Checkpoints

I'm sure that my faithful blog readers have been dying to know what it's like for me to pass through a military checkpoint every day. What, exactly, does one do when passing through a military checkpoint? (And why would someone ever choose to do it every day?) I am quite aware that this could turn into a controversial political conversation about the need for checkpoints or the need for a separation barrier or the suffering of the Palestinians, etc. etc. Personally, checkpoints are not my favorite place in the world to hang out, and some days I feel that each checkpoint crossing takes another 6 months off of my life. Some days I get so angry that it takes me several hours to recover from the crossing. But, let's try to keep this post light, shall we? You don't all need to know about my anger problems or anything else. This, hopefully, will be an educational post to give you an idea of what checkpoints are like. And while there are many checkpoints between the West Bank and Israeli territory, as well as within the West Bank itself, I will focus on the Bethlehem 300 (Rachel's Tomb) checkpoint.

This is a (very) rough sketch of the Bethlehem checkpoint. I know, my Paint skills are incredible. I kept it this unprofessional just in case I really am being spied on. There's no way that anyone could accuse me of passing along dangerous information with this drawing. :) (Just for reference, the dark boxes are soldier's booths, the x's are turnstiles, and the arrows are directions of traffic. The numbered areas are different smaller checkpoints within the checkpoint.)

When approaching the checkpoint from the Bethlehem side, this is what you see:

There is a big wall and a long line stretching about 100 meters. I'm not really sure how to describe the path that you walk down--I always call it "the cattle stalls" because I feel a bit like an animal being contained in a holding pen until I can cross checkpoint #1 (labeled on my drawing).


Here is a view of the inside of the middle "stall." I thought the smoke made for a dramatic touch photographically, and it also adds a nice picture of reality. When you're stuck in line here and 40% of the men are smoking, or even just one person who is standing in your close vicinity, there's no way to escape. Many days I have arrived to the university smelling like I, myself, smoked 6 packs just that morning.

There are three "lanes" or stalls or whatever leading up to the checkpoint #1. I have labelled them with arrows that signify which direction they go: the one closest to the wall is for those coming in to Bethlehem, while the two outer ones are for those leaving to go into Jerusalem.

When the checkpoint is crowded (mostly early in the morning), the men use the middle lane and women, children, old people, sick people on their way to the hospital, and tourists use the "express" lane. Many mornings when I have crossed I have seen the line of men (2-3 across within the lane) stretching all the way back to the taxi area. On those days, I'm so glad that I can use the lane for women.

Of course, there are no signs telling you if the middle lane is crowded with men or is open (it's impossible to see all the way in from the entrance by the taxis) and there is also no sign at the bottom telling you if the women/elderly/tourist lane is open or not. There are turnstiles at the top (the x's on the diagram), and if they aren't open (they are controlled by the soldiers who sit in the blue boxes on the diagram--every dark box is a station where soldiers sit), you have to wait until the soldier unlocks it for you. Some days, for reasons beyond my imagination, they decide not to open the women/elderly/tourist checkpoint. Which is always frustrating because I usually find that out after walking all the way up. As there is no way to cross from the tourist lane into the middle lane at the top, I have to walk all the way back down to the bottom and then back up through the middle lane. On rainy days this inspires less than happy thoughts from me.

On days that the women/elderly lane (I will call this lane #3) is closed because the middle lane is open and free, you just walk up the middle lane, pass through checkpoint #1, and continue to the next one. However, some days lane #3 is closed but there are still lots and lots of men filling lane #2. Thankfully, it doesn't happen that often, but when it does there is a "rule of chivalry" that states that women get to pass through to the front of the line. Although I'm sure not every man is thrilled with this "rule," if there are women standing at the back of the line the sea of men will part and allow the women to pass through. If some men don't see (or don't want to move) and the women (there are usually only 1-4 at a time) have to stop, a man standing by will always shout, "Clear the way, guys, we have some women coming through." It is always incredibly embarrassing and incredibly gratifying at the same time. I will be the first to admit that there are a lot of problems regarding the treatment of women in the Middle East. But this idea that women should not have to wait in line with hundreds of men but instead should cut to the front is an awesome one, in my opinion. And although I was terrified the first time I had to pass through a narrow space surrounded by hundreds of men, knowing how vulnerable I was, they always press themselves against the side and try to give us as much space as possible so we can pass through without touching anyone or being touched.

