INTERNATIONAL CHECKPOINT WATCH ("COPWATCH GOES TO
THE WEST BANK")
“He must learn to come when I tell him,” Israeli soldier explaining why
he
forced a Palestinian man to get out of his car at a checkpoint and stand at
the side of the road.
By Val Phillips
December 27, 2001
Surda, “Palestinian-controlled Area A”, Occupied West Bank
Today, Mark and I joined International Checkpoint Watch at the Surda
checkpoint. Our purpose in being there was to monitor the actions of the
Israeli army vis-à-vis Palestinians attempting to travel from Ramallah to
Bir Zeit, or from Bir Zeit to Ramallah. Today Bir Zeit University
attempted
to resume classes following the Christmas holiday, and a lengthy closure
imposed by the Israeli military's restriction of people's ability to move.
This is the primary road taken by students and faculty to get to the
university, as well as for villagers living north of Ramallah to come into
the city to work, attend school, visit doctors and sick hospitalized family
members, and shop. At the checkpoint, people must climb out of their
taxis,
cars, etc. near the bottom of a steep hill, and walk up said steep hill,
past an Israeli APC and several heavily armed soldiers who can detain them
at will, without cause or explanation, through several sets of barricades
with "Israel" and the Israeli flag painted all over them, to cars waiting on
the other side.
I have no idea why there is a checkpoint there. The checkpoint is near the
village of Surda, and is not a border crossing, but rather an arbitrary
military outpost between Palestinian villages and a Palestinian city, deep
in the West Bank. Journalists have reported that the IDF has deployed at
the checkpoint former members of the South Lebanon Army (SLA), Israel's
proxy-army in Lebanon, known for their viciousness against Palestinians.
For me, working at the checkpoint was deeply personal: a dear friend of mine
from my days at UCLA teaches at Bir Zeit, and has to pass through this
checkpoint every day going to and from the university. I wanted to see
what
he experienced, to understand a little of what his life must be like.
I tried at various times to engage the soldiers in conversation as to why
they were doing certain things. I took extensive notes during our time
there, so as to give you a sense of what things at the checkpoint are like,
and I include these below. I tried very hard to understand what purpose
the
soldiers actions are meant to serve, what their orders are, and the
rationale behind them. But judging from what the soldiers told me
themselves, and what I observed of their actions, there was absolutely no
security purpose served by their behavior. They simply harassed,
intimidated, and attempted to humiliate the Palestinians forced by their
arbitrary checkpoint to walk up hill past them.
The Palestinian people—including Hamas and Islamic Jihad—have observed a
unilateral ceasefire for going on two weeks now. During that time, on both
the macro and micro levels, the Israeli army and government have continued
to attack and assault Palestinians and foreigners living among them. I
fail
to understand what the rationale could be, if not to push the Palestinians
into the breaking the ceasefire.
If the purpose is to get the Palestinians to surrender, then surrender what?
Their lives? Their land? Their humanity? What exactly is it
that Ariel
Sharon wants from these people?
Surda Checkpoint, 12/27/01
1:50 p.m. - Three soldiers present. Stopping vehicles and pedestrians
going
both ways. Most pedestrians allowed to pass.
1:51 – One soldier stops Palestinian truck with Israeli license plates.
Starts yelling at driver. Cannot hear what is said. Pulls fur skin
decoration off inside dashboard of truck. Three soldiers stand feeling
skin
and talking and laughing amongst themselves. One soldier opens back of
truck, looks briefly inside. One soldier goes to car behind, waiting.
Other soldier sniffs fur. Palestinian driver laughs. Soldiers talk
with
each other. Soldier again opens back of truck.
1:54 - Soldiers laugh, return fur to driver, allow car to move on.
1:55 – Soldiers stop car. Soldier leans in and touches driver on shoulder.
Orders driver to move car back. Car moves back. One soldier has
"Born to
Be Wild" on helmet. Other has "Daniel Ofir" (his name?) on his.
1:57 – Car stopped going from Ramallah to Bir Zeit. Driver told to get
out.
Car not searched. Driver, a Palestinian man in his late 20s, told
to wait
on side of road. Conversation between him and soldiers in Arabic and
Hebrew
is cordial. I ask one soldier in English why this man has been detained.
