Checkpoint Experiences

I've been meaning to write this post since my first few weeks here. When I was helping plan the summer camp at the farm, I was traveling back and forth between Jerusalem and Bethlehem every day. This entailed passing through an Israeli checkpoint every day, once in the morning, and then again in the evening.

Separation wall between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, with a guard tower on the left that is manned 24/7. 

Walking through a checkpoint going into Bethlehem is very easy. You walk through a couple of turnstiles, encounter zero guards, and you're in. So entering the city each morning was simple. It was on my return trips back into Jerusalem every evening that were a challenge. Especially since this was my first full week in Israel/Palestine, and each time I went through the checkpoint, including the very first time, I was on my own. Now I have become used to it, and crossing from one side to the next has become routine. However, that first week I was terrified, and each evening brought a new set of experiences that were both illuminating and anxiety-producing - so I'm going to try and explain a few of them with that original mindset, to demonstrate how I felt at the time.

Experience 1: Crowded Checkpoint

Some checkpoint basics: when you approach the checkpoint from the Palestinian side, the first thing you do is go down a narrow walkway made of concrete, with bars on both sides. During peak hours of the day, these areas are filled with people in line, waiting to cross through. In the mornings, when people are trying to get to jobs in Jerusalem, it can take several hours to pass through the checkpoint. Some people wake up at 4AM in order to get to their 8AM jobs that are only a few miles away, simply because they have to allow time to cross the wall.

The walkway has concrete walls, and then bars up almost to the ceiling.

After this ramp, you encounter the first of three separate turnstiles, all of which can be shut down immediately, should the need arise. There is an IDF soldier at each of these points, one of which also involves going through a metal detector and placing your belongings through an x-ray scanner, like what they have at the airport. Finally, after crossing through each of these parts, you must show your passport and ID to a soldier in a glass-walled cubicle, before finally being allowed through.

The week I worked at the farm was during Ramadan, a Muslim holy month of fasting. During Ramadan, daily prayer becomes even more important for Muslims than usual. Kind of similar to the season of Lent for Christians. Fasting ends at sundown every day, after evening prayers. Many Muslims get permits from Israel to enter Jerusalem during this month only, specifically to be able to go up to the Dome of the Rock (the second holiest site in Islam) and pray.

This meant that every evening when I crossed back to go home, many other Palestinians were crossing over as well, in a rush to get to Jerusalem before sundown. This led to several very crowded checkpoint experiences. On this particular evening, there was a line of people along the walkway, waiting to go through the first turnstile. Whenever there are a lot of people trying to pass through the checkpoint all at once, the Israeli soldiers lock off certain access points for the sake of crowd control. They let in only 20 or so people at a time at each point, ensuring that no bottleneck occurs at the final station where ID's are checked.

Though this sounds good in theory, the reality of it is quite unsettling. Before the first turnstile, after the concrete walkway, is a small area that closely resembles a jail cell. There are bars from floor to ceiling, and only two exits - one forward, through the turnstile that is operated by a soldier in a room near by, and one backward, down the concrete ramp that is full of people wanting to go forward.

A corner of the first "room" that you walk through before passing the first turnstile.

The first of three full-body turnstiles one must go through. All of which can be shut down at any moment.

For me, having never experienced anything like this before, it felt very unnatural. Almost like I was an animal in a cage. I couldn't understand anything people were saying around me, and I didn't fully understand why the turnstile was locked and not letting people forward. People don't have as much of a sense of personal space here as they do in the U.S., and so the small caged room continued to fill, until people were standing shoulder-to-shoulder, wall-to-wall. We waited 20 minutes. Nothing happened.

Three young men, probably in their late-twenties/early-thirties, pushed their way up to the front of the bars, closest to the room where the soldier stood guard. And, by stood guard, I mean sat playing on her phone. They addressed her in Hebrew:

"Excuse me? Excuse me, miss?"
"What?" she answered.
"We need to get through. To Jerusalem. I have a doctor's appointment" (at this point they switched to English, which was helpful for me).
"You'll have to wait."

