel bars on either side of the line, there was bulletproof glass. By now, my new friend was getting anxious. Her conference in Bethlehem was already underway, and she was late for her presentation. She had called her UN agency on her cell phone, asking them to send a car for her, but so far it hadn’t arrived.

After another 20 minutes or so, we were buzzed through the second turnstile. On the left was a booth where the Israeli soldiers sat. There were three or four of them, behind large panes of bulletproof glass, with computer terminals and microphones in front of them. Outside the booth was an airport-style metal detector and x-ray machine for baggage. My UN friend put her handbag on the machine’s conveyer belt, and approached the window, holding up her UN identity document. “I am UN,” she said to the soldier on the other side of the glass. “You can’t come through here!” shouted the soldier, a young man who couldn’t have been more than 19 years old. “X-ray machine isn’t working.” There had been no sign and no announcement indicating that this line had no functioning x-ray machine. The only way to find out was to stand in line, and wait to get to the front. My friend picked up her handbag and held it open for the soldier to see. “It’s just a handbag,” she pleaded, “You can search it if you like.” “You can’t come through here!” He yelled again, more loudly, his tone both aggressive and abusive. Now she was getting angry, “I am UN,” she said again, holding up her ID, “I want to talk to your supervisor.” “You can talk to the supervisor,” the soldier shouted back into his microphone. “But only in line 1, line 3, line 4, and line 5.” We were in line 2.

I held up my overnight bag and US passport. “You can’t come through,” the soldier said to me. This time his tone was emphatic rather than abusive. “X-ray not working.” “What must I do?” I asked. “Go out, go out.” He waved his arm. The turnstile clicked, and my friend and I returned to the holding area, and joined the back of line 5. A few minutes later, after some discussion in Arabic with the men in front of us, my friend said, without explanation, “We can’t stay in this line,” and we moved to the back of line 4. Ten minutes or so later, her phone rang. “The UN car is here,” she said to me, and rushed off, back to the Ramallah side of the checkpoint. I hope she made it to her conference in time.

After she had left, I was adopted by a new translator, a young engineering student from Hebrew University in Jerusalem (He didn’t say what his residency status was, or where he lived.) After ten minutes or so, there was an announcement over the public address system, and about half of the people in front of me left the line, and went to the back of one of the other lines. Apparently it had just been decreed that this line was for residents of East Jerusalem only.

Eventually, I passed through the turnstile, put my bag through a functioning x-ray machine, showed my passport, and passed through the checkpoint.

At the exit to the parking lot was a sign in Hebrew, Arabic, and English: “Have a safe and pleasant stay.”

In the parking lot, I found a small bus, heading for Jerusalem. I climbed on board; as far as I could tell, I was the only non-Arab on board. Half an hour or so later, after passing through some of the neighborhoods of East Jerusalem, we came to the American Colony Hotel, where Sam had told me I could get a taxi to West Jerusalem.

The first taxi driver I asked told me he couldn’t take me my hotel. “I cannot go there,” he said, “No license.” Apparently he, his taxi, or both are not allowed into West Jerusalem. I had better luck with the second taxi, which delivered me safely to my hotel. Arrival time 12.15 pm. My journey had taken me three hours and fifteen minutes, and I was exhausted.

Passing through the Qalandiya checkpoint today was an eye opener for me. It gave me a very small insight into what the occupation means for the Palestinians who live under Israeli occupation. I got a glimpse not only of the mechanisms of the occupation, but also its character. That Israeli soldier barking orders through his microphones said a whole lot more than “You can’t come though here.”

But above all I came away marveling at the patience, peacefulness and dignity that so many Palestinians manage to maintain in the face of the indignities they are forced to endure on a daily basis under Israeli occupation.

I am of course aware that I am writing here about some controversial and deeply divisive topics. There are not two sides to the issues I raise here, there are numerous sides. In many cases they cannot even agree on a common terminology to discuss the issues that divide them (Is it the West Bank? The Occupied Territories? Disputed terrtitories? Judea and Samaria? Palestine? The Palestinian Territory? Are the people living there Palestinians? Arabs? Both?) I am therefore quite certain that many will disagree with what I have written here and in my other posts on the region. If you disgree with me, I encourage you to respond to this post. Tell me where you disagree with me and where you think I am wrong. Post your views here so that other readers of the blog can read your perspective as well. I look forward to hearing from you