The Checkpoint Women of Israel

[Scurrilous]

Machsom Watch advocates for fair treatement of Palestinians, drawing both resentment and respect from their countrymen

<snip>

"Daphne Banai, 57, carries many dark tales, like the one she tells of pleading futilely with an Israeli soldier on behalf of a 78-year-old Palestinian man not allowed through to his village, though his papers were in order, because of closure.

“What you see,” says Banai, a leader of Machsom (Checkpoint) Watch, who monitors the treatment of Palestinians at the more than 600 West Bank checkpoints, “you cannot unsee.”

What many of the soldiers see when Machsom women appear at the checkpoints are Israelis of dubious loyalty.

“Most of the soldiers are very angry at us,” says Banai. “They don’t like having ‘those bitches,’ as they call us, looking over their shoulders. It’s much easier to do what you want , like being able to slip up and give an old Palestinian a slap.”

Machsom, founded in 2001 by three female human rights activists, does not allow men as checkpoint-watchers. They can be translators, or drivers, or checkpoint-visitors, but checkpoint-watching is the work of women.

“There are a couple of reasons for that,” says Banai. “First, almost all Jewish men do compulsory army service, then active reserve duty. As they are always between one period of being soldiers and another, this would complicate things for them, both with the soldiers at the checkpoints and the Palestinians. We, on the other hand, represent the civil society to which the soldiers and the Border Police are accountable. We represent their mothers, their grandmothers , their girlfriends, their wives.”

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[Tom Joad]

1. Don't say "you didn't know".

[Scurrilous]

2. Let's get acquainted with occupation (Ariel Rubenstein)

All Israelis should perform occupation duties, so we cannot say 'we didn't know'

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3409938,00.html

<snip>

"Despite it not being "economically viable," every citizen should be enlisted for one day every year to fulfill the functions of the occupation, each in accordance with his or her ability.

Let one stand at a checkpoint and let another be a clerk at the Interior Ministry in East Jerusalem. Those who can should assist in arresting wanted persons in the middle of the night in a village near Nablus. Those who are creative should build the separation fence.

Anyone could fire at those wretched people searching for metal in the rubble of evacuated Dugit in the Gaza Strip.

The youngsters from the Saturday-night brawls at the nightclubs should conduct stone-throwing battles with Palestinian children close to the roads. The soft-hearted should guard detainees during Shin Bet interrogations.

All occupation assignments should be visible to us all and we should experience them from up close. Let no one say he never saw the TV exposé on the Territories because he was glued to A Star is Born (the local version of American Idol.)

Let no one use the excuse he had not read the newspaper articles because he was transfixed on AB Yehoshua's books.

Let no one say he didn't see the repression in Jerusalem because he hasn't frequented East Jerusalem since laying tefillin at the Western Wall during his bar mitzvah.

When the day comes let no Israeli tell the Master of the Universe or his conscience: " I didn't know."