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April 5, 2016
In News
CHECKING INTO CHAOS: THE REALITY OF THE WEST BANK’S CHECKPOINTS
RASOUL KALIANI
When we go on road trips usually we moan, groan, sigh *uf* and complain about border crossings. Those dreadful, time wasting, painfully boring, tiring stations that you wish you didn’t have to go to. They seem pretty bad, don’t they? But you will never complain about this again when you hear about the checkpoints in the West Bank. While we complain about being stopped for 10-15 minutes on our way to another country, Palestinians have to be stopped on their way to get their groceries. Let me show you a map of the crossings in the West Bank.
From this map, the West Bank looks pretty big, doesn’t it? It can’t be that bad. But this is less then 30% of Israel, the country that is illegally occupying this land. Israel is the 149th biggest country in the world. It’s barely visible on the world map!
In case you can’t see it, considering how tiny it is, it’s that purple piece of land in between Jordan and Egypt. The West Bank is less then 30% of that! So basically, a checkpoint will appear every few kilometres or minutes, depending on where you are in the West Bank. My walk to school can be interrupted twice because of checkpoints.
Not only do Palestinians see checkpoints wherever they go, they’re harassed at them! Look at these photos of Israeli soldiers abusing and harassing Palestinians at checkpoints. I warn you some of these images may be disturbing to some viewers.
There are way more graphic things that I found simply by typing in “Palestinian checkpoints” on Google images, but I don’t want to make this to gruesome and gory. They expect to take a visit to market, instead they get shouted at, beaten, threatened and harassed by Israeli troops, many times for no reason
And get this, these checkpoints are limiting and denying Palestinian children basic education! Many checkpoints and road blocks are situated en route to their school, and because of Israel’s apartheid policies, they are refused entry to their school. Take a look at this.
Checkpoints are one of the worst things about living in the West Bank. It demonstrates how much Israeli soldiers harass everyday Palestinians, and exposes the apartheid regime in Israel and the West Bank (Apartheid South Africa also had checkpoints where people of colour were harassed.). I keep seeing articles stating that some of these checkpoints are being removed. But some checkpoints isn’t enough. The West Bank is designated land for Palestinians by international law (International court of justice advisory opinion, July 2004) hence, Israeli-run checkpoints shouldn’t be in the West Bank. No one should have to stop at a checkpoint or crossing if they are not entering a different territory, and more importantly, no one should be harassed and/or abused at a checkpoint or crossing.
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Image sources : https://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/2011/10/11/childrens-protest-against-checkpoints-around-school-meet-israeli-violence-in-pictures/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/middle_east/03/v3_israel_palestinians/maps/html/settlements_checkpoints.stm
http://xssportpal.blogspot.ca/2014/02/israeli-transgressions-against_9933.html