She returned to her phone. The men got frustrated. They were saying more things to her in Arabic, but I had no clue what they were. Just that their tone was no longer friendly or polite.

Fifteen more minutes passed, and I could feel the tension in the room growing. There were parents here with children - toddlers, infants. I thought about what it would be like to go through a checkpoint as a child. To watch my parents be held in a cage-like room, with no information on when they would be allowed to pass through. How hard that would be when your child asked you, "why?" I was also keenly aware that most, if not all, of the people standing around me had not eaten all day.

Finally, a buzzing sound, and a green light appeared above the turnstile. The gate began to turn again, and, all at once, everyone began to push forward. The three men from earlier began pushing forward, too. One of them blocked the other two, though, to let several women pass, myself included. This did not go over so well with one of the other ones, though, and so he shoved the guy who was letting the women pass against the bars. A scuffle broke out, in which the guy who got shoved grabbed the other by the neck and pushed him away. I wondered if being treated like animals influenced people more to act more like them, too.

I might have been freaking out a little bit. I also might have said to hell with my American notions of lines and order and waiting one's turn and instead pushed forward with all the rest of the women to get the heck out of there as fast as possible.

They let about 20 people through, and then the turnstile locked again. I was in the group that made it out, and so continued along through the rest of the checkpoint with no further delays. In total, though, it took me 45 minutes to go from one side to the next.


Experience 2: Closed Checkpoint
One night as I was approaching the checkpoint, I noticed that things seemed...different. There were tons of people gathered around outside of it, just milling about, and police barricades set up all around, blocking the entrance. There were also a dozen or so armed soldiers standing behind the gates. I paused, not really knowing what to do. But it was late, and the only way back home to my apartment was through there, so I timidly approached a soldier.

"I need to go through," I said, my voice probably cracking a little because his gun looked so intimidating, just casually resting against his hip, finger always on the trigger.
"The checkpoint is closed."
"But I live in Jerusalem" (Was definitely starting to freak out at this point).
"Let me see your passport."

I eagerly handed it to him. He examined it closely, then gave it to the soldier next to him to also look at.

"Take off your bag."

I removed my backpack and unzipped it for them to look through. They nodded their heads, then motioned me through, moving a gate to the side for me. I quickly stepped forward, continuing on my way. I was stopped by soldiers two more times as I continued through an abbreviated form of the checkpoint (they had me go through a separate gated area that excluded all the normal turnstiles). Each time they examined my passport and looked in my bag, then pointed me forward. I got the courage up to ask one of them what was happening, why the checkpoint was closed:

"Does this happen a lot?" I asked.
The two soldiers looked at each other and smirked, "During this time of the year, yes."

That was all the information I got before they ushered me forward. This time of the year? Did that mean because it was Ramadan? Or because it was the 1 year anniversary of the war with Gaza last summer?

It struck me just how little information I had about what was going on. The fact that an entire checkpoint - the sole gateway into Jerusalem for an entire population of people - could shut down instantly, and no one be provided with a reason why. It was similar to how I felt when standing in the cage-like area with other Palestinians before when the checkpoint had been crowded: the feeling that you are completely at the mercy of another person. That you have zero freedom of movement; that you are no longer in control of where you go or when.

I approached the last pair of soldiers. I could see the street that I would take to walk home - relief flooded me, I was so happy to have this ordeal almost over with. The soldiers spoke to me in Hebrew. I was momentarily confused.

"English?" I asked, hopefully.
"Your bag. Take off your bag."

Oh, right. I moved to take my backpack off again, but my nerves were shot, and the adrenaline of almost being through had me almost shaking. I was still walking towards the soldiers as I shrugged my backpack off, and I completely didn't see the crack in the sidewalk. I tripped, the half-on backpack throwing my balance off, causing me to stumble right into the soldier and his gun. Now I was definitely trembling. It was all just too much: the not knowing what was going on, the multiple ID checks by people who only spoke a handful of words in English, the fact that it was way after dark and all I wanted was to get home.