When you get to checkpoint #1, there is a soldier sitting in a booth (don't worry, it's completely enclosed and bullet-proof, giving as little contact as possible with those passing through) to whom you show your id/passport. This is more of a "just checking to make sure you have it before you go through to the next stations" kind of checkpoint. And if it's possible to have a favorite checkpoint soldier, there is a soldier who is often at this checkpoint in the morning that is my favorite. He speaks Arabic (most of the soldiers don't) and stands outside of the booth checking ids. He greets the people coming through (in Arabic) and is usually smiling. And whenever I go through he says "morning," in English, all nice and pleasant like. 

After checkpoint number one, you walk across an empty parking lot and enter building #2.

You walk down some more lanes and enter the area of checkpoint #2. Checkpoint #2's area is divided into three different checkpoints, all of which lead to the same place. Here, again, when there are lots of men in the morning, the women duck through separator bars and cut to the front of the lines. The men step back and clear the way for the women (usually just one or two in each line at a time--mostly men cross early in the morning), which, again, is great and saves me so much time and frustration.

Usually, the wait time at the turnstile at checkpoint #2 is short and predictable. The soldiers (who can't be seen from the line waiting outside the turnstile, as they sit in the booths inside; don't worry, they can see everything going on because there are cameras everywhere) open the turnstile, let three people through, and then lock it while they put their stuff on a conveyor belt scanner and pass through a metal detector, grab their stuff, and proceed to checkpoint #3. If there are any problems, the soldiers get on the loudspeaker from inside the booth and tell the person to go through again, take the belt off, it's the shoes, etc. Sometimes they even do it in Arabic, although I think most of them only know a few key phrases ("one at a time!" seems to be the most popular Arabic phrase spoken here).

Sometimes, however, for reasons that none of us are made aware of, there is a wait at checkpoint #2. Maybe the soldiers are switching posts. Maybe they need a bathroom break. Maybe they are just tired of sitting there and need to walk around. But whatever the reasoning, they don't say anything. They just keep the turnstile locked, and all of us outside the turnstile get more and more restless. If this were a customer service situation, I would suggest that they announce over the loudspeaker that there will be a delay of about 10 minutes and they apologize for the inconvenience. But it's not a customer service situation, it's a military checkpoint, so I guess such a suggestion is unnecessary.

Once you get through checkpoint #2, you proceed to checkpoint #3. This checkpoint has the least delays. The Palestinians have a magnetic id and a paper permit that shows that they are allowed to cross into Jerusalem. They put their id on the magnetic strip, hold up their paper to the window (the soldiers are sitting in booths), and sometimes have to put their hand on the fingerprint reader. The magnetic card reader allows all of the information and picture of the person to show up on the soldier's computer screen, and if everything is ok they are cleared to go through. Foreigners show their passport and visa stamp and are then also allowed to pass through.

Some mornings go smoothly and I get through in less than 10 minutes. But some mornings, by the time I get through I'm ready to go to bed and wish the day was over already!

Has anyone else ever been through checkpoints (besides airport security)? And what was it like?

From the West Bank to the Moon

I moved to Beit Sahour, a small town in the West Bank next to Bethlehem, for several reasons. I thought I knew fully what I was getting into in terms of crossing the military checkpoint daily (which hopefully I will write about in the next few days!), seeing life from a different perspective, and the increased need for Arabic.

What I didn't account for, however, was my increased "coolness" rating in the eyes of Israelis!

For those of you who aren't aware of the intricacies of the political situation in Israel and the West Bank, many West Bank residents are not allowed to go into Israel (you have to have a pass issued by the Israeli government if you want to go. People who work in Jerusalem, etc can usually get passes, and sometimes they are given to go to hospitals in Israel), and Israelis are not allowed to go into the West Bank (but settlers have changed the definition of what is the "West Bank"...which discussion I will not get into on this blog post).

This presents a very, very odd situation. There are many Israelis that live in Jerusalem that have never been to Bethlehem (the two cities border each other, kind of like Provo and Springville). The Separation Wall between the two cities limits travel quite effectively, but I have found that it also presents the idea of "anything behind the Wall = very dangerous" to the Israelis.

So naturally, when I tell my Israeli friends that I live in Beit Sahour (which is about as dangerous as Provo), they have one of two reactions.

Reaction #1--Freak Out. "You live in the West Bank?! Are you ok? Why do you live there? Don't you know that it's dangerous?" Some of them freak out in a very calm, scholarly way. "Oh. You live in the West Bank? That's...interesting. Why did you choose to live there? Couldn't you have practiced your Arabic in East Jerusalem?"

To these people, I just laugh and say that actually, Beit Sahour is much safer than East Jerusalem, in my opinion, and too many people speak English in Jerusalem!

