UN-Truth

On Tuesday evening, at almost the very last minute, I received a press invitation to attend a reading
by the enormously important and iconic Palestinian poets, Mahmoud Darwish, in Ramallah.

I had just returned from Ramallah — and experienced the worst traffic situation I had ever been in, around the fortress Qalandia checkpoint which Israel now describes as a border crossing between two countries, even though there is only one real country here, and that is Israel. The state of Palestine has yet to come into being, and despair here is such that most people now feel that it will never exist.

In the hot — baking hot — sun, and under the watchful eyes of the Israeli IDF overlords in their reinforced concrete bunkers, and enormous traffic jam quickly built up, like a mudslide, or a tsunami wave. There was no visible cause — no car accident, nothing at all. It could have been IDF holding up cars at another checkpoint further down the road, near the village of Jaba’a, just across from the Israeli settlement of Adom.

But, because the IDF, which rules the West Bank, refuses to allow any Palestinian police, or security forces, or even traffic cops, anywhere near where they are, there is no law, and no order, in the vicinity of the Qalandia checkpoint — or anywhere else in the West Bank for that matter, with the possible exception of Ramallah, and its emerging class of robo-cops.

So, one lane of Palestinian traffic flowing around Qalandia became two (Palestinian cars passing those who more obediently, and stupidly, stayed in the single outbound lane. THen it becam three lanes, with Palestinian cars trying to take advantage of passing on the shoulder of the road. Then, at the first traffic circle round-about, which was blocked in the correct (counter-clockwise) direction, the three lanes of outbound Palestinian cars then moved to fill in the open space on the other half of the traffic circle.

There were big, huge trucks, loaded with materials, mainly construction materials — the one thing the Palestinians are doing, whereever possible, is building. There were mid-size vans with big engines and big tires, driven by aggressive types who behave as if they are the kings of the road. And there were the normal passenger cars, who were so low down, and so packed in all this quick flow of advantage-seeking vehicles that nobody, absolutely nobody.

And, the IDF sat in their control tower, and did nothing.

I was there for over an hour.

At one point, a convoy of five enormous SUVs with thick darkened windows, which had passed me earlier, and had been stuck up ahead, turned around on the side of the road and headed back into the thick of the mess with all their lights blinking and flashing. They headed straight for me, and blinked and flashed their lights.

I realized they were Americans, and either from the embassy in Tel Aviv, or the consulate in Jerusalem, or both. I got out of my car. The security man in the suit in the front seat of the lead car looked ill. I approached, and Ameircan guys in short sleeve shorts with coiled wires leading to communications earpieces jumped out on both sides of the convoy and walked towards me. “Move your car”, they ordered — but in a calm tone of voice. “I would be happy to, if you can bring a construction crane to lift it out”, I replied. “Why did you turn around, and double back — what is going on ahead?” I asked. Maybe they could see, sitting higher up. “Just move your car”.

Seveal of them walked forward, and calmly directed traffic just the few centimeters that were possible in that mess.

Nobody expressed hostility toward the U.S. security men, or the convoy, and a few more centimeters space was clear. The cars ahead of me moved, and I then could move, and the convoy beat it back.

The IDF must have seen all this — and they must also have been in contact with the American convoy, which was headed back into the thick of a crazy Palestinian traffic jam created în an area where no Palestinian police or traffic cops were allowed.

The convoy must have been waved through Qalandia, or else they high-tailed it back into and across Ramallah, to exit from the DCI (District Coordination Office, or something, also run of course by the IDF), which only “authorized” persons can transit. It was impossible to see anything more than a few cars in front or behind.

And a few Palestinian civilians, men of course, were on the road at the intersection ahead, giving in an uncoordinated way directions to cars to move or to wait. They slowly, gradually, allowed some of the cars to move ahead. But it took more than an hour.

All of this under the watchful but indifferent eyes of the IDF in their concrete reinforced control tower, who don’t give a damn what their checkpoints and Walls and associated regime — including the banning of Palestinian police or traffic cops anywhere in the near vicinity — do to Palestinian lives.

When I finally got home, and showered after soaking in perspiration and dust, I found the email invitation to the Mahmoud Darwish event.

I returned, and found that the traffic was still jammed up around Qalandia — it had only lessened a bit.
So I headed up to the DCO, many kilometers away, which would bring me across town to the opposite side of Ramallah from the “Cultural Palace” where the big event was taking place.

When Mahmoud Darwish finally took the stage — after a couple of minutes of silence for the “Shuhada”, or Palestinian martyrs killed in the conflict, and the playing of the Palestinian “national anthem” (during which only two of the dozen uniformed Palestinian security men in the audience, apparently as guests,
snapped to salute), and two long and boring political speeches (the mayor of Ramallah and the mayor of al-Bireh) — he recited a few of his more recent poems.

When he entered, Mahmoud Darwish received a long standing ovation. And, when he took the stage, there was another standing ovation. But as the reading proceeded, the audience was quieter, calmer, less enthusiastic than previous audiences I have seen at Mahmoud Darwish events around the world.
I left over two hours later, before it ended.

One of the poems he recited was, apparently, a dialog between a Palestinian and an Israeli who had both fallen into a pit, and were experiencing fear, doubt and despair as they waited for a rescue, for help from the outside, that did not come.

One line I got: ” ‘I told him, “maybe”. Anything is possible”.

Filed under: Boundaries & Borders, Human Rights, International Law, Israel, Middle East Peace Process, Palestine & Palestinians, Register of damages due to The Wall