Permits and other essentials

Permits are an essential part of life for most West Bankers, as well as those Palestinians holding Jerusalem IDs. The Israelis seem to make it a constantly moving target, changing rules, types of permissions, and timelines for permissions on a regular basis. Even after 9 months, I am learning something new about this world of permits. While I don't require a permit, most of my local colleagues and friends do.

I have a couple American friends who are married to Palestinian men. Their children hold American passports and Palestinian passports. Until the age of 16, the children are allowed to travel with their mothers through all checkpoints and the Tel Aviv airport without any special, additional permissions. One of my friend's 6 year old sons has recently become aware of the complexity of the permit issue, his curiousity begetting endless questions.

Add to the permit issues, the equally complex ambigous permissions of checkpoints and border crossings between the West Bank and Israel/Jordan. For example, there are three border crossings between the West Bank and Jordan (all border crossings are controlled by Israel). Palestinian-Americans (US passport holders who have Palestinian routes) are only allowed to use one of those crossings. Or, take the various checkpoints between Ramallah and Jerusalem - one for settlers (and other "special people" - foreign passport holders, work permits). Another one for VIPs, but which seems to be open to about anybody depending on the whim of the Israelis soldiers. And the last for all others.

The other day, I was convoying out of Ramallah to a horse ranch. Among 10 of us, each of us had a different set of permit/visa/passport issues. We decided to use the "special people" checkpiont, seeing if we could manage to get through by putting the American blonds in the driver seats. It worked by us all showing the one identity card we all held in common - a US Government ID.

After I showed my card and passed through, my friend's son piped up from the back seat, "Mom, does she (pointing to me) have a permit?" "No, she doesn't." "Then how did she pass through?" "We showed a card that says who we work for." "oh" Yes, "oh". No further questions, but I of course was very curious about why this child would mark me into the category of being a permit holder? Has he learned that its West Bankers that have a permit? Does he assume because my son has an Arabic name and he went to the same school with him, that we are Palestinians? Or is his understanding of the permit much broader and his questions were an attempt for him to narrow the category of his understanding (ok, check the box, she is not a permit holder?).

No matter how annoying I find the procedures, all the thought that has to go into anything before heading out the door (I actually forgot my passport when we went to the horse ranch- you'd think after 9 months of this place I'd know enough not to leave the house without it), and the time lost in dealing with Israeli procedures (I faced 40 minutes of questioning by Israeli officials at 2am when returning recently from Paris), I try to keep my compalining in check in front of my Palestinian friends - they by far have it worse than I. And, at the same time, whenever I do hear my friends complain about the craziness of all this, it somehow makes me feel better that they themselves realize how highly abnormal everything is.

And that is why when people talk about "peace", and "security" and all this other BS, I have to resist the desire to stand up and yell, "Have you seen, have you witnessed, have you felt what these people go through on a daily basis in the name of all it?!?" And yet, the international community seems to shake its head in some common diplomatic, "ah yes good point" when Israel talks about the multitude of conditions it adds to each new endorsement of the "two state solution." It is amazing to me how a people who established a State in the name of ensuring that human rights were never again violated against an ethnic or religious group, can turn around and defy all standards of human rights on another ethnic/religious group. At least twice the Palestinians have stood up and said "enough is enough", and yet who hears them over the barbed wire and concrete encircling the West Bank?