Right.

That has come to mean throwing money at it.

Twice a year, major Donors who keep the PA afloat meet to discuss the financial situation — and the spring meeting was held in Brussels this year, on 21 March.

Serry told the UNSC today that, in that meeting, “the primary concern of all AHLC members was the dire financial situation of the Palestinian Authority”.

Barak Ravid reported in Haaretz, just ahead of the meeting, that the between-the-lines significance of the report presented by Israel was: the Palestinians are not ready to have a state. A very self-serving message indeed. He wrote that:

“Parts of the report are worded in a way that aims to make clear that the Palestinian economy is unable to support an independent state … ‘While the present fiscal crisis was caused by a shortfall in donor aid, there were also deviations in the execution of 2011′s budget’, the report said. ‘The public finance management system’s role in the current crisis may undermine its track record as a system that meets the requirements of a well-functioning state’. The report also indicated that the PA’s fiscal management contributed to the current crisis. ‘This demonstrates the need for further reform in order for the PA to meet the standards of a well-functioning state … The fiscal crisis is especially acute because much of the West Bank economy still depends on the public sector and on construction projects, both still heavily financed by foreign aid. It also serves as an alarming warning sign for the stability of the Palestinian economy … The current fiscal situation raises doubts about whether the PA will be able to reduce its dependency on foreign aid in the coming years’.”

Barak Ravid’s article, based on an insider briefing, is posted here.

Amira Hass took the Israeli report apart, in another article entitled Ignoring Israel’s complete domination, published in Haaretz here:

“Who better than these delegates [the Donors, at the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee meeting in Brussels last week] knows the great service the family of nations is doing to Israel by providing massive, ongoing aid to the Palestinians? Taxpayers around the world are the ones who are relieving Israel of its obligations as an occupying power and repairing the damage it is causing. It turns out it’s easier for the family of nations to fund the occupation than to force Israel to put an end to it. The guys in our finance and defense ministries – upon whose data the report is based – state, in fact, that the donor countries should get their checkbooks ready, because our policy this year won’t be different.

With smug arrogance, the report’s authors ignore Israel’s complete domination over the resources essential to economic progress and expansion: land, water, time, a Palestinian population registry, currency, territorial expanse, air space, radio-frequency spectrums, territorial contiguity, banking services and television broadcasts, freedom of movement, border crossings, foreign nationals who are allowed entry and the duration of their stay, highways, and personal and communal security.

With all the precision of a shopkeeper, the drafters of the report recount all of the measures that Israel, in its great magnanimity, has taken ‘to support economic growth in the West Bank’. But beyond all the means of support detailed in the report, there are the unmentioned hours wasted by Palestinian, American and European bureaucrats seeking to convince their Israeli counterparts to put them into practice

The number of tourists coming to the West Bank city of Bethlehem last year, for example, was 1,174,280 (compared to 1,092,811 – note the precision! – in 2010), according to the report. Then there was the extension of the hours of operation at checkpoints; the agreement over the Palestinian police presence in Area B (which is under Israeli military control and Palestinian civil responsibility); construction of a visitors’ lounge for meetings between Palestinian and Israeli business people at one of the checkpoints; the drilling of four wells in a nature reserve’s eastern aquifer; 17 (again, note the precision!) preparatory meetings (regarding water infrastructure) with representatives of the U.S. State Department and USAID; one meeting with a Dutch representative over Israeli-Palestinian cooperation; 434,382 cars, owned by Palestinian citizens of Israel, that were allowed passage via the West Bank town of Jenin; consideration of a Palestinian request for a customs exemption for cars owned by foreign investors and the disabled; and approval of 2,777 requests for changes of address on ID cards from Gaza to the West Bank (of 3,857 people who sought approval).

With a whiff of the theories of economist Milton Friedman, the report sneers at the size of the Palestinian public sector. But if there is anything that assures Palestinian social stability – and in turn quiet and prosperity for Israel – it is the regular (if unreasonably low ) salaries paid to that public sector. Since the Oslo Accords between Israel and the PLO were drafted in the 1990s, payment of wages has been a major means by which support of and dependence on the PA leadership has been buttressed. The adaptability of the Palestinian leadership to Israel’s policy of carving out Palestinian territorial enclaves was based in part on that very internal instability“…

Filmed by a member of the World Council of Churches current team of Ecumenical Accompaniers in Israel and Palestine [EAPPI], here is Taybeh checkpoint last week at 4:00 am… Palestinians start lining up at 3:30 am.

It is, unusually, a “privately-run” Israeli checkpoint for Palestinians — that is, it is run by a security company subcontracted by the Israeli Defense Ministry.

Read more about it on the EAPPI blog, here.

The video is also posted on Youtube here or here.

So, please, do not say you didn’t know…

Today, we will leave aside the awfulness of all other passage through Qalandia Checkpoint, and focus just on the issue of pedestrian crossing of Palestinians from the West Bank of those who need to be at work, or who have any other appointment early in the day on the other side.

Here is a video compilation comparing the situation facing of people [yes, human beings] waiting to get through the checkpoint in January 2008, and again on another morning in December 2011, nearly 4 years later. The video — prepared by friends at Machsom Watch, the organization of Israeli women for human rights — was posted on the Mondoweiss blog on 24 December by Adam Horowitz [Co-Editor of Mondoweiss.net] here.

It can also be watched on Youtube here:

Horowitz wrote about it on his post on Mondoweiss, simply saying: “As you watch this video keep in mind that the Qalandia checkpoint is not a border crossing between Israel and the West Bank. Like most Israeli checkpoints in the occupied territories, Qalandia is located squarely in Palestinian territory”…

For Israel, Qalandia Checkpoint — and a stretch of the road further north going from Jerusalem towards Ramallah — is within the boundaries of the “Greater Jerusalem Municipality” — a unilateral composite extension of “Jerusalem” in late June 1967, several weeks after the Israeli military conquest of the area in the June 1967 Six-Day war.

For Palestinians, for the United Nations, and for most European and many other countries, Qalandia Checkpoint is within the West Bank — as defined by the UN-negotiated cease-fire lines of 1949 [later known as the Green Line], which is not quite exactly, but still largely, the same line across which Israeli and Jordanian forces faced each other until 4 June 1967.

As such, according to the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice on “Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory“, posted here, in English + French, which was developed in response to a request from the United Nations General Assembly after Israel started building The Wall in mid-2002, and which was handed down by the ICJ in the Hague on 9 July 2004:

[140.]…
“In the light of the material before it, the Court is not convinced that the construction of the wall along the route chosen was the only means to safeguard the interests of Israel against the peril which it has invoked as justification for that construction.[141.] The fact remains that Israel has to face numerous indiscriminate and deadly acts of violence against its civilian population. It has the right, and indeed the duty, to respond in order to protect the life of its citizens. The measures taken are bound nonetheless to remain in conformity with applicable international law.

[142.] In conclusion, the Court considers that Israel cannot rely on a right of self-defence (or on a state of necessity in order to preclude the wrongfulness of the construction of the wall resulting from the considerations mentioned in paragraphs 122 and 137 above. The Court accordingly finds that the construction of the wall, and its associated régime, are contrary to international law…

[147.] Since the Court has concluded that the construction of the wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including in and around East Jerusalem, and its associated régime, are contrary to various of Israel’s international obligations, it follows that the responsibility of that State is engaged under international law.

