Children literatur prize to Palestinian institute

A Palestinian institute, helping children on the West Bank and in Gaza to read and write, has got this years literatur prize in memory of the Swedish writer Astrid Lindgren, probably most famous for her books about "Pippi Longstocking". The Tamer Institute for Community Education got the prize, the world's largest for children literature, for its work in promoting reading and learning among children on the occupied territory (Tamer Institute).

It feels good to read positive news from the West Bank and from Gaza; unfortunately there are too many of other kinds of news. Here is another newsletter from my recent stay in the West Bank (see also Marsch 21 and March 23):

Security controls several times a day…

Many of us are nowadays quite used to security controls at airports. It’s not especially pleasant, you have to remove waistbelts and everything else which contain some metal etc. However, the security people are generally kind and helpful, they might even speak your own mother tongue – at least when you are travelling from your home country – and they make efforts to help you if it’s the first time for you.

Imagine that you have to pass such security controls two or more times every day, often after spending quite a long time queueing together with a lot of people who all need to pass the same control. Imagine that the security personnel often are not especially kind or helpful and that they many times appear patronizing and indifferent. Imagine also that small ”mistakes” from you can lead to – in best – unpleasant interrogations. If you are unlucky you might end up in a detention cell for a few hours before you are allowed to continue – if you are allowed to continue.

The security people also speak a language you probably don’t understand or only understand a little of and they seldom know more than a few words of your own language.

Besides, the security personnel is heavily armed, which hardly contribute to a positive atmosphere…

This could probably be an example of a military security control or checkpoint anywhere in the world, where such things exist. It is for sure an example of a checkpoint in the West Bank. There are different kinds of cheskpoints, larger or smaller, more or less permanent etc. Israel occupies the West Bank since more than forty years and many of the checkpoints are today permanent constructions.

During most of the time since the Six Day War 1967, the number of checkpoints was quite few and simple and they were mostly along the so called Green Line, the armistice line from 1949. However, during the last period, especially after the second Intifada, the checkpoints have become much more common and many of them are today well planned, with walkways which remind of those which are used for cattle and with narrow – very narrow – turnstiles. In the bigger checkpoints you will probably have to speak in a microphone with a soldier you hardly can catch a glimpse of behind thick panes of glass.

Bags and suitcases are generally controlled with x-ray, as at airport security controls, while cars are searched carefully.

Some things seem to happen randomly. A couple of young men, who are standing in the queue, are for example forced to open their bags and show the content for everyone to see – despite the fact that the bags anyhow have to pass the x-ray machine. In this case, the bags contained only sweaters and trousers. However, if they instead had happend to have underwear in their bags it might not have been as ”fun” to show all the others in the queue.

If you are a Palestinian and happen to have an ID-card with similar last digits as some one looked for, then you have to be prepared for trouble. For some reason the soldiers seem only to read the last four digits (according to Machsom Watch, an Israeli volontary organization of women who are watching checkpoints in order to make sure that the soldiers are following the rules and not are causing more problems for the Palestinians than necessary). And if those four digits are ”wrong”, then you risk being taking into detention until the soldiers have checked whom they have put into detention – and that might take some time…

Even if the soldiers are kind and acting with respect – which happens – the whole system is of course humiliating. Those who want to pass a checkpoint are – regardless of age and sex – totally depending on the soldiers, around twenty years old, who are actually doing the controls without having any training for such sensitive missions (according to ”Breaking the Silence”, an organization of mostly former officers who are informing Israeli citizens of what is happening on the occupied territory).

The soldiers are commanded to serve at checkpoints during periods of about three months, to meat people they probably have almost no knowledge about. After these three months they continue with their military training, which is something totally different from controlling ID-cards. For a long time some of the military leadership have been worried about the fact that soldiers are requiered to check ID-cards instead of preparing themselves for real wars.

The whole system also means that a lot of people loose a lot of time every day by passing checkpoints. I’m not sure about what would be the worst for me, the humiliation or all the time I would have to spend waiting in queues…?

(I worked for the Christian Council of Sweden as an Ecumenical Accompanier, serving on the World Council of Churches’ Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). The views contained in this report are personal and do not necessarily reflect those of the Christian Council of Sweden or the World Council of Churches. If you would like to publish or disseminate it further, please first contact the EAPPI communications officer and managing editor (eappi-co@jrol.com) for permission. For mor information see: www.eappi.org/en/home.html)