Reaction #2--youarethecoolestpersonihaveevermet, iamsojealous, andwhatsitlikethere? This is naturally my favorite reaction. My coolness rating goes up about 400% when I tell people that I live in the West Bank. "Wow! What's it like there? What do they do for fun? (They go to bed at night. Seriously. The streets are empty at like 7:30 pm. It's not like Jerusalem, with clubs and restaurants that stay open. Nope. Everyone just goes to bed.) What are the houses like? What are the people like?" I am taking an Arabic class in the city (not at the university), and most of my class is Israeli men between the age of 24-30. One day they were asking everyone what they do to practice Arabic. ("Like, do you have Arab friends? Who do you talk to?" Such an odd thing to ask when half the city is native Arab speakers! Welcome to life in Jerusalem!) When they asked me, I said, "I live in Beit Sahour" like it was no big deal. And you should have seen the jaws drop around the room! "You live in Beit Sahour?!" they said wistfully. Now they ask me about it all the time. And I know they all wish they could just come and visit me, just to see what life is like on the other side (and use their Arabic!!).

A few days ago I was at a "mix-n-mingle" (it was the Israeli version of speed dating). I was talking to this guy, and after the first few "get to know you questions," he asked, "So what do you do for fun in Jerusalem? Like, do you go to clubs, or what?" And I was like, "Actually, I live in Beit Sahour."

"Wait, wait, wait," he said. "You just keep getting cooler and cooler. Next I expect you to tell me that you work for NASA and you're going to the moon tomorrow!"

So basically, me living in the West Bank is just as cool (and just as unfathomable) to Israelis as going to the moon!

I was talking to him a few days later and I said, "You know, I've been telling everyone how funny it is that you think me living in the West Bank is like going to the moon! I know you don't really think it, but it's a pretty funny story!" And he said, "No, no, I really do think it! To me, you living in the West Bank is just as unfathomable as you going to the main city square in Iran or Afghanistan just after the British got kicked out and shouting, 'I love the British!' or something like that!"

So there you have it. I might never make it to the moon, but I guess now I can claim something almost as cool. I live in the West Bank!

"Something There Is that Doesn't Love a Wall"

I thought that reposting this photo essay of pictures of walls in Jerusalem (especially the separation wall separating Israeli and Palestinian territories) and the poem "Mending Wall" by Robert Frost that I originally posted on my Arabic blog would be appropriate after my post on Hebron. When I read the poem several years ago, I immediately thought about the separation wall. When we build walls, what are we keeping in and what are we keeping out?

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,

And spills the upper boulders in the sun;

And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

The work of hunters is another thing:

I have come after them and made repair

Where they have left not one stone on stone,

But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,

To please the yelping dogs.

The gaps I mean,

No one has seen them made or heard them made,

But at spring mending-time we find them there.

I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;

And on a day we meet to walk the line

And set the wall between us once again.

We keep the wall between us as we go.

To each the boulders that have fallen to each.

To each the boulders that have fallen to each.

And some are loaves and some so nearly balls

We have to use a spell to make them balance:

"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"

We wear our fingers rough with handling them.

Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,

One on a side. It comes to little more:

He is all pine and I am apple-orchard.

My apple trees will never get across

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

He only says, "Good fences make good neighbors."

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder

If I could put a notion in his head:

"Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it

Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offence.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That wants it down!"

I could say "Elves" to him,

But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather

He said it for himself. I see him there,

Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top

In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

He moves in darkness as it seems to me,

Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

He will not go behind his father's saying,

And he likes having thought of it so well

He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

Hebron

I have wanted to go to Hebron for years now. Not only is Hebron home to the Tomb of the Patriarchs, where tradition has it that Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, and Jacob and Leah (Rachel is buried in Bethlehem) are entombed (on the land that Abraham bought for Sarah when she died), but Hebron has been a hotly contested site in the past several years (it is a Palestinian city in the West Bank, but there are many Jews who want to live or visit there because of the holiness of the Tomb).

However, Hebron is behind the Separation Wall, deep in the West Bank, and when I was here several years ago it was a hotbed of violent activity. For these reasons I have felt like Hebron would be a very dangerous place to go and visit.

But I really wanted to go, so I checked the news (nothing violent for months!), found a friend (Sabra, who is from America and studying Arabic here in Jerusalem), and hopped on a bus.

It is actually quite easy to get to most big cities in the West Bank. There are two central Palestinian bus stations across from Damascus Gate in Jerusalem (one for busses going north and one for busses going south), and even if those busses don't go where you want to go, you can transfer in one of those cities to another bus.