[148.] The Court will now examine the legal consequences resulting from the violations of international law by Israel by distinguishing between, on the one hand, those arising for Israel and, on the other, those arising for other States and, where appropriate, for the United Nations.  The Court will begin by examining the legal consequences of those violations for Israel.

[149.] The Court notes that Israel is first obliged to comply with the international obligations it has breached by the construction of the wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (see paragraphs 114-137 above). Consequently, Israel is bound to comply with its obligation to respect the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and its obligations under international humanitarian law and international human rights law. Furthermore, it must ensure freedom of access to the Holy Places that came under its control following the 1967 War (see paragraph 129 above).

[150.] The Court observes that Israel also has an obligation to put an end to the violation of its international obligations flowing from the construction of the wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory…

[151.] Israel accordingly has the obligation to cease forthwith the works of construction of the wall being built by it in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including in and around East Jerusalem. Moreover, in view of the Court’s finding (see paragraph 143 above) that Israel’s violations of its international obligations stem from the construction of the wall and from its associated régime, cessation of those violations entails the dismantling forthwith of those parts of that structure situated within the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including in and around East Jerusalem.

All legislative and regulatory acts adopted with a view to its construction, and to the establishment of its associated régime, must forthwith be repealed or rendered ineffective, except in so far as such acts, by providing for compensation or other forms of reparation for the Palestinian population, may continue to be relevant for compliance by lsrael with the obligations referred to in paragraph 153 below.

[152.] Moreover, given that the construction of the wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory has, inter alia, entailed the requisition and destruction of homes, businesses and agricultural holdings, the Court finds further that Israel has the obligation to make reparation for the damage caused to al1 the natural or legal persons concerned.”

[153.]…The Court considers that Israel also has an obligation to compensate, in accordance with the applicable rules of international law, all natural or legal persons having suffered any form of material damage as a result of the wall’s construction…

[155.] The Court would observe that the obligations violated by Israel include certain obligations erga omnes. As the Court indicated in the Barcelona Traction case, such obligations are by their very nature “the concern of al1 States” and, “In view of the importance of the rights involved, all States can be held to have a legal interest in their protection” (Barcelona Traction, Light and Power Company, Lirnited, Second Phase, Judgment, I.C.J. Reports 1970, p. 32, para. 33). The obligations erga omnes violated by Israel are the obligation to respect the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, and certain of its obligations
under international humanitarian law.

[156.] As regards the first of these, the Court has already observed (paragraph 88 above) that in the East Timor case, it described as ‘irreproachable’ the assertion that ‘the right of peoples to self-determination, as it evolved from the Charter and from United Nations practice, has an erga omnes character’ (I.C.J. Reports 1995, p. 102, para. 29). The Court would also recall that under the terms of General Assembly resolution 2625 (XX’V), already mentioned above (see paragraph 88), ‘Every State has the duty to promote, through joint and separate action, realization of the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, in accordance with the provisions of the Charter, and to render assistance to the United Nations in carrying out the responsibilities entrusted to it by the Charter regarding the implementation of the principle’ . . .

…

[158.] The Court would also emphasize that Article 1 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, a provision common to the four Geneva Conventions, provides that “The High Contracting Parties undertake to respect and to ensure respect for the present Convention in al1 circumstances.” It follows from that provision that every State party to that Convention, whether or not it is a party to a specific conflict, is under an obligation to ensure that the requirements of the instruments in question are complied with.

[159.] Given the character and the importance of the rights and obligations involved, the Court is of the view that all States are under an obligation not to recognize the illegal situation resulting from the construction of the wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including in and around East Jerusalem. They are also under an obligation not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by such construction.  It is also for all States, while respecting the United Nations Charter and international law, to see to it that any impediment, resulting from the construction of the wall, to the exercise by the Palestinian people of its right to self-determination is brought to an end. In addition, all the States parties to the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 12 August 1949 are under an obligation, while respecting the United Nations Charter and international law, to ensure compliance by lsrael with international humanitarian law as embodied in that Convention.

[160.] Finally, the (Court is of the view that the United Nations, and especially the General Assembly and the Security Council, should consider what further action is required to bring to an end the illegal situation resulting from the construction of the wall and the associated régime, taking due account of the present Advisory Opinion…
[162.] … The Court considers that it has a duty to draw the attention of the General Assembly, to which the present Opinion is addressed, to the need for these efforts to be encouraged with a view to achieving as soon as possible, on the basis of international law, a negotiated solution to the outstanding problems and the establishment of a Palestinian State, existing side by side with Israel and its other neighbours, with peace and security for all in the region.”

The UN General Asembly asked the ICJ for this Advisory Opinion on The Wall in order “to assist it in the proper exercise of its functions”…

We are still waiting.

Part of the argument it considers says, in summary form, that: “Construction of the wall and its associated regime create a ‘fait accompli” on the ground that could well become permanent -Risk of situation tantamount to de facto annexation – Construction of the wall severely impedes the exercise by the Palestinian people of its right to self-determination and is therefore a breach of Israel’s obligation to respect that right“.

The ICJ concludes, in this Advisory Opinion, that: “Construction of the wall and its associated regime are contrary to international law”.

It also concludes that there is a “need for efforts to be encouraged, with a view to achieving as soon as possible, on the basis of international law, a negotiated solution to the outstanding problems and the establishment of a Palestinian State, with peace, and security, for all in the region”.

The ICJ concludes that the legal consequences of this construction are:
(1) – “Israel is obliged to comply with the international obligations it has breached by the construction of the wall — Israel obliged to put an end to the violation of its international obligations + to cease forthwith the works of construction of the wall, to dismantle it forthwith + to repeal or render ineffective forthwith the legislative and regulatory acts relating to its construction, save where relevant for compliance by Israel with its obligation to make reparation for the damage caused – Israel obliged to make reparation for the damage caused to all natural or legal persons affected by construction of the wall”, and
(2) due to the erga omnes [above all else] character of certain obligations violated by Israel – all States are obligated not to recognize the illegal situation resulting from construction of the Wall and not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by such construction; there is also an obligation for all States, while respecting the Charter and international law, to see to it that any impediment, resulting from the construction of the wa11, to the exercise by the Palestinian people of its right to self-determination is brought to an end; all States parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention, while respecting the Charter and international law, are obliged to ensure compliance by lsrael with international humanitarian law as embodied in that Convention; and the United Nations, and especially the General Assembly and the Security Council, need to consider what further action is required to bring to an end the illegal situation resulting from the construction of the wall and its associated regime, taking due account of the Advisory Opinion”.

All the documentation can be read on the ICJ website: main page is: http://www.icj-cij.org/.

Then, choose your preferred language (the original documentation is in two languages: English + French. Never mind that the two are jumbled up. Just keep going, scrolling down and reading whichever of these two languages you understand better).

On the left hand side of the page that will open after you select a language, choose: Cases.

Then, in the text on the page that will open, click on the link to: Advisory Opinions.

Go to the correct year — in this case, it is 2003, the date of the filing (rather than the date of the decision)…

Then, on the page that will open, choose the grey link that says Advisory Opinions
. The main one is listed first: Advisory Opinion of 9 July 2004. Click on it to open the PDF file [its web address is http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/131/1671.pdf].

