The Road to Jenin

Our trip to Jenin turned out to be epic. It brought the weight of the Occupation totally to bear on the five of us. It was a long and difficult day.

The Servees - with its seven seats - was filled with the five of us and a mother and her three infant children. For what turned out to be a brutal three hour trip - her three children were remarkably composed. I put it down to the "making routine of the absurd". The Occupation is not only morally bankrupt, but devoid of logic. Any North American child would have been in tears or demanding "are we there yet" in the cramped, sweltering heat of the taxi, stopped as it was every 16km for another long line to go through a checkpoint. Outside of Whitby, parents are sitting in their air-conditioned cars trying their best not to snap at their kids as they idle on the 401 on their way to soccer practice. Here, parents stare straight ahead or lie back as their kids fall asleep or play with the seat belt. The line of cars stretches around the bend for god knows how far. You could be here, waiting in line to be questioned by an 18 year old from New York about where you are from and where you are going for hours but instead of getting mad you lie back and let it happen. What else are you to do?

Five checkpoints up to Jenin.
Five checkpoints back to Ramallah.
All within the West Bank.
None between the West Bank and Israel.
80 km up. 80 km back.
6 hours.
checkpoint east of Nablus - over an hour in line.

At one point on the way up, our cabbie stops and picks up boxes of paint supplies. Sitting in the rear - at each checkpoint - we have to get out for fear of being overwhelmed by the fumes. We sit on the guardrail. Stare at the guardtower. Talk about the settlements we've passed. They're expanding - not shrinking as Olmert wants the world to believe. They're perched on hills above the roads. With their uniform red roofs they're like children with their tongues sticking out - adding insult to injury to every Palestinian on the road. Stuck at a checkpoint.

At one checkpoint the driver urges us to go up and talk to the soldiers. Maloomat and Jundee - the two blonde-haired Americans are our delegates. Showing the American passport gets us to the front of the line twice out of the ten checkpoints - the other times they are told to get back in the taxi. It makes us all feel dirty that we are using our passports and the colour of our skin (Palestinians with American passports are still treated like Palestinians - not Americans). But its at our drivers urging and the mother with her three kids certainly hopes it works. The first time it works we pull up to the soldier. He opens the door and asks us where we are from.
"Americans and Canadians" Maloomat says.
"Canadians?" he responds looking at the three of us in the back row - our passports in hand.
"Yes" we respond in unison.
"Canada is my country" he states with a broad smile. We are silent. Dumbfounded.
"Where in Canada?" he asks
"Toronto" Majnoon and al-Hawal answer. "Montreal" I say - just to keep it diverse.
"Where in Montreal do you live?" he asks with the smile back on his face.
"Downtown - St. Laurent" I answer.
"Bahh. I'm from Cote-St.Luc" he answers. "You know it?"

Of course I know it. Cote-St. Luc near where the mother of a friend of mine lives, has a large Jewish community. The main thoroughfare through the neighbourhood is lined with Jewish National Fund signs. Last time I was there I wondered how many of those giving blindly to what they think is a Jewish charitable organization are aware of what the funds are used for. I wondered if they knew that the JNF doesn't help "world Jewry" but puts it in danger.

I wonder why a kid from a well off Montreal neighbourhood has decided that he wants to move to Israel and join the IDF. To serve in the Occupied Territories ostensibly protecting Jewish Settlers who are the root cause of most of the conflict in the region. Settlers whose religious fanaticism continues to place Jewish people around the world in danger. I'm reminded of the draft of my own Masters thesis that I just finished and I wondered if a childish fascination with guns and power drove this kid from the comforts of Montreal into what could turn out to be a nightmare for him.



On the way back from Jenin - the only other time the American passports work - the soldier is from Paris and strikes up a conversation in French with Majnoon. "Paris!?!" Majnoon exclaims as we drive off. "You gave up Paris for this?!!!?"

Outside of Nablus we wait for over an hour in line. My friends strike up a conversation with an Architecture Prof from the University where we study. I stretch out in the back of the cab and try to drift off to sleep. The heat is brutal and I can't nap. I get up and take a picture of my friends from the side of the car. They're now sitting on the guardrail along the side of the road. I want to get the picture of them staring off to the front of the long line of cars. The picture I take contains more than that, I realize later. At the front of the line, is an ambulance. In my picture, you see my friends sitting there and when you zoom in you see two soldiers questioning a man covered in bandages standing outside of the back ambulance doors. I guess the treatment this man clearly needs is irrelevant. I guess they couldn't have asked him questions while he stayed in the Ambulance? He needed to be out of the van, standing in the heat, covered in bandages.

When we get up to the front of that line I figure out why he was made to get out of the Ambulance. The soldiers there are pricks. "Get out" they tell us in broken Arabic. We get out. "Line up" they tell us. The five of us line up. They look at our passports while still leaning against the cement barricade that blocks the way. Another soldier rips our passports out of the other soldier's hand. Apparently he wants to have a look as well. After a few minutes of standing there, in a line, watching them look at us, look at our passports, pretend to be finished only to look some more, waiting for them to (hopefully) return our passports to us and (hopefully) permit us to pass, they tell us to get back in the cab and we are allowed to go. The usual jokes about the absurdity of the checkpoints that come after most of them aren't expressed.

We've just been treated like shit - like a Palestinian is treated - and we know it.

***
Pictures:
1. Trying to sleep at a checkpoint outside of Nablus
2. Majnoon, al-Hawal, a group of students from al-Najah University trying to get to class, and a man, covered in bandages, being questioned by teenage IDF soldiers behind an Ambulance.