Dorothée and I did checkpoint observation at Zatara, the big checkpoint in this area, this afternoon

Zatara Military Check post - Kate -IWPS -Palestine
Tuesday, November 26, 2002

Dorothée and I did checkpoint observation at Zatara, the big
checkpoint in this area, this afternoon. It was quite a scene. We
saw at least 15 ambulances go through, all pretty quickly after a
cursory search. When we got there, a line of men was standing by a
service. After quite a while, they were told to come forward one by
one, give their ID, lift their shirts and turn around. Eventually,
after this humiliating routine was done, the service was sent back.
The same thing happened with the next one. About half an hour
later, a service came and was let through after the IDs were
checked. No one except the driver had to get out and he didn't have
to lift his shirt or anything.

Zatara is not a big checkpoint like Huwarra or Qalandia. It is just a
collection of cement blocks in the middle of the street, and Mariam
says when she first arrived in September, there were often no
soldiers there at all. Recently, however, they have put a lot more
energy into it. There are always soldiers there now, they built a
new lookout tower (which often doesn't have anyone in it), and
there's usually a tank on the road in between the settlement of
Tapuach and the village of Yasuf. It's an intersection of two
major settler highways, the 60 (north-south) and the 505 (east-
west). We were speculating that it may be the only checkpoint where
settlers get such a firsthand look at what Palestinians go through.
About 3:00 p.m., settler teens and young adults were arriving by the
busload, presumably from the colleges or yeshivot in the area. All
the young women and girls had on long (mostly floor-length) skirts
and the men of course had kippot. Dorothée remarked that the women
didn't cover their heads, and I explained that only married Orthodox
women do that, unlike in Islam.

The settlers would stand along the side of the road, many of them
right by where we were observing, and wait to get rides. (One of the
interesting things here is that hitchhiking is done by everyone, not
just young people. It's almost formal, like getting rides across the
bridge in Oakland.) We wondered whether the settler kids notice, and
think at all, about how free they are, and how much hassle and
humiliation the Palestinians go through. We noticed, too, that no
Palestinian women were coming through, and wondered if the settler
girls notice that or think about what it might mean. Some day, if
we continue to do this, I will try asking some of them. Today,
because it was our first time doing it, we said we were only going to
observe, not intervene (though of course that would have gone by the
wayside if anyone had seemed about to be arrested or hurt). I didn't
initiate conversations with anyone, though some of the soldiers
initiated them with me.

When one of the soldiers came to talk to me (we had been there close
to an hour by then), I asked him why the services had been turned
back at first, and now they were being able to go through. He
said, "We don't decide. We get the orders." He said at first they
were told no cabs were allowed to go through. (I didn't think to ask
then, but wondered later, then why go through the whole ritual of
checking everybody?) Then they were told they could go on this road
but not that road (pointing). Now, he said, they can go on any road
as long as they're not going to Nablus. Karin suggests that it might
be their officers screwing with them.

More and more military vehicles were arriving. There were at least
50 jeeps that passed through, some stayed for a while, some didn't.
Then the police came. They were very interested in a car with yellow
plates that was held there for about half an hour. It had already
been thoroughly searched, including under the hood, before the police
came. They walked around it and talked to the men in it and talked
on their radios, but eventually it left; we weren't sure if it had to
go back where it came from or was allowed through.

One of the soldiers came over to me and said he wanted to show me
something. He shook two little BBs out of his wallet, saying
something about four suicide belts they had found in cars there in
the last three months. I wasn't sure what the connection was; he
talked about pounds of C4, and what he was showing me didn't really
look like anything that you'd put in a bomb, but what do I
know? He said he had the name and ID number of someone who was
carrying explosives today. I asked if he didn't have a
picture. "No, our intelligence is good, but not that good." He said
he was a student, not an ideologue, with nothing against Palestinians
who are among his friends. I said, "But you do have a choice." We
talked a little about the "vicious cycle," and he said he
agreed, but what can you do? "I'm a soldier, this is my job." I'm
tired of hearing that. I did notice, however, that he said "Nablus"
and not "Shechem," the old biblical name which most Israelis insist
on using.

Mariam leaves tomorrow and I'll really miss her. It's funny, she
said just what I predicted before I left, "At the beginning, three
months seemed like such a long time, but I'm just getting used to
being here." She said she'd love to go home for three weeks to
visit, and then come back. She's lucky, though, because she will be
back before too long; her husband has taken a job in Ramallah (right
now they live in Canada).

Kate Raphael
IWPS Palestine
katrap@mindspring.com
(+972) (0)9-251-6644 (house) (+972) (0)67-387-806 (mobile)