The Question [formulated by the UN General Assembly] to which the ICJ was responding, in its Advisory Opinion, was this:  “What are the legal consequences arising from the construction of the wall being built by Israel, the occupying Power, in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including in and around East Jerusalem, as described in the report of thie Secretary-General, considering the rules and principles of international law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, and relevant Security Council and General Assembly resolutions?”

Why?

My leased car, which had been parked on the street, suddenly had three flat tires, all at once.

Of course, it was not an accident.

All three tires had the cap removed from the air valve.

Two of the tires, it turned out, had been slashed.

One result: I never got to the conference at Bir Zeit University…

Yes, this is the same neighborhood in Dahiet al-Bariid (on the JERUSALEM side of The Wall) where I received death threats, written (in Arabic) on the windshield and (in English) on the window of driver’s side of the car, in August 2009. [Our earlier report in that is posted here...]

This is about 150 meters or so from the observation towers of the IDF Central Command Headquarters in Neve Yaakov. It is around the corner from Ahmad Tibi’s house. It is up one level from the World Bank office in Jerusalem (East Jerusalem).

Note: Before The Wall came here, they used to say the World Bank was in ar-Ram, and this was the supposedly “neutral” place where the Geneva Initiative people used to meet every month, the Israeli team and the Palestinian team. All that is now gone, long gone…

As The Wall was being constructed, almost all of Dahiet al-Bariid was going to be immured. Most of Dahiet al-Bariid (except for some meters of land down by the road going to Atarot and Qalandia, ending around the “jisr” where the water pipes come from Ramallah) was just outside (but immediately adjacent to) the “Greater Jerusalem Municipality” boundaries drawn unilaterally by Israel after its conquest in the June 1967 war. When it became evident that The Wall would sever the neighborhood from Jerusalem, a number of residents and the Christian institutions in the southern part of the neighborhood petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court to stay in Jerusalem. The Israeli Supreme Court said yes, apparently before I came here, and now takes this decision into account when dealing with any problems in this area. But the Israeli military did not make the changes on the ground that would enact this Supreme Court decision. Even after The Wall was closed here, at the beginning of September 2008, the “ar-Ram” checkpoint still remained in place until mid-February 2009. During that terrible time, there was no way in or out except through that miserable “ar-Ram” checkpoint, which was a particularly and notoriously bad one. Everytime you needed fresh food, or medicine, you had to get in line at the checkpoint, for at least half an hour, and be subject to teeth-grinding, stomach-pain humilation. On the day the “ar-Ram” checkpoint was finally removed, the Commander of Qalandia Checkpoint was there (“Captain Uri”), and I asked him what the status of the neighborhood was, now — was it finally and clearly Jerusalem, I asked? Who said that? he asked. The Israeli Supreme Court, and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, I replied. “No”, he told me, “this is a Kaf ha-Teva” (“manteqa tamas”, or seam zone), “We have to let the negotiators do their work”…

Well, that could take a good long time.

Meanwhile, no law authority comes to this neighborhood, though it seems to be under the jurisdiction of the Israeli police in Binyamina, on the other side of the Hizma checkpoint, on Road 60 in the West Bank — though the police officers there don’t readily admit responsibility, and don’t know the area, because they apparently never come here.

For the moment, that’s all I have to say.

Anderson was hit in the face by a high velocity tear gas projectile shot by an Israeli Border Police officer. He was hospitalized for more than a year in Israel, and has just returned to the U.S. with irreversible brain damage.

The case was closed earlier this year on grounds of “lack of wrongdoing”.

The appeal, filed on behalf of Anderson’s family by attorneys Michael Sfard and Ido Tamari, argued that an independent investigation showed that the original police investigation was “fundamentally flawed and negligent”.

UPDATE: On 24 June, Israel’s YNet website posted an AP story reporting that “On Thursday, Justice Ministry spokesman Ron Roman said police have been asked to investigate selected aspects of the case”. This is posted here.

A statement sent by email from activist Jonathan Pollack said that “The police decided to close the case despite the fact that the investigating team had never visited the scene of the shooting, and as a result questioned officers who had nothing to do with Anderson’s shooting and, in fact, could have had nothing to do with the shooting, as there was no direct line of fire between where they were positioned and were Anderson was shot. A second Border Police crew, which was located in the area where Anderson was shot from according to all civilian eye witnesses, was never questioned at all. The force’s commanders, who carry responsibility for the shooting were also not held accountable”.

In the statement, Attorney Michael Sfard is quoted as saying that “With this kind of negligence, it is no wonder that the world does not trust Israeli investigations. Our own independent investigation was easily able to show, despite our meager resources, that the shooting was done directly at Anderson and with absolutely no justification. We will not rest until the shooter is brought to justice”.

A Power Point presentation which demonstrates what eye witnesses said happened, according to the independent investigation, can be viewed here.

Her article continues: “But how was order created from chaos? … If we take just one small part of the organizing needs of the checkpoint – public transport on it’s northern [Ramallah] side – we might get a sense of what is involved. Walid, in his forties from the [Qalandia refugee] Camp, was a main transport organizer for five years on the Ramallah side of the checkpoint. Like many of the checkpoint workers, he had spent years working in construction in Israel before the checkpoints put him out of work so he began to operate a secondhand unlicensed van. He describes what happened when the checkpoint was made at Qalandiya:

‘In the beginning it was a mess, drivers would come, there was no turn, nowhere to stand, the strong one would eat the weak one. So in the Camp we decided that we should organize it, we made a subcommittee and decided to make a stand, you know for the vans and to try organize the situation of turns. In the beginning it was all voluntary, each day a group of guys from the camp would come down and try and organize. But it didn’t work – drivers didn’t get to know them or build a relationship because it was different guys from day to day. And there were problems happening everyday, you know people fighting for turns– you needed to enforce things. So we said, we have to make a permanent group – nine guys – and they’ll take ten shekels a day from the drivers to use the stand and for the other services – the money was equivalent of half a load of people. We’d pay some to the organizers and the rest we donate to the committee. We got the political organizations in the camp to come down and speak to the drivers, to give us some legitimacy. Abu Wagih the owner of the quarry donated gravel and we fixed up a stand on the empty land about 20 meters from where the soldiers stand. And we made a system, each location together, each one by turn, one of them breaks the rules, jumps his turn and we punish him – he can’t come for a day, he gets in a fight – that’s it, he misses a day two days or he harasses the girls passing we send him off for a week. But it didn’t last – the soldiers kept running us out. strong>The soldiers would come by and start shouting over the microphone and say that’s it all of you move out or we’ll shoot – and it’s a disaster – you can’t move all at once – two three hundred vans, and they’re firing tear gas into the windows, breaking windows. …

Walid’s testimony continues: “We kept going back and it kept happening until we said, enough. And found a place 60 meters away from them. Again, the quarry owner gave them the materials, and they made the next stand despite the army from time to time shooting at the tires of Abu Wagih’s caterpillar. Then after another stand-off they were finally kicked out again and were forced even further away (150 meters from the checkpoint). By the third time, they learnt to build a rubble mound at one end – to provide cover from the soldiers’ shooting. But the next stage took even more tenacity – when the checkpoint was closed completely to West Bank identity card holders and people were forced to smuggle themselves through the quarry that then became dubbed “Tora Bora”. When people had to smuggle through the quarry we moved down there and made a stand that was like a trench – so that it would provide cover for people – it was big enough for a hundred vans. We couldn’t get people all the way to the other side because of the terrain, but we could get them half way and pick those up who came through and run them back. You know they (the soldiers) were always firing randomly down there to stop people from crossing through the quarry. During that period we organizers were working like military duty. Soldiers always came down on hunting trips, on the lookout to stop people – and were always shooting randomly, lots of people got hurt down there – two people died. We had to do lookouts, one person posted on this hill, another one there, the one there calls the one here and says, okay – go it’s clear. We worked like ambulance workers too, carried the sick on our backs, from the ambulance coming from Ramallah over to the other side – that was the worst period when no one could cross the checkpoint, not even an ant could‘.