The best part? Bus tickets are actually pretty cheap on Palestinian busses. It costs 7 shekels to get to Beit Sahour (next to Bethlehem and inside the Separation Wall) and just 6 shekels to get from there to Hebron.

The bus ride to Hebron was beautiful! I felt like I was in the Jordanian countryside...which I never thought I would miss, but it was so nice to get out of the city. I even saw one tree with leaves that had changed to red for fall! (It's stayed pretty green around here...olive leaves just don't ever change color!)

The bus dropped us off downtown, and we walked through the Old City to get to the Tomb. The dynamics in Hebron are really very strange. Hebron is a Palestinian city, as I stated before, deep in the West Bank, but since it is also holy to Jews, there are about 500 settlers there. And according to the Lonely Planet guidebook, there are about 4,000 Israeli soldiers posted there to keep the peace!

I usually try to stay away from too much political discourse on my blog. After all, I am studying Arabic and Hebrew in Jerusalem so I can promote peace on both sides. But I will say that I do not agree with the settlers' ideology at all. And actually, according to the UN and the rest of the world, the Israeli settlements scattered throughout the West Bank are illegal and only serve to delay the peace process. In order to create roads for the settlers to drive on, they have to take more land from the Palestinians, in addition to the land taken for the settlement. I have found Israelis, on the whole, to be quite kind. But it seems like the settlers' ideology is one of entitlement--that just because this land was holy to their ancestors, they should get it.

It is a difficult thing to live with anywhere, but I think the situation is particularly tense in Hebron. So it didn't surprise me at all to have to pass through two checkpoints to get into the synagogue side of the Tomb (we couldn't go to the mosque side because it was closed for Friday prayers). The Tomb is divided into two sides (with a wall in between and separate entrances) because both faiths lay claim to the site.

According to Wikipedia, it was Herod the Great that built the first big structure over the caves, the Byzantines that added a roof, and Salah Ad-Din that added the minarets and turned it into a mosque. The Byzantines worshipped there for hundreds of years, so I'm surprised that the Christians haven't laid claim to part of the building, too! (Oh wait, they did...in 1100 the Crusaders conquered the place and no longer allowed Muslims to worship there. But even though Salah Ad-Din conquered it back in 1188, he allowed Christians to continue worshipping there.)

Anyway. Enough with the history and politics. I think in keeping with the integrity of the site, none of the Islamic paintings on the walls have been covered up or painted over (and according to Wikipedia, the waqf, the Islamic ruling body, has control over the maintenance of the site). So the cenotaphs of Abraham and the rest are covered with Arabic writing, the walls are painted in Arabic, and Hebrew signs and Torah scrolls fill the rooms. It's very odd.

This holds the Torah scroll in the room between Abraham and Sarah's cenotaphs (the caves are underneath and inaccessible). See the Arabic on the wall? And see the Hebrew on the box for the Torah scroll?

This is on the cenotaph of Abraham. It's Arabic.

No one is allowed to get close to the cenotaphs. This is looking in on Abraham's.

This is looking in at the room between Abraham and Sarah's cenotaphs. Abraham's cenotaph is on the right, Sarah's is on the left.

Both the Jews and the Muslims have washing rituals to cleanse themselves before worship. This is a Muslim cleansing station (they wash their hands and their feet, which is why it is so low) that now serves as a Jewish cleansing station.

Standing at the top of the synagogue, looking out over the city. The Old City (where mostly Palestinians live) is on the left, the settlement is (I think) on the right.

Soldiers guarding the road. I don't know if everything was closed because it was Friday prayers or because the Israelis closed the road so the settlers could use it, like one of the residents told us, but it was a pretty empty street. I'll have to go back when it's not Friday and see what life is really like.

The left side, behind the barriers, is for the Palestinians and leads to the Old City and the mosque side of the Tomb. The rest of it is for the settlers and leads to the synagogue side of the Tomb.

Sabra and I were walking through the Old City when we saw something fluttering in the breeze above our heads (Sabra was so shocked she just stared):

There are lots of checkpoints (I don't know if they are active) throughout the city. Here is one of them. Behind this wall is an Israeli building.

My visit to Hebron was fascinating and very enlightening. I am anxious to go again, this time on a weekday so I can see normal life (most things shut down on Fridays for Friday prayers). It makes me feel ill when I think about the injustices and horrors done on both sides and how both sides are suffering for it now. But whenever I get too weighed down by these things, I see restaurants like the "Happy Bunny" and I laugh again. So just in case you feel too weighed down by this post, here's the Happy Bunny (taken from the bus window as we were leaving Hebron).