The West Bank Roads (checkpoints and barriers)

An entrance to a Palestinian town, dug up and destroyed by the Israeli Defense Force.

In my previous post, The West Bank Countryside (Settlements), I mentioned how it is difficult to drive far in the occupied West Bank without coming across an illegal Israeli settlement.  This post is dedicated to the existence of checkpoints and barriers, which are even more ubiquitous.

Before I say anything else, it is imperative to understand that the checkpoints and barriers I will be speaking of are not keeping Palestinians out of Israel.  Other checkpoints and barriers do that.  What I am talking about in this article are the checkpoints and barriers within the occupied West Bank, which hinder Palestinians attempting to move around from Point A to Point B within their own communities.

First, I'll say something about barriers.  The photo at the beginning of this article is not an uncommon sight in the West Bank, where some villages have had every entrance to their community dug up or blocked by debris.  Some Israeli military commanders are particularly notorious for their heavy-handed uses of trenches and barriers to isolate villages from one another.  The reason why commanders do this often is not at all clear to either outside observers or to the people directly affected.  The only thing clear is the effect:  the barriers hinder Palestinian movement, which contributes to a crippled economy, to unnecessary deaths since people can't get to the hospital easily, and increased animosity to the occupation and Israel in general.

In addition to barriers at the entrances to communities, barriers are also set up in the middle of roads that connect Palestinian communities.  So while Jewish settlers can move quickly and freely through the West Bank on nicely paved roads set aside for their use, this is impossible for Palestinians.  One might run into concrete blocks on the road, as I did here near Jericho...

or one might run into a mound of rubble on an access road leading from someone's private property to the highway, as I did south of Bethlehem...

or one might run into an obstacle like this one near Qalqilya, which prevents Palestinian from using a highway that is set aside for settlers only.

or one might run into a double set of obstacles, as I did here near Tulkarem.  As is common for Palestinians, you get out of one vehicle, walk across the one or two barriers on the road, then climb into a second vehicle that waits on the opposite side, thus enabling you to continue your journey...

Notice that in the end none of these barriers prevent Palestinians from moving from Point A to Point B; the barriers only slow them down terribly and make the journey a stinging reminder of the nature of Israel's occupation.  Thus the economy and the sick suffer, and Israel continues to stoke Palestinian despair and hatred through its callous treatment of the civilian population.

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Waiting three hours in line with Palestinians (green license plates) at an Israeli checkpoint in the Jordan Valley while Jewish vehicles (which have yellow plates) are allowed to zoom by without stopping.

Now I will say a word about the second part of this topic:  manned checkpoints.  Dividing the West Bank into five distinct zones, a key purpose of these checkpoints is to protect Israeli settlers who, again, live illegally in the occupied territories.

Checkpoints are infamous for their notoriously long waits, and the people passing through them suffer.  For example:  A report in Israel's Ha'aretz newspaper recounts the experience of one Palestinian mother who was not allowed to pass through a checkpoint and gave birth in the dirt to her baby, who soon died.  This is not an isolated example.  Ambulances are routinely delayed, and according to a report prepared by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, there were 60 Palestinian births at Israeli checkpoints between 2000 and 2005, resulting in the deaths of 36 infants.

Waiting at a checkpoint south of Jenin

Three years ago I wrote an article on my own experiences at Israeli checkpoints, which I would like to post later to illustrate how the checkpoints are infamous also for their brutality.  They are extremely adept at dehumanizing those who pass through.

But for now, if you are interested in learning more, I encourage you to check out B'tselem's website and, even more, the website of Machsom Watch.  This latter organization is comprised of Israeli women who make it their business to observe what goes on at their military's checkpoints.  A phenomenal group of women, their website includes photographs, maps, and reports.  Here's an excerpt about this group in the Nov/Dec 2004 issue of Mother Jones :

Machsom Watch has exposed a pattern of abuses at the checkpoints that the group says feeds the rage that leads to the terrorism they're supposed to prevent. In late July, for example, a 26-year-old university student named Muhammad Cana'an was kicked, beaten, and shot in the arm by an Israeli soldier, apparently without provocation, at a checkpoint near Nablus. After Machsom Watch witnesses reported the incident to the media and the IDF, the soldier was taken into custody -- one of the few times since the start of the Al Aqsa Intifada, in September 2000, that the army has taken action against one of its own. Two days later, several Machsom Watch women near Qalandiya checkpoint outside Ramallah reported that troops had stoned and smashed the windows of a Palestinian taxi. The army, under pressure from the group, imprisoned two of the soldiers -- one for 56 days, the other for 42. "I think they're doing a terrific service," said one Israeli reservist officer who asked not to be identified. "We're a bunch of fascist bastards. The only thing that stops us from looking totally criminal is that the other side is even worse than we are."

To learn more about the issue of checkpoints, barriers and movement restrictions, please refer to:

• Amnesty International's report on the impact of movement restrictions
• The Palestine Monitor
• Israeli author Etgar Keret's checkpoint observations in an article in the Guardian entitled "Speak Hebrew or Shut Up".

(Again, I will likely post some more personal experiences and thoughts on checkpoints in a later article.)