“In all from the beginning of the checkpoint’s imposition until the creation of the Qalandiya “terminal” in early 2006, Walid and the other organizers made a total of seven different stands within the area of the checkpoint. Each time was done in defiance of the army and always involved intense periods of cat and mouse, punctuated by short periods of relative stability. They also created two alternate routes (the quarry and Rafaat) that the army was unable to completely seal, until the Wall was built. And then for a long period, they became absolutely homeless within the space of the checkpoint – when the building of
the new industrial terminal crossing took all of the remaining land where it would be possible to make a stand. Only during that period, did the transport on the Ramallah side fall again into chaos – because organization was outflanked by the absence of space.

“On the Jerusalem side of the checkpoint, you have a parallel history. There too drivers and organizers over a period of four years engaged in daily battle of will and stealth against the relentless pressure of the military and the ever-dwindling possibility of securing the substance for their work and its organization at the checkpoint – space itself. In other cases, survival has meant making difficult compromises. Where the drivers and their organizers survived through ongoing defiance of the military, the porters’ survival at Qalandiya ultimately became dependent on compliance with them. The porters who arrived
at Qalandiya from the outset were confronted with a set of organizational circumstances in some ways more difficult than the drivers. Some of them had been porters in the vegetable market in the refugee camp, or at al-Ram, still others arrived after working at other checkpoints that had subsequently had been closed or overrun with too much competition. At one point at Qalandiya their numbers reached 35 – many of them kids from the camp coming to work after school. Because there’s little capital investment involved – anyone could get into the business, and since they don’t need space – regulating themselves and creating a system of ‘fairness’ can’t be done through a parking stand as with the vans. Too many disconnected and competing networks came in – and the camp community was not willing to stop the infinite number of its children trying to make some extra cash from it. It was an unsustainable moral economy: Abu Ammar, one of the older porters describes the situation: ‘There was no turn or nothing, only problems, a car would come and everyone would have to jump and whoever got those bags first, and whoever was clever was clever, it was no good. The kids with carts kept ruining us – they’d work for nothing. And so the prices were no good – the customer didn’t like what you asked there were always another three, four who
would give him a better price. But in the case of the porters, unlike the drivers, crises created by the army created the
opportunity to gain a greater measure of control. When they closed the checkpoint for that period – when no one could cross and everyone started to go through the quarry, we went down there. But it was hard, rubble, hills, not anyone could do it – the kids couldn’t do it and some of the others decided to stop. Some, a few of us stayed working there and then they opened the checkpoint and we tried to go back. We went back to the checkpoint but the soldiers sent us away, they said no porters
allowed, you know – security and all of that empty talk. They wanted to take our livelihood away and what do we have – nothing. So some of us, the married ones with kids we decided to go and talk to them – there was a soldier called Captain Ofer, an old man, speaks some Arabic. So me and the guys we got ourselves together about ten or twelve of us and we said
we want to sit with you, one of the guys speaks really good Hebrew so we let him do the talking. So Captain Ofer says, okay come day after tomorrow at 8:00 am – you know how they are – they even give birth at an appointed time. So we went and he said okay what do you want? So we say, listen we used to work here, we are all married guys with children, each one of us has a family to look after, we need our work back. So Ofer goes on about security and how a kid at another checkpoint, they’d found guns or something in his cart. So we said we’re all older, married we have responsibilities and the people need a solution. So he says okay married with children, but I’ll only take five of you. We were twelve – two were unmarried so he turns them away. And we say but we’re still ten and he gets stubborn and says no, only five – and then he picks out two, the one who spoke the good Hebrew and another one he’d remembered from before and he tells them to stand on the side. So he goes one by one – how many kids do you have, the first one says four, the next one says four, I say 7 – I could see what was happening, at the time I had four kids, but it was like the lotto, your going to live by the number. I decided he wouldn’t check it in my identity card and even if he did – I’d say I had my parents and brother living with me – I worked in Israel most of my life so I know a little. So he tells me to stand with the others’.

“Over time, the porters were able to negotiate their numbers up to nine with the Captain. However, the price to keep working in this case, was that the porters inevitably became beholden to the army for continuing to work – they had to pass security checks (which one of them didn’t pass because of a brother in prison), they had to number their carts so the soldiers could differentiate them, they had to keep a good relation even with ‘problematic’ soldiers. At least, they could keep working and they made even more money because they now constituted a monopoly on porting. Worse still was they got a reputation for being collaborators with the military and for a while were relatively shunned by the other workers at the checkpoint. But to compensate for this situation, to buy some moral capital in the community, without jeopardizing their pact with the military they found a compromise – which was to subcontract the longer distance hauling to others up to the actual crossover point where only they could pass. In this way, another six porting jobs were created for men who couldn’t join ‘the army imposed union’. Checkpoints are also a magnets for peddlers. Shopkeepers from communities who could no longer sustain them; villagers selling seasonal fruits from back home; out of work young men trying their luck with some goods on assignment from a merchant or simply starting a stand from scratch with whatever small capital, idea and skill they have.

“Checkpoint environments are de-regulated; there are no municipal vending laws and no fees to pay for stands as in organized market areas in the cities. At the same time, there are literally thousands of potential customers – those stuck idly in cars, those walking in or out of the crossing, or waiting for transport to fill up on either side. There is also an all-day group of customers – the checkpoint workers themselves. At its checkpoint worker apogee, you could eat three meals at Qalandiya – sesame bread or sweet pastry in the morning with your tea and coffee. Sizzling kebab at lunch – but no falafel since its possible for a cook to run from soldiers with a charcoal grill but too dangerous with a pot of boiling oil. For dinner, it was better to go home – unless you like grilled liver and stuffed spleen. And snacking was possible all day. At one point waiting in the hellish pedestrian line to cross – it struck me that almost everyone was chomping on roasted peanuts as if they were at the cinema – the whole area where the soldiers stood was enveloped by the smell of three nut roasters steaming away at the entrance.