The soldier seems surprised by the question. "Maybe he has bomb in his
car.
We also must be safe."
I refrain from pointing out that this Palestinian man is driving on a
Palestinian road from a Palestinian town to a Palestinian village, and that
the soldiers would be in no danger whatsoever if they simply left what is
supposed to be (under the Oslo Accords) a Palestinian-controlled area.
Instead, I politely inquire as to why he and the soldiers don't simply
search the back of the man's vehicle. The soldier has no answer for me,
nor
does he search the vehicle. So I continue to inquire as to why the man was
stopped.
"He must learn he must listen to me." The Palestinian man in no way
resisted the soldiers when they told him to stop and step out of his
vehicle, and in fact has been quietly smoking throughout this exchange.
"I'm sorry," I say. "I don't understand."
"He must learn to come when I tell him," the soldier continues, with an
honesty I find unbelievable, and then goes on to explain in polite broken
English that the only reason this man has been stopped is for the soldier to
reinforce that he (the soldier) is in control, and the Palestinian man (who
has in no way threatened the soldier, the checkpoint, or his "control") must
do as he says.
I am astonished.
This soldier then walks away, and the second soldier who had been standing
there (Daniel Ofir) speaks quietly to the Palestinian man in Hebrew. He
asks for and briefly examines the man's identity card, and then tells him to
go ahead and go. The Palestinian man thanks him in Hebrew and attempts to
shake the soldier's hand, but the soldier turns away.
(The first soldier later politely asks if I speak Russian, as it is his
first language. I say that I don't, and compliment his English, assuring
him it is quite adequate. He is flirting with me, I realize, and tells me
if I have any questions to be sure and ask him).
2:09 The soldiers are overtly "checking out" Palestinian girls as they walk
by, and are attempting to flirt with them. I am stunned that they would do
this. It is incredibly offensive in this society, both to the women, and
to
the men.
Man with wheeled cart stopped and then allowed to pass.
2:11 Caterpillar dumptruck stopped at Bir Zeit end of checkpoint. Soldier
speaks with driver, allows him to pass.
Caterpillar drives slowly through checkpoint as though waiting to be stopped
again. Soldiers backs are turned, they do not stop him. Once past
the
checkpoint, he begins to pick up speed. Two soldiers then begin yelling
for
him to stop, but it's obvious he cannot hear them over the sound of the dump
truck. They chase him down the hill, yelling for him to stop, and then
fire
warning shots in the air (live ammunition). The dumptruck stops.
2:12-Soldiers open cab door and drag man out from right side. Sophia, one
of the local organizers of International Checkpoint Watch races down the
hill. She is there before they pull the second man from the truck, and he
is pulled out more gently. She speaks to the soldiers and tries to
translate for the driver who speaks only Arabic. Mark and I follow down
the
hill. The driver is yelling in Arabic, but I understand him and he is
simply confused not angry. He tells the soldiers in Arabic and broken
Hebrew, "If you me to return, I'll return. No problem." Sophia is
trying
to negotiate with the soldiers on his behalf to find out what the problem
is.
Soldier tells me that Mark has to stop videotaping. I ask why. He
can’t
give me a reason, so I ignore him, while Mark steps back a few feet.
Soldier moves back to talk to Mark and tells him he has to move back behind
a barricade if he’s going to film. As he turned to walk away, Mark asked
why. The soldier turned back and spoke to Mark politely, but rather
incoherently, that he had to have special permission. Mark said he didn’t
understand, so the soldier brought another soldier who told him that even
Israeli media can’t film without special permission in a military zone. At
this point Sophia suggested that Mark not film unless another incident
happened.
2:18 Sophia is able to get the soldiers to release the man to go into
Ramallah. The whole thing was simply a misunderstanding. The man
felt he
had been given permission to go through the checkpoint, which he had—by one
of the soldiers. The other soldiers had not given him permission because
they had not been paying attention as he drove through.
2:20 I ask George, one of the other observers, if he has any idea how much
foot traffic is going through the checkpoint. He has counted, both around
noontime and now, and estimates that the number of people passing per hour
has grown from 1300 to 1800.
Soldiers just hanging out, letting people walk by. They look quite
relaxed.
2:29 Army jeep pulls up. Vehicle number 610766.
