Checkpoints

Driving around the West Bank, one comes across what look like toll booths. But there are no toll roads here, and the little huts are accompanied by cement watch towers, and sometimes cement corral structures by the side of the road. Oh, and those manning the huts are holding guns.

Israeli checkpoints lie throughout the West Bank, not just on the borders, and one can't drive far before encountering one. In previous years, everyone would have to pass through on foot, but I've read that in recent years, the operation has been vastly scaled down, allowing much more freedom of movement in the West Bank. I spent more than a month here, making many trips to Jenin and one to Bethlehem without actually being stopped at a checkpoint.

The checkpoint nearest Ramallah on the way to Jenin is now deserted, leaving an empty hut and a watchtower surrounded by a barbed wire fence and covered in blue graffiti of a star of David and Hebrew letters where the road leading to Ramallah and the surrounding villages enters the major highway.

The other checkpoint on that trip is at a major intersection of two highways. Soldiers watch cars pass through, generally without stopping them, but there was often a car or two by the side of the road being searched. Additionally, the cars have to slow down to pass through the checkpoint, and during busy times, the road is backed up several miles back.

Each time I told someone that I hadn't been stopped, they said I must be lucky. Finally, however, on a drive to Bethlehem one night, it seemed that all the checkpoints were stopping people. Sometimes the soldiers would ask for passports, sometimes they would want to search the trunk, or would question us as to where we were coming from, where we were going and why. Keep in mind, we were still within the West Bank, not trying to cross a border or enter Israel.

When we opened the window, we would usually ask if they spoke English, but I didn't hear any spoken. One of my friends spoke some Hebrew, which he said he's learned at checkpoints, so he would use that, and everyone else would speak whatever language they knew. The first checkpoint demanded our passports and wanted us to turn on the light. However, it took us a while to figure it out, because they were telling us in Hebrew. We tried opening the glove compartment and popping the trunk before someone figured out what they wanted.

At one of the four checkpoints we passed, I timed the stop. It took about 20 minutes, even though there were probably only five or six cars ahead of us. It seemed like every time they let someone pass, they would stand and talk for a minute before bringing the next one up.

At the last checkpoint, they took our passports and told us to pull to the side. They said we had to get out and everyone groaned. I think that my friend was begging them not to make us—especially the two girls, though all this was being said in broken Hebrew, so I don't really know. They only made the two guys get out though, looked under the seats, in the trunk and glove compartment, asked a few more questions and handed back the passports. All they while, there was a gun pointed out of the toll-booth shack.