“The major problem for peddlers is akin to the drivers – space. A meter, a few feet in a strategic place (that commuters have to walk through, or at a drivers stand) is what fundamentally determines viability. Beyond that is whether vendors can satisfy existing consumer needs or create new ones. But wherever you stand there are risks, benefits and losses. The best side for business according to most peddlers is the exit, or Jerusalem side, based on the psychology of crossing; as one peddler put it,’who wants to buy when they’re about to face hell (the soldiers), but once you pass you want to celebrate’. The
Jerusalem side became so popular – that on the big commute days (Saturday and Thursdays) you’d have up to 200 peddlers operating during good weather. But although Qalandiya is a military zone, the army would call in the Jerusalem municipal police to clear out the stands, making lightening raids, confiscating goods and imposing fines. Thus, on the Jerusalem side peddlers learnt to keep their goods on stands that could be hauled off in a moment.

“On the Ramallah side, it was always safer because the Jerusalem municipality couldn’t be bothered to cross the checkpoint, but it was also less business. But on the plus side there was space for a full-scale exposition on open tables. Peddlers do not need collective systems at the checkpoint like the porters and van drivers; although on the Ramallah side – longstanding relationships built over a few years of peddling there developed into long term forms of cooperation – saving each others stand space everyday, collectively evicting a ‘trouble maker’, and collectively defying the army trying to move them out. But peddlers, though perhaps not contributing to the ‘organization’ of the checkpoint contributed something as important – an atmosphere of normality. In the midst of barbed wire, concrete blocks and guns stood a perfume stand, lingerie flailing in the wind, books to look at, shoes to try on, the smell of coffee, a pile of green almonds, and strawberries, Tupperware, toys and plastic bouquets – all of the sights and smells of a lively urban market, a public space full of the happy diversion of popular consumerism and the social interaction that goes with it. Whenever interviewing commuters about what made them laugh at Qalandiya – it was almost always the same answer – the craziness of the peddlers.

…

“At Qalandiya there was an ideological framework sustaining individual and collective actions – national survival. But what primarily motivated checkpoint workers was necessity – the quest for dignity in the face of the destruction of their regular livelihoods. Thus through daily tactics of survival they crept into the spaces of opportunity that existed between the whims and violence of the military and the various needs of the community. They could not overthrow the checkpoint but they could
‘poach’ it back from being a space of pure brutality and oppression to one in which their own dispossession could be redressed while creating a means to sustain the entire community.

“The strategies and experiences of commuters is another part of the picture – but one too large to be addressed here beyond some basic comments. At checkpoints commuters and informal sector workers are united by the need to survive and mutually depend on each other to do so; workers make livings from providing the means for commuters to keep going; and commuters by continuing to cross create jobs for the workers. But while workers can create systems to help commuters cross – - the experience of crossing itself is beyond organization because of its innate arbitrariness and potential for violence. Who can or
cannot cross, ‘the mood of the soldiers’, an eruption of violence around or in front of you, the inability to predict anything, including the time it will take. As such commuters when facing the checkpoint ultimately face it in a situation of extreme powerlessness, as individuals without the possibility of a collective strategy.

“What people bring to this situation then are individual psychological strategies. Some of these have become part of collective popular discourse, and others remain as discrete individual strategies that vary according to character, as well as gender, age and status. In terms of popular discourse, although people cross by necessity in order to go to work, school, or simply continue with their lives, they imbue this act of survival with a sense of agency and defiance. ‘The checkpoint is not going to defeat me’, ‘the checkpoint is not going to stop me from reaching my work’, ‘I refuse to let the checkpoint control my life’ –
these are the constant statements people make about crossing. This individual reaction has generalized to become the rallying cry of this intifada – al hayat lazim tastamir – life must go on. There is a collective understanding that the checkpoints are there to stop life, to destroy livelihoods and education and ultimately defeat the will of a nation. Thus, simply continuing to cross them becomes encoded not as an individual experience of victimization but as part of a collective act of defiance and ultimately national resistance. Where the much more individualized psychological strategies come in is at the moment of actual interaction with soldiers – at the identity card check. This is the extremely charged moment when as a single individual you are confronted with the bare face of the occupation and it becomes embodied in a person, a soldier who has immense power over your immediate destiny. It is here, in this moment of interaction between pure power and powerlessness that we see individual subjectivity at play in attempting to recode the dynamics and meaning of the interaction and take back some sense of control and its correlate – dignity.

” ‘I never take out my I.D. card – I always make them ask for it’, or ‘I take my I.D. card out before they have a chance to ask for it’: These two opposite micro-strategies to each person means the same thing – they have set the dynamic of the unfolding of the procedure, thus taking ‘control’ of it away from the soldier. Similarly, we have different strategies in terms of verbal interaction with the soldiers; ‘I never get into a conversation with them – if they’re asking about anything other than my I.D. card, anything above what their supposed to be interested in– I shrug or tell them it’s not their business’. And again, you get its opposite, ‘I always take the opportunity to argue with them, tell them what they’re doing is inhumane – I don’t want them for a moment to feel that what they’re doing is right or normal’. But these particular micro-strategies of agency, are one’s that only people with a certain symbolic capital can undertake – all of them with Jerusalem identity cards, who in principle (though not always in fact) can always cross. And in terms of the obviously assertive strategies, it is mostly older professional women (and some men) who can risk them.

“Those who don’t have the right papers don’t have this luxury – people whose only way to cross is to negotiate with the soldier, because they don’t fit the current rule requirements. In these cases the strategy cannot be anger, or reticence, or coldness because you have to elicit pity, or empathy, or credulity, or you have to simply wear them down by not giving up. And in the process of bargaining you must to exert the maximum amount of self-control – not to lose your temper, not to react in anger at being subject to a situation which is the essence of humiliation. When people in these circumstances
describe what they do, they tend to re-code the humiliation of the encounter as a consummate act of bargaining – the skill of outsmarting the soldier. ‘The occupation forces us all to be liars’, is how one person described it — meaning that since the point of the checkpoint is to make all normal human activities illegal – one has to invent extraordinary stories in order to convince a soldier to let you through.

“In general, men, especially young men are less capable of negotiating than women – as evinced by the case of the young man in my opening description. On the one hand, they start from a position of being the most vilified of all Palestinians by Israel, thus the distance they must close in terms of convincing soldiers to let them pass is the greatest. At the same time, their masculine selves are often at odds with the patient, subservient dispositions necessary to close the gap. One of the worst experiences standing in line, one that everyone mentions because it is so ubiquitous, is of the young man refusing to move and being beaten. But what is also extraordinary is how often the young men hit back. Women are the most skilled at bargaining their way through, or patiently wearing soldiers down. On the one hand their gender identity is a form of symbolic capital they can exploit (especially as mothers and grandmothers) but also because living in a patriarchal society – everyday female agency is very much about patience and tactical bargaining in order to get around male power.

“Ask any soldier what he is doing at Qalandiya and you are likely to get one of two answers: ‘I’m just doing my job’ or ‘I’m protecting the state of Israel’.

“The second reason reflects the logic of any security regime, be it protecting a wealthy neighbourhood from crime, a border from infiltrators and drug smugglers, or a nation from suicide bombers. It doesn’t ask why – why do people steal, infiltrate or bomb but naturalizes them as part of human existence and generalizes them onto the population they are trying to police. It inevitably turns who you police, the whole population, into a spectre of criminality – people who cannot act like you, feel like you or have the same needs and longings.