2:32 A military humvee pulls up
2:33 UN Vehicle pulls up and is stopped going from Ramallah to Bir Zeit. A
white van, full of people. Soldiers ask for ID. Van is allowed to
pass.
2:40 Changing of the guard. Mark tells me a man has been told to
wait who
just arrived today from Jordan, but he can’t speak to him (the man speaks
little English). I go over and talk to him. The soldiers who are
going off
duty had told him to wait; he doesn’t know why. Another, older man (late
40s, early 50s) in a suit, is waiting also, nearer to the humvee. I go
over
to talk with him. He tells me he is returning from visiting his five year
old granddaughter in the hospital. He also has been told to wait, and his
ID has been taken.
As I am talking to him, a Palestinian woman comes over to me and asks if I
can help her. She is polite but seems mildly desperate. She explains
to me
in Arabic and some English that her husband has just had surgery at the
hospital in Ramallah and will be coming home through the checkpoint
tomorrow. She explains that his legs are either weak or are what have just
been operated on (I can’t tell), and that he will be unable to walk through
the checkpoint. She asks me to ask the soldiers for written permission to
bring him home in a car through the checkpoint.
I tell her I will ask, and stand waiting (with the men who have been told to
wait) for the new soldiers to begin their shift. As one comes out, a
rather
young, cherub-faced man with round glasses, I attempt to speak with him.
He replies in English, “As you can see, I am a soldier, and it is forbidden
for me to answer questions.”
So I turn to another soldier, but before I can speak with him, I must stand
and watch him and another soldier treat with extraordinary arrogance and
disregard the Palestinian man who had been to visit his granddaughter. The
contrast between these soldiers and the previous ones is startling. They
are speaking in Hebrew, so I cannot understand everything, but it is quite
obvious from the body language and what I can understand that the
Palestinian man is explaining why he was in Ramallah, asking why he must
wait and whether he can go, and the soldiers - who have just come on shift - are
making fun of him, talking over him, and basically treating him like shit
(pardon my language). The Palestinian man is easily twice their age.
When I finally get an opportunity to speak with the soldier, I ask him for
permission for the Palestinian woman’s husband to cross the checkpoint in a
car. He tells me he will not give her such permission. So I ask
where she
can go to request permission (permission from the Israeli army to cross from
a Palestinian city, on a Palestinian road, to a Palestinian village, without
ever coming near the border with Israel). He says there isn’t any place,
and informs me that if her husband comes in an ambulance, he will be let
through. I remind him that there are few ambulances in Ramallah, and ask
if
he can’t be driven through in a car. “No,” he tells me, unambiguously.
I
then ask if he will be on duty tomorrow, of if he can give me his name to
give the woman, so that she can tell the soldiers on duty tomorrow that he
has permission to cross in an ambulance. At this point the soldier - who
up
until now has been speaking to me in nearly flawless English - says, “You know
what? I don’t speak English. Hebrew, Arabic, or Spanish only,” and
turns
away.
I apologize to the woman and explain what the soldier told me. She thanks
me profusely, as if I have done some great service, and goes on her way.
2:45 – Six Palestinian men stopped, ID’s taken, no explanation. They are
told to wait by the side of the road. The cherub-faced boy starts randomly
asking them questions in Arabic (it is not a friendly conversation). “How
many children do you have? Where do you work? How much money do you
have?”
I hear one man answer, “I don’t have any money.”
“No money? Why not?”
“Because there’s no work,” he replies.
2:50 – Another man is stopped, ID and what looks like written permission to
travel is taken from him back to the APC. The other six men are still
waiting.
Another two men are stopped, their IDs taken, and told to wait.
Another man stopped.
2:53 – Another man, quite well-dressed, is stopped. His ID is taken.
Three
more men are stopped. There is no pattern, other than that it is only men
who are stopped, between the ages of about 18 and 45. They are almost all
made to wait on the side of the road.
2:54 –Two men are stopped, ID’s taken, questioned. One of them appears to
be a religious figure.
3:00 – In the past ten minutes dozens of men have been stopped, at random,
their IDs taken, forced to stand on the side of the road. They are made to
wait anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes, before being given back their IDs and
allowed to pass. The men wait patiently, without complaint, and do as the
soldiers tell them.
