As promised, before leaving the good ol’ USA, here is an experience of mine in Israel/ West Bank. I am staying in an apartment in Jerusalem which is now separated from the West Bank.

In Jerusalem the trouble is minimal, but today I was allowed into the Palestinian territory after hours of arguing with Israeli soldiers. This is what I saw:

I was trying to get into Ram not Ramallah. Ramallah is military- closed. That is, nobody in or out, nobody opens doors, no water no food no electricity etc.

It’s been like that for about a week. Only the Red Cross and Red Crescent distribute bread and water in containers.

At the first check point (It took me 30 minutes to get in. I had to walk a back road), I was questioned and searched. Then allowed to proceed to the next check point.

The next checkpoint is 1/2 mile away. There I was stopped for 3 hours.

During the three hours I saw hell:

1) There are these students, going for their end of year exams, and other people trying to get from one place to another. Israeli soldiers call all students to stand in one line and the others in another line.

Remember cars are prohibited to pass checkpoints. So everybody (a few hundred ), all on foot, line up in two lines.

A female soldier shouts into a loud speaker in Arabic:

“Students have to wait for 2 hours until they miss the exams, which start at 8:30 a.m.” She shouts, “so you can miss your exam” a couple of times.

Now my Arabic, to say the least is miserable, but I got the gist of the message. I asked people around me to translate, and yes, the intention was to have the kids miss their end of year exams.

2) The Palestinian students get frustrated, so one of them called the soldier that made the announcement the Arabic equivalent of “bitch”. The Israeli female soldier must have been about 18 years old. They then collected about 25 of the students, all around 16 years old and lined them up not far from where I am standing with some others. The soldiers shout at the students and tell them that if the person who said “bitch” does not step forward they will all get it.

The students show no response so the soldier called “bitch” starts slapping them on the face. One after another. One kid held her hand to stop her. Then two male soldiers beat him to the ground, and hand cuffed him. The female soldier then kept slapping the handcuffed kid on the face until he was quite bruised and bleeding. She then turned to the other kids and started slapping them on the face again.

I started complaining to the female soldier, and commented that her behavior was unreasonable. Guess what! She asked for my passport. Noticed that it was an American passport, actually sneered at me, and tore it into two pieces. I did not believe what was happening.

Since I am not the heroic type, I decided to go back to Jerusalem.

I have to tell you prima events over here are not as portrayed in the USA.

Palestinian rage when Bush supports Israel and its policies.

It is really humiliating for me as an American to observe first hand on what is going on over here.