“If we return to Qalandiya, what we see in the military’s reaction to the van drivers, the peddlers and even the porters – is the active criminalization of their basic livelihoods. In terms of the commuters who were ‘breaking the rules’ by smuggling through the quarry, we are talking about students and teachers trying to get to school, fathers trying to make a living and probably in some cases, young men simply wanting to see the wider world. People are forced to ‘misbehave’ to get around arbitrary and unjust systems and then the fact of their misbehavior becomes the justification for the system itself.

Postscript:
“In early 2006, Qalandiya checkpoint was reborn as the Qalandiya ‘Terminal crossing’, one of eleven high tech [sic - this is a relative concept] crossings Israel has constructed at various points across the West Bank Separation Wall. The ‘Terminal’, which from the outside looks as innocuous as an aircraft hangar and bearing signs with uplifting ditties in Arabic like, ‘Our Hope Together’ is touted as more humane and efficient by Israeli government and military propagandists in contrast to its dusty ad hoc predecessors. Inside it is a showcase of every conceivable form of Israeli high and low security technology exported around the world including: magnetic spindle gates, high speed x-ray machines, and biometric scanning devices.

“Now crossing involves navigating through a warren of cage-like pens, between turnstiles that automatically shut or open by remote control, all to the disembodied din of soldiers screeching through a pa [public address] system. Multiple public and private security personnel run the ‘Terminal’ including the usual suspects such as the Israeli military police and border guards, but also private security firms and the Israel Airports Authority. Dozing soldiers now ‘process’ you while gazing at computer screens sitting in booths behind bullet-proof glass – and what communication is possible takes place through remote speaker systems. Indeed, if the ‘Terminal’ has been more humane for anyone, it has been for the soldiers manning it.

“The configuration of the ‘Terminal’ as well as the re-routing of traffic in relation to the Wall, all brought to an end the huge informal infrastructure that had developed to deal with the old checkpoint system. Peddlers cannot get near their once lucrative positions on the Jerusalem exit side from the checkpoint; the narrow cages and turnstiles inside the terminal are barely wide enough for a human body – let alone a porter cart. And with the rerouting of West Bank traffic through the Jaba Road, and Israel’s re-imposition of old East Jerusalem bus companies on Palestinian public transport in and out of the city, even
the main transport stands have returned to their natural homes in Ramallah and Jerusalem.

And despite the overwhelming power of the new system, people continue to find ways to get through and around it”.

Rema Hammami is Professor at the Institute for Women’s Studies at Birzeit University and on the Advisory Board of JQ [Jerusalem Quarterly]. Her article can be viewed in full in the Spring 2010 issue of Jerusalem Quarterly here.

Salim, who has been teaching for a semester at Georgetown University, writes in his introductory that “Rema Hammami’s pioneering work on Qalandia (the Palestinian Tora Bora)[this is explained in Part Two of this story -- it refers to the stone quarry which is the only alternative route around when Qalandia becomes a real hell-hole] takes an ethnographic look at Israel’s regime of checkpoints and barriers within a global context of ‘policing inequalities’. In particular she examines the politics of security, which ‘creates myopia, blindness to the very facts it engenders’. Her essay also examines the creative forces of survival among its victims. In her work the carnavalesque atmosphere of market and circus that permeates ‘border’ zones like Qalandia (and Surda before it), both camouflage and underscore the misery created by the security regime behind it”….
Salim’s editorial can be read in full here.

Reema’s long analysis [Qalandiya: Jerusalem’s Tora Bora and the Frontiers of Global Inequality] tries — almost journalistically, though she probably wouldn’t like to hear it — to describe the infernal atmosphere.

You have to know the place to understand, however, that she is walking, and not driving, through the checkpoint, and that she is describing the passage going from the Ramallah side to Jerusalem –
“Heat, wind, dust, garbage. Cars stuck in line, jammed bumper to bumper – probably a two-hour wait. I squeeze through the few inches between an articulated lorry and the next car. On the other side is a porter shifting two television sets tied to his cart weaving in between the oncoming traffic. Ramallah, Ramallah Ramallah, the calls of a van organizer. I shake my head – and point toward the checkpoint. Up through the first set of blocks, the wind blows up white dust from the quarry, the peddlers clutch their sun umbrellas. I pick up my pace, it’s rush hour. Through the second row of blocks and I can see the crowd up ahead, spilling out from under the zinc roof and concrete pens of the crossing. I reach them and ask an old man, how long he’s been waiting: ‘From the time I was born’…

Reema Hammami’s article continues: ” ‘Open the way, I have children, where’s the women’s line?’ A mother is overwhelmed with a toddler, a baby and a heavy shoulder bag. ‘There’s no women’s line today, just chaos’, replies a young woman ‘Did they close it?’ A new arrival asks anxiously. ‘We can’t tell’. Comes the collective response. There are maybe 300 people here waiting to cross – too many to be able to see what’s happening up front and more people keep piling up behind us. ‘For God’s sake stop pushing’ – shouts a young woman, ‘it’s enough what we’ve got in front of us. Something sharp jabs my back and I turn – the man looks at me apologetically hugging the culprit – his briefcase. Slowly the crowd are becoming lines up to the turnstyles, but I can’t tell which one I’m in yet. I ask the man in front of me if he thinks this is the line for blue I.D.’s today. ‘You’ll only know when it’s the wrong one’. We’re close enough to hear the soldiers now. ‘Irja, Irja‘ – ‘go back go back’ the screeching voice of a woman soldier. ‘Ta’al, ta’al‘ – ‘come forward, come forward’. We finally get close to our turnstile and beyond it is a glum looking teenage soldier leaning against the side chewing gum. The man in front of me shows his orange I.D. card and the soldier says ‘tasriiich (permit). over there’, laconically gesturing to the last line. The man looks modest but respectable like a school teacher; he’s probably older than the soldier’s father. He starts arguing politely in broken English. The soldier, disinterested shakes his head – ‘Over there, permit’. The man’s shoulders slump, it means a lot of pushing and shoving across two lines. He moves closer to the turnstile and gives another try of patient explaining. The soldier snaps and lunges towards him, shouting ‘Itlaa, itlaa’ – ‘get out, get out’ – their [the Israeli soldiers'] third Arabic vocabulary word. The man backs -off, mumbling under his breath and starts to negotiate his way through to the next line”.
…