3:02 – At this time there are nine Palestinian men waiting on the side of
the road, including the man from Jordan.
3:06 – Another man stopped.
3:07 – The APC starts moving, backs up the hill on the side of the
checkpoint. It is quite loud and rather intimidating sounding. It
starts
coming forward and is parked so that it’s guns are facing downhill towards
the people walking through the checkpoint from Ramallah.
[From the time that the second set of soldiers began their shift, they have
mostly been checking IDs of people coming from Ramallah going towards Bir
Zeit—this seems completely random, as there is lots of traffic in both
directions]
3:12 – Ten men standing and waiting. Another 7 stopped for no apparent
reason. One of the soldiers calls out “Shimon” to one of the other
soldiers. A young Palestinian man—a boy really, perhaps university age—is
told to open his bag and show the contents to the soldier. As the boy does
so, the soldier is looking away, leaning against the barricade as though
bored.
3:16 – Soldiers start hadning back some of the ID’s taken. Three more
young
men stopped, told to open their bags, pull out their clothing and personal
belongings.
3:19 – Soldier tells Medical Relief Committees van to stop, refuses to let
it through.
3:20-Another man stopped, ID taken.
3:24-Cherub-faced soldier going through young man’s personal belongings
3:25-Medical Relief Committee van still stopped.
Man with wife walking through, ID demanded, told to wait. Ambulance
arrives, lights going. Three men stopped by cherub-faced soldier. He
demands IDs while simultaneously making wolf-whistle sounds at Palestinian
women walking by. [Impressive multi-tasking].
Men told to wait. Other soldier (Spanish-speaker) brings long piece of
wood
over and lays it down on the side of the road, as though creating a pen.
Tells the men they must stay on one side of this non-sensical and completely
arbitrary barrier. The men, aware that those enforcing this inanity are
heavily armed and can shoot with impunity, accede.
3:27 Ambulance let through.
3:28 Medical Relief Committee van let through.
As Palestinian men stand waiting, the three soldiers on duty are simply
lounging against the barricades.
3:29 The Spanish-speaking soldier, for no obvious reason, makes the “pen”
smaller. Palestinians acquiesce.
3:30 Soldiers stop man walking with elderly women carrying large box on her
head. Both made to wait.
Shortly after this I saw that the cherub-faced soldier was making Bir Zeit
students unload their notebooks and schoolbooks onto the ground. This
brought back painful memories for me of when soldiers made my students at
the Friends Schools do the same thing, and they would come to class with
their notebooks dirty from having been thrown on the ground by the soldiers.
Again, it was personal. I went over to cherub-face and asked him
why he
was making the young men do this.
“Why?”
“Yes, why. Why is this necessary?”
“Why?”
“Yes, why?”
He turned away from me.
“So there is no reason?”
He looked back at me then looked away again.
“You have no reason for detaining these men?”
He walked away.
I then walked over to ask the soldier who said he would only speak Spanish
to me, and introduced myself. He told me he was Commander Andriel, and
that
he was originally from Marrakesh. I asked him why he had held one man for
nearly 45 minutes. He then began flirting with me and insisted he would
only speak Spanish. So I tried Spanish. He then referred to the
Palestinian man as a female dog in Spanish.
“I’m sorry,” I told him. “I only speak Mexican Spanish. I don’t
understand
your Spanish.” I kept asking him why he was holding the man, and he simply
made fun of me and kept speaking to me in a bizarre amalgam of Hebrew,
Arabic and Spanish, all of which I understood and none of which made any
sense.
I surrendered, but Sophia eventually went over to the Palestinian man, took
his information, and then called Al Haq-Law in the Service of Man, a
Palestinian human rights organization based in Ramallah. Al-Haq lawyers
will then call the military and complain. This, at this time, is the best
we can do.
We had to leave to return to Bethlehem (a 20 mile distance, two hours, five
service taxis, a few checkpoints, and a couple of tanks away), but I felt
terrible leaving behind the Palestinian men still standing on the side of
the road, waiting for their IDs. It was very clear to me—despite my
frustrations with the soldiers—that a constant international presence at the
checkpoints might make a difference.
At present, International Checkpoint Watch has enough volunteers to
occasionally cover two checkpoints. There are 144 Israeli checkpoints in
the West Bank.