Don't say you didn't know

[Englander]

Esti Tsal is a Machsomwatch activist, photographer,
and one of the curators of the exhibition Endless Checkpoints

Esti Tsal

Twice a day, every day small groups of women (up to five members) set out for checkpoints around the West Bank, from Jenin in the north, to Hebron in the south. Some go once a week, others once a fortnight.

Some of us are young, others older, some very old. We stand vigil at the checkpoint for several hours, observe and record everything we see and hear.

At the end of each vigil we write a detailed report, in Hebrew and English, of everything we've seen and heard, and post it on our website. Many of us also carry cameras, and our annual reports and other publications are distributed to government bodies, Knesset members, legal and security officials, and local and foreign media.

Why do we do it? First and foremost, to know more than we're being told.

We do it to see for ourselves, so that we can't say we didn't know. We do it to protest, to tell others the whole story, including the things most people do not want to know.


Much, much more at;
Ynet

[Tom Joad]

1. Having witnessed the routine and banality of the evil at the checkpoints

I am so thankful this group exists.

Most of the violence directed against nearly every Palestinian, every day of their lives occurs without a single drop of blood being shed. It is very real nonetheless. I saw the threats against grandmothers who simply want to return home after a doctor visit, the crying of children in fear of the soldiers. The constant threats. Not to mention the sheer sadistic cruelty of some of the sicker, long-term soldiers.

And for what? Many of these checkpoints are between Palestinian areas, no where near Israel. It is hard to see that they are even "protecting" the illegal settlements, much less Israel. It seems the reason is much more directed towards destroying Palestinian society.

On a daily basis, Israel attacks every Palestinian with systematic variety. The aggregation is lethal, even if the killing of a nine-year-old girl or setting a dog on an elderly woman are not daily occurrences. It's that aggregation that undermines any attempt to conduct a normal life. It's being locked up in the West Bank's enclaves, so that simple routines like going to school, work, or visiting family are impossible. There's the unceasing expropriation of land for roads and security fences for settlements; the trees uprooted by the army, livelihoods that are cut off daily, and the insult of that; the army's prohibition, on security grounds, against accessing farm and grazing lands; the break-ins to houses in the middle of the night, which the Israeli public rarely if ever hears about; the hours of waiting at checkpoints; the frightened children; the aimed rifles.
Amira Hass http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=9693

[cali]

2. I agree. This is a good thing.

The checkpoints, from everything I've read, are dehumanizing at best.

Now, just out of curiosity Tom, because to me you appear devoid of any sympathy whatsoever for Israel, what is your solution to the I/P conflict?

[Beezer]

3. Tiny Jewish State will refine it's Survival

And as the world (some of it anyway)turns on it like a pit bull, it will grow stronger as its enemy (handed a stronger bull horn)shouts how evil and undeserving of survival it is!

[president4aday]

10. Solution to I/P conflict? Close the checkbook.

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[idontwantaname]

6. some prefer no israelis at all.

actually many palestinians (and israelis im sure) remember when IDF presence in the occupied territories was lighter. imagine troops riding around in the back of trucks with only their cotton uniforms for protection.

[Wordie]

4. I applaud these courageous people, who are trying to show us the truth. nt

[Englander]

7. IDF chief invites anti-fence protesters to Tel Aviv meeting

By Amos Harel , Haaretz Correspondent

Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Dan Halutz fielded complaints by members of "Machsom (checkpoint)-Watch" during a meeting at his Tel Aviv office on Sunday. The activists voiced their concerns over the army's policy restricting Palestinian travel in the West Bank.

During the two-hour-long meeting, members of the anti-separation fence organization strongly criticized the "policy of segregation" enforced by the IDF in recent months, dividing the West Bank into three different segments: north, center and south.

The organization members presented Halutz with data by which the number of physical barriers in place throughout the West Bank, such as ramparts and checkpoints, has risen by 25 percent since last August.

Activists also mentioned additional restrictions on Palestinian travel in Nablus, Hebron and the Jordan Valley, as well as the prohibition of Palestinians from using roads allegedly designated for Israelis only.

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/690397.html

[Englander]

8. More Machsom Watch;

IDF re-opens Nablus checkpoint, allowing students to sit exams

By Amira Hass, Haaretz Correspondent
Last Update: 08/03/2006 18:38

The Israel Defense Forcs on Wednesday afternoon re-opened a checkpoint on the outskirts of Nablus that had been closed earlier in the day, preventing Palestinians from nearby Tul Karm from entering the city.

Hundreds of Palestinians had arrived Wednesday morning at the Beit Iva checkpoint on the western side of Nablus, among them students, teachers, medical personnel, businessmen and laborers, only to be turned away by IDF soldiers.

The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories was summoned to the checkpoint to deal with the situation.

Activists of Machsom Watch, a voluntary group of Israeli women that conducts daily observations at military checkpoints to monitor human rights abuses, reported that the coordinator had ordered that only students be allowed to pass through the checkpoint to let them take exams in Nablus.

Despite this order, within 10 minutes the soldiers returned to their previous policy of preventing all Tul Karem residents, including students, from passing through the checkpoint.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArtVty.jhtml?sw=hass&itemNo=691747

[Englander]

9. Haaretz editorial;

Who is for the state, and who is against?
By Haaretz Editorial

Israeli human rights organizations that try to help Palestinians have never enjoyed widespread public support. Organizations such as Machsom Watch, Physicians for Human Rights, Yesh Din, Ta'ayush, Hamoked - The Center for the Defense of the Individual, and B'Tselem are viewed by the general public as slanderers and traitors to Israel's interests, or as disrupters of the work of Israel Defense Forces soldiers who protect the state against terrorism. The understanding that these organizations save the state's honor, and that decrying them undermines and weakens Israeli democracy, has not penetrated the public. And above all, it seems, it has not penetrated the consciousness of the establishment.

In a document submitted to the court in response to a damages suit filed by Hamoked on behalf of a Palestinian from East Jerusalem, attorney Nira Mashraki of the Tel Aviv District Attorney's Office penned lies that attest to a basic lack of understanding of democracy. Attorney Mashraki claimed that Hamoked, as well as B'Tselem, which works with it, "besmirch" the state of Israel and its security forces throughout the world, cause damage, and merely pretend to be human rights organizations, while in effect abetting the state's enemies.

The question of what attorney Mashraki thinks about human rights organizations that help Palestinians would not be of interest if it did not reflect the typical approach toward such organizations. Even though the attorney general said that he would investigate how such a response came to be written on the state's behalf, it seems that Mashraki is not a lone wolf, but rather reflects the prevailing approach.

It is possible to draw a beeline between the approach expressed by attorney Mashraki and the approach of the IDF high command, as expressed at the chief of staff's meeting this week with the women of Machsom Watch. At the meeting, which Dan Halutz initiated, he expressed open dissatisfaction with the daily contact between the organization's members and IDF soldiers, and said that in his opinion, civilians should not interfere with the army's work. Even though the IDF cooperates with the organization in an effort to solve the problems of day-to-day life created by the checkpoints, the prevailing opinion is that Machsom Watch is a nuisance.

Machsom Watch is a unique women's human rights organization comprised of hundreds of women. For the past five years, it has maintained shifts at 40 checkpoints throughout the West Bank in order to document what happens there, and try to help solve the individual problems of Palestinians who have nowhere else to turn. The assumption is that the presence of these mature women, some of whom are the mothers or grandmothers of soldiers, prevents excessive abuse and slightly eases the suffering and humiliation that is the lot of thousands.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/691458.html