Then, a brief history –

[She writes that the checkpoint started in 2001, but I saw it start in 2000, with two Israeli soldiers and a little further north, towards Ramallah, two Palestinian soldiers, then that all changed, and the Palestinian traffic simply diverted up a dusty hill towards Qafr Aqab, and drove around through broken local streets around the Israeli soldiers, avoiding problems -- and the Israelis knew very well, but don't care, because the whole point was just to make things difficult for the Palestinians..]
“The checkpoint itself started in 2001 as a few soldiers behind sandbags and concrete blocks who intermittently stopped people traveling on the road. Over the next four years it became a continuous work in progress, as it expanded into an evermore stringent and permanent series of barricades. Until finally it has taken over a few square kilometres of the landscape where a fully-fledged high-tech [this, I would say, is an exaggeration, and I would have used the word claustrophobic] ‘terminal’ has been installed which is a main crossing point in the Separation Wall, that has been built across the original road. During that time not only has its physical structure been in a constant process of change – the rules of who, what and how to cross have been in a permanent state of flux. In the first period everyone could cross after an identity check, then only private cars and pedestrians could, and at times, only pedestrians. This was followed by the most
restrictive period when no West Bank identity card holders could cross south. Then they could only if they were a woman or a child under 14, or were over 60, then over 50, or 14 and had permits and on and on. And even within the overall ‘rule structure’ of whom or what could cross during a particular period – there was always the individual whim of the soldier – as suggested in my diary description at the opening of this paper. What checkpoints create is not pure immobility, but immense chaos. Although the IDF calls Qalandiya an ‘isolation checkpoint’ [???] and its often described as separating Ramallah from Jerusalem, it actually lies 10 kilometers inside the West Bankand sits across the main road artery that runs through the once continuous Palestinian suburbs that run from Ramallah all the way through East Jerusalem. But the main reason for where it is located is that it sits on a larger strategic crossroads – a point at which the main North South artery in the West Bank crosses the main East-West artery. Thus within the overall spatial regime (varying between 450 and 650 roadblocks and checkpoints), Qalandiya has not just divided East Jerusalem from its West Bank hinterlands, but has completely isolated a number of surrounding communities from each other, while serving as a strategic bottleneck for the larger population needing to move from one side of the West Bank to the other’…

Warped strategies of adaptation –
Reema Hammami’s article continues: “But this description barely begins to address what Qalandiya has accomplished. Manuel Castells has called modern societies ‘network societies” – they depend on complex networks of information, people and goods that connect through space. Thus, the checkpoint created not simply a problem of movement for people and goods, but was akin to a tectonic explosion that caused a massive web of ruptures across infinite networks of social and economic relations all across the West Bank. As such, more important than the finite impact of goods not reaching their markets or students their schools was the wider devastation caused by the ruptures of the complex circuits through which the host of social relations flow and circulates that make among other things, commerce and education possible. An immediate response to the imposition of this devastation by checkpoints is therefore attempts to re-organize those shattered circuits that make the operation of regular life possible. And the place to begin this is at the very epicenter in which they were shattered and where chaos is most concentrated and emanates from. Thus the main thing that is needed is new ways to try and re-impose order from chaos – new systems to re-organize those shattered networks in systematic and regularized types of ways – either enabling people and goods to go through the checkpoint or around it. The official Palestinian authorities cannot do this, because their criminalization is part of what the checkpoint geography represents. Thus throughout the occupied territories it has been informal networks that have stepped in to fill the breach – either of informal sector workers or of local communities. At checkpoints everywhere this happens at first spontaneously and in piece meal ways, then over time what I have called ‘checkpoint workers’ build more sophisticated ways of organizing themselves to create order for the larger populace. At Qalandiya this was an immense challenge because the magnitude of chaos was so much greater due to the sheer scale of the population needing to cross and thus the diversity of needs that had to be addressed. It was as if overnight you have to create an urban infrastructure for a constantly changing socio-scape of more than 20,000 people”…

Qalandia checkpoint as creator of a humanitarian crisis –
“Though of similar scale, it is a much more complicated project than what confronts aid agencies in a ‘humanitarian crisis’, because here you must create an infrastructure to actually sustain a population’s mobility at the very site in which a powerful system has been imposed in order to block it. Thus this immense project must be done subversively because if it is done in direct confrontation – it will simply be defeated. [Here, the author seems to suggest that the Israelis don't know what is being done to try to circumvent the chaos at Qalandia: but this is simply not true. They know, they watch, they tolerate the efforts to overcome all the humiliation and indignity, until they suddenly stop tolerating it, without warning. Reema Hammami seems to ignore the fact that the creation of uncertainty, and the lack of information, is one of the intrinsic hallmarks of this occupation...]

“Everywhere, the first chaos a checkpoint creates is in public transport systems. The backbone of Palestinian public transport is ten-seater predominantly owner-operated vans [these are privately-owned Ford Transits, if you ever saw the film of that name by Hany Abu Assad] that are licensed to work a prescribed route under a local taxi office. When routes are cut, the logic of standardized destinations and who can ply them completely breaks down. At Qalandiya, overnight, vans could no longer cross and continue their old routes – to more than thirty destinations on either side of the checkpoint thus creating a choke point where drivers were forced to drop passengers and leave them to seek a way to finish their journey on the other side. Soon [often, and daily] the roads on either side were clogged in the chaos of transit vans and cars unable to go forward and unable to turn. Then the disorder worsens as transit vans from all over the area move in to try and help commuters finish their journey from this sudden point of blockage. While anger and frustration reigns for all, for transport drivers their very livelihoods become threatened. Thus, a few months into the imposition of the checkpoint, in an attempt to restore order so as to guarantee their livelihoods, informal networks from the [Qalandia] refugee camp and among transport workers stepped in to organize what had now became a major transport hub – or in fact to create dual hubs – to deal with each side of the checkpoint. The next group who stepped in were porters. Either because vehicles couldn’t cross, or it took too long waiting to cross by vehicle, porters with three wheeled wooden carts came to move everything from travellers luggage, to commercial goods and even the entire mail of the Ramallah post office across the checkpoint. [n.b. - I'm not sure Palestinian mail crosses in or out of Israel anymore, only via private companies like Aramex...]

And simultaneous with these first two groups mobile vendors entered onto the scene. The first were those who made canteens for the other checkpoint workers, kebab and coffee sellers for drivers and porters. And then other opportunities were spied and new niches created. In the summer: water, sunglasses, sunhats and ice-cream for pedestrians, in the winter umbrellas, woolen hats and hot drinks. And soon enough you had hundreds of vendors plying an infinite variety of goods at what was affectionately called – the ‘Qalandiya Duty Free’. These were the occupational networks that moved in, but the surrounding communities, either collectively or individually also played their role. The camp community played host – to hundreds of released prisoners dumped at the checkpoint by the military in the middle of the night miles away from their homes. From its ranks came doctors and first aid workers to treat the sick and injured. Every forty days of Ramadan, camp youth distributed water and dates to commuters stuck in line during the breaking of the fast. And the community even provided a final resting place in their cemetery – for a young woman whose family couldn’t get her body back home to Tulkarem because the checkpoint was sealed shut. The owner of one of the quarries, continually donated gravel and the services of his bulldozer to keep creating a stand for the 300 odd transit vans that needed a stand. And the al-Ram community twice received hundreds of commuters into their homes when they became stuck on that side of the checkpoint under a sudden curfew”….

To be continued…

Reema Hammami’s article on Qalandia can be read in full here.

But I am taking a break from the on-going saga of the Freedom Flotilla and as many of its implications I can think about, to note that a 21-year old American woman, an artist and art student (originally described as a journalist) was shot in the face with a tear gas cannister fired by an Israeli soldier or Border Policeman at the Qalandia checkpoint between Jerusalem and Ramallah.

Emily Henochowicz lost her left eye, as a result. It was removed in surgery at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Hospital.

She had been with a group of women protesting the Israeli naval attack on the Freedom Flotilla at sea earlier in the day.

Qalandia checkpoint is a disgrace, as I have said many many times here in this blog. Leaving aside criticism of the policy and logic that placed the checkpoint there, it is a shameful and scandalous place where there is utter disregard for the safety and dignity of the many tens of thousands of people who are obliged to pass through the difficult, stressful, dangerous and humiliating conditions there, at least twice daily (including tens of thousands of legal residents of the Jerusalem, whose Israeli-defined Jerusalem neighborhoods are now cut off and placed on the Ramallah side of the checkpoint.

