Jewish grandmothers patrol West Bank checkpoints
Pastor Dale Morgan
Jewish grandmothers patrol West Bank checkpoints*
By Bernd Debusmann, Special Correspondent
Reuters
Sunday, March 18, 2007; 7:42 PM
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Hanna Barag remembers the day an Israeli soldier
called her a Palestinian whore. She was 67 and had just joined
Machsomwatch, an all-woman group set up to curb human rights abuses at
military checkpoints in the West Bank.
"It was at the Qalandia checkpoint between Jerusalem and Ramallah,"
Barag said, "and the remark at first struck me speechless. But then I
asked him two questions: 'Do you really think a woman my age has a
chance at that profession? And would you say what you said to me to your
grandmother?"'
The soldier said nothing but was embarrassed, and when Barag, who was
born in Israel and describes herself as a Zionist, returned for another
"shift" of watchdog duty a week later, the soldier was there -- and
apologized.
That was in the early days of Machsomwatch, set up in 2001 by three
Israeli women who were alarmed by a spate of reports of beatings and
abuse of Palestinians at the hands of Israeli soldiers manning checkpoints.
The group takes its name from the Hebrew word for checkpoint, machsom.
From a few dozen in the beginning, Machsomwatch now numbers around 500,
many of them grandmothers, who take turns watching 40-odd checkpoints in
the West Bank.
"We do this 364 days a year," said Barag. "Except for Yom Kippur (the
most solemn Jewish holiday)."
The sight of Barag, now 71 and just five feet tall, recently in action
at a busy checkpoint south of Nablus shows why women are more effective
than men in dealing with soldiers when lines are long and tempers frayed.
After conveying, with a smile, a complaint to an officer who towered
over her bird-like figure, she remarked: "Who wants to fight with a
little old lady?"
STILLBORN BABIES
Over the years, Machsomwatch has recorded a long list of checkpoint
incidents: babies stillborn to mothers held up in queues, sick patients
denied passage to hospitals, arguments that ended in Palestinians shot,
food rotting on the way to market, students missing their final exams
and bridegrooms their weddings.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
in Jerusalem says there are 528 permanent and temporary checkpoints in
the West Bank, 40 percent more than a year ago.
Most are not between the West Bank and Israel but between West Bank
towns and villages, a fact that makes anti-occupation Israelis and
Palestinians doubt the Israeli government's contention that their
primary purpose is security.
"The idea is to make life so unpleasant and so uncomfortable for them
that they just give up and leave, emigrate to an Arab country, to
Canada, wherever they can go," said Nomi Lalo, another veteran of
Machsomwatch.
For Palestinians, the checkpoints, and the permits they need to cross
them, are a constant source of anger, resentment and frustration.
"The checkpoints haunt your mind," said Sireen Droubi, a teacher who has
to go through several on her commute from her home village to work in
the northern West Bank city of Tulkarm.
"You think of them all the time. You never know how long it will take to
pass them. You can't make plans. It's like living in a cage."
CRITICISM
The vast majority of Israelis think checkpoints and travel restrictions
for the 2.4 million Palestinians in the West Bank are needed to protect
Israel from Palestinian suicide bombers.
"As long as they bomb us, let them stand in line as long as it takes,"
said one Tel Aviv resident. "If it's 10 hours, too bad." Tel Aviv has
been the target of several suicide bombs, the latest last April. It
killed nine people and injured 50 at a popular restaurant.
Barag and several of her fellow activists are on a right-wing group's
Internet list of "Self-Hating Israel-Threatening (SHIT) Jews" and the
right-wing volunteer group Women in Green has called them Judeonazis.
Some Machsomwatch members also face criticism from their own families.
"My four brothers all served in the army and they think I'm crazy," said
Barag. Her own army service included a stint as a secretary for Moshe
Dayan, then chief of staff of the Israeli armed forces.
Lalo has two sons who have completed their army service and a
17-year-old who is about to begin. "My eldest is very critical of what I
do. But I think it's important. We are making a difference."
How much is difficult to judge but the women's monthly incident log,
published on its Web site (www.machsomwatch.org), is read by the Israeli
Defense Force, advocacy groups and probably at least one member of Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert's family. His left-wing daughter, Dana, belongs to
Machsomwatch.