The soldiers chuckled good-naturedly. "Relax," one told me as he flipped through my passport. I could hear my heart beat in my ears. A quick look in my backpack and they sent me on my way. I almost ran past them.

As I was walking the rest of the way home (the checkpoint is about half a mile from my apartment), I walked past several Palestinian men praying on the sidewalk. It was time for evening prayers, and since they couldn't cross the checkpoint to get back home, they had laid their prayer rugs on the concrete and were kneeling there instead. The injustice of it all angered me. The fact that people were trapped in Jerusalem unable to get home, and vice versa, seemed unreal. The fact that they weren't even allowed to know why the checkpoint was closed, or given any information as to when it might re-open again, was insane.

Hot tears burned down my cheeks as I gingerly stepped around the praying men. I felt wronged by what had just happened. As if my rights had been stripped away. My right to freedom of movement, my right to know what was going on around me, my right to be given the benefit of the doubt and not be examined as if I was a criminal. Not only was I overwhelmed by all that I had just experienced, but I was also brutally aware of just how stupid and petty my frustrations fell in comparison to the lived, daily realities of so many other people.

What I had to go through once, they have to go through constantly. Plus, I got through. My U.S. passport served as a ticket out that most Palestinians can't even hope to one day have access to.

I found out later that the reason the checkpoint had been closed was because there was a stabbing somewhere in Bethlehem. A Palestinian living in Jerusalem stabbed another Palestinian living inside Bethlehem. The Jerusalemite fled across the checkpoint back into the city after the stabbing, while the family of the man who got stabbed sought revenge and burned down several shops in the area. The checkpoints were shut down to try and prevent the escalation of violence spilling over into the Jerusalem side of things.

Which I guess I get. But all I can see is the line of men unable to get home to their families, kneeling on the sidewalk, praying.


Experience 3: Passport Privilege
One of the most stressful things about being in this place of contradictions and craziness is that, just as you get comfortable or used to one way of doing something, everything changes and you're back where you started: nervous, unsure, hesitant. On yet another evening passing through the checkpoint, I encountered a large crowd. Again I was in the first jail cell-like room, packed with people, all waiting for a metal buzz that would signal our ability to move forward.

This time, though, standing and waiting there, a couple Palestinians looked at me and addressed me in broken English.

"You want to go through?" one asked, pointing to the locked turnstile.
"Yes," I said while nodding, wondering how there could be any confusion about whether I wanted to move forward or not.

To my surprise, as soon as I confirmed my intent to pass through the checkpoint, the guy who had spoken to me called out to the guard in Hebrew. Guessing from the few words I could understand, and the hand gestures used, he was telling the soldier that I wanted to pass through. The soldier looked at me, saw the whiteness of my skin, and the American-ness of my clothes, and motioned me forward up to the bars. He asked for my passport. I gave it to him. He glanced at it quickly, and then went back to his station and pushed a button, opening the turnstile.

I walked through, the other Palestinians parting to make space for me. None of them tried rushing out of the now functioning turnstile. None of them even seemed phased by me getting an automatic free pass. I guess they were used to foreigners being allowed to skip ahead. As soon as I was through the turnstile locked back into place, leaving the growing crowd of people trapped inside.

I moved onward to the next set of gates, expecting to see yet another crowd of people waiting. That was how it was the last time I had to wait - they were spreading the people out, only letting a few through at a time. But this time was not like that. I walked through the other turnstiles without encountering a single other person. The entirety of the rest of the checkpoint was completely empty, even when I got up to the ID check, where normally there would be a few lines of people - - nothing.

I showed my passport and then walked out, wondering why all those other people were being made to wait. Wondering what would have happened if I had shown my American ID, but refused to move forward until the turnstile unlocked for everyone, not just me.