Emily could have been part of the women’s demonstration, she could have been a journalist reporting on it, or she could have been a completely uninvolved innocent bystander who just happened to be passing through at that moment. Tear gas cannisters were sprayed by an automatic weapon in her direction, and fell on either side of her, before she was hit — in her face. And as a result, she lost her eye.

There is a good post, with some ugly comments, on the Willy Loman blog, here.

There is utter disregard for the lives and bodily integrity of those obliged to pass through — Qalandia is a scandal and a shame.

Shooting multiple rounds of tear gas cannisters in a crowded place from which there is little easy or quick escape is, I thought, banned by Israeli rules of engagement.

It is not funny, and it is not comparable, but I noted on this blog earlier that a journalist friend just happened to be driving through Qalandia at a moment when clashes erupted between demonstrators and Israeli forces posted there. Soldiers (Israelis, of course — nobody else is allowed anywhere near there) shot off stun grenades from right next to her car, and all her air bags inflated — frightening her and bruising her. She said she thought she was going to die. And, it cost many thousands of shekels at the garage to have her air bags replaced.

When it rained there in February, Qalandia was flooded. Apparently, there were storm drains constructed there when USAID improved the Qalandia road after a Hamas-free goverment was formed in Ramallah in June 2007. But recent months of Israeli remodling of the checkpoint configuration, and the lack of any rubbish removal system, clogged the storm drains. Cars which unwittingly entered the Qalandia installation were trapped in almost a meter of standing water — and of course there was no way these cars could turn around an exit. That lasted for days. Palestinian TV showed footage of one lone man driving a mini-pick-up truck who drove into the flood and could not proceed. He climbed out of his seat and onto his roof, raising his hands in the air to show the soldiers overlooking the scene that he did not have any weapon!

The traffic jams there are scandalous, and enormously stressful — there is no way to adequately describe the conditions in words, or even in pictures. You have to be there…

Recently, two skinny Palestinians in unmarked navy uniforms with neon green safety vests are sometimes on duty, during regular office hours, and they do help untangle some of the traffic on the Palestinian side, where there is also entering and exiting traffic to other destinations which has also to pass on the single two-lane road around Qalandia.

But there is no traffic control whatsoever on the Israeli approach to the crossing…

That means: by Israeli military order, no non-residents (not other Palestinians, not Israeli and international activists — even those who have been living with families there — and not even journalists) are permitted to be present from 8 am to 8 pm for at least six months (until 17 August).

This order was, apparently, actually in effect from 17 February — but it was just announced last week, more than two weeks after it went into effect. That is very characteristic of the Israeli military occupation.

The issuance of this order has drawn the attention of some Israeli activists who been visible in the Sheikh Jarrah demonstrations that have become weekly since late last year, but who have not, so far, been regulars in the weekly demonstrations in these West Bank villages.

It is not clear how they will express their solidarity today, given the closure orders. UPDATE: They went to the West Bank demonstrations…

A Jerusalem Post article by Dan Izenburg yesterday reported: that “ACRI [Association for Civil Rights in Israel] attorney Limor Yehuda said that ‘the military commander’s order will keep out Israeli and international protesters, precisely those who are recognized as having a moderating influence in the field. That raises questions about what are the reasons behind the order. If the establishment of the barrier on their land was not enough of a violation of the villagers’ human rights, in its latest act the state is failing in its duty to allow and respect the right of the residents to protest against the illegal acts being perpetrated against them’. Yesh Din legal adviser Michael Sfard said ‘the popular protest in Bil’in has become a symbol of the joint struggle of Palestinians and Israelis against the injustice and land robbery caused by the route of the security barrier’. ”

The Jerusalem Post story continued: “Earlier this month, Haaretz reported that the army was compiling a list of cars belonging to Israeli activists who routinely take part in the protests in Nil’in and Bil’in, including the names of the owners, and the make and the color of the vehicles. The army has also raided the villages at night and arrested protest leaders. In a statement issued last month, marking the fifth anniversary of the beginning of the protests in Bil’in, ACRI charged that from the very beginning, security forces took harsh measures and, sometimes, used exaggerated force to stop the protests. ‘In 2009, there was an escalation in the efforts of the security forces to repress the protest in Bil’in’, ACRI wrote. ‘Since June 2009, we have been witness to an unprecedented wave of arrests and interrogations of local residents of Bil’in, among whom number the organizers of the demonstrations against the barrier. About 37 activists have been arrested since June 2009, and some have been remanded in custody until the end of the proceedings. These arrests show that it is not a matter of “regular” law enforcement acts but preemptive operations aimed at repressing the popular and legitimate protest taking place in the village’.” This Dan Izenburg article can be read in full in the Jerusalem Post here.

Ma’an News agency is reporting that Friday prayers were held next to The Wall (which is a double fence in that rural area) in Nil’in…

There is a massive Israel police deployment, and so far things seem quiet in and around Jerusalem and Ramallah.

Palestine Television’s broadcast of the Friday prayer was this week from the Khalid ibn Waliid Mosque in Ramallah, and the sermon was given by Palestinian Authority (PA) Minister of Awqaf, Mahmoud al-Habash. He did not appear to be reading from notes — unlike all the other Friday prayer preachers in the West Bank, who have to have their words given prior authorization by the PA.  He spoke about Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (asking for support), about the land, about the future state, about freedom, and about independence…

UPDATE: reports are coming in about clashes in Hebron, and — according to SMS Israel — disturbances and  “rock-throwing all over PA areas”.

UPDATE TWO: Just found info on all the Friday demos on Twitter via jvplive (Jewish Voice for Peace — in California)… the determined Israeli activists got in and out without problems, other than suffering tear gas inhalation (Nil’in).  One demonstrator was reportedly shot in the head, however, at Nabi Saleh, near Ramallah.

UPDATE THREE:  SMS Israel says that youth threw a “fire bomb” at Israeli soldiers near Herod’s gate to the Old City — just at the start of Salah ed-Dine Street, the Champs-Elysees or Fifth Avenue of East Jerusalem

UPDATE FOUR: JMCC is reporting clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinians are underway at Shuafat Refugee Camp — formerly (and still administratively) part of the “Greater  Jerusalem Municipality”, but now living behind a huge concrete Wall and two Israeli military checkpoints.

UPDATE FIVE: Israeli activist Didi Remez reported this afternoon on Facebook and Twitter that he “drove into an IDF assault on Nabi Saleh”, and then updated with this extraordinarily good-natured announcement that he had been shot in the leg (with a “crowd-control” bullet): “Until you experience it, you can never understand it: standing 30 meters from a soldier with my hands in the air, he puts a plastic bullet in my leg and continues firing after I drop and at the guys trying to drag me to cover. Ruined my only pair of jeans ” ADD: An American woman in Palestine to support the International Solidarity Movement was shot by a rubber bullet in her left wrist, and her bone was broken. She said that the demonstration had not even begun when she was shot.

UPDATE SIX:  Ma’an News Agency’s round-up of the days events is posted here.