DCI/Palestine "is a national section of the international non-government child rights organisation and movement (dedicated) to promoting and protecting the rights of Palestinian children," according to international law principles.

On December 28, it submitted a complaint [PDF] to several UN authorities titled, "The use of solitary confinement on Palestinian children held in Israeli detention." It's specifically for five children held at Al Jalame and Petah Tikva interrogation centers in Israel.

Their cases follow 29 others since February 2008. At both facilities, "solitary confinement is routinely used."

Though no universally agreed on definition exists, the Istanbul Statement on the Use and Effects of Solitary Confinement defines it as physically isolating prisoners in cells for 22 to 24 hours daily. Human contact is minimized, including quantitative and qualitative stimuli.

The harmful psychological and physical effects are well documented. They include:

• severe anxiety;
• panic attacks;
• lethargy;
• insomnia;
• nightmares;
• dizziness;
• irrational anger, at time uncontrollable;
• confusion;
• social withdrawal;
• memory loss;
• appetite loss;
• delusions and hallucinations;
• mutilations;
• profound despair and hopelessness;
• suicidal thoughts;
• paranoia; and
• for many, a totally dysfunctional state and inability ever to live normally outside of confinement.

As a result, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Juan Mendez called for totally banning it for children. Calling it "torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment," he stopped short of demanding its prohibition against everyone.

In 2007, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child urged the practice be "strictly forbidden."

Israel Spurns All International Laws with Impunity

Israel frequently isolates adults and children, notably Palestinians. Facilities most commonly used include Al Mascobiyya interrogation center in Jerusalem, Petah Tikva near Tel Aviv, and Al Jalame near Haifa.

Israel's Prison Service (IPS), Israel Security Agency (ISA), and Israeli police administer these facilities.

From February 2008 through November 2011, DCI/Palestine documented 34 child abuse cases. They endured "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and in some cases, torture, in violation of the" Torture Convention, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and Fourth Geneva.

Israel spurns all international laws with impunity, including those pertaining to war, occupation, and fundamental humanitarian and human rights.

At Al Jalame, children are held in 2 x 3 meter cells. In 2009, one child endured 65 days of punishment. All of them sleep on concrete beds, or on the floor on thin, dirty, foul-smelling mattresses. Meals pass through door flaps, depriving them of human contact.

Al Jalame's "Cell No. 36 (like all isolation ones) has "sharp protrusions preventing the children from leaning against them for support." It's windowless with artificial light only coming from dim internal lighting kept on 24 hours a day.

As a result, "(s)ome children report suffering pain behind their eyes and adverse psychological effects."

Harsh treatment, including prolonged isolation, painful shackling, physical violence and torture are used to extract confessions.

Children at Al Jalame and other interrogation facilities are generally denied access to lawyers and family visits in violation of Fourth Geneva and other international laws.

DCI/Palestine submitted complaints for five Palestinian children. They were identified only by initials, age, gender, ID No., and place of origin.

On October 15, 2011, Israeli soldiers arrested OA at 2AM from home. He was blindfolded, painfully shackled, placed in a military vehicle, taken to Huwwara interrogation center in Palestine, forced to sit on the ground until dawn, and refused permission to use a toilet.

Later that morning he was taken to Petah Tikva interrogation center in Israel in violation of Fourth Geneva. He was stripped searched, and denied legal counsel. With his hands tied to a chair, he was interrogated by a man called "Morris."

Accused of throwing a Molotov cocktail at an Israeli jeep, he denied it. After two hours of interrogation, he was placed in isolation he described as follows:

"It was a very small cell with a mattress on the floor, a toilet and two concrete seats. It did not have any windows, just a vent for air conditioning. It was very cold because of the air conditioning. I could not sleep because there was a yellow light on 24 hours a day. I was detained in the cell for two days, before being transferred to Al Jalame."

There, he was isolated for five days. His detention was extended. He wasn't in court and doesn't know if counsel represented him. He was then sent back to Petah Tikva, held another nine days under identical conditions, and interrogated twice before confessing, saying:

"I was in a very bad psychological state, so I decided to confess. I confessed to throwing Molotov cocktails and stones at army jeeps," even though he was innocent.

Isolated for 16 days, he's now at Megiddo prison in Israel.

Others DCI/Palestine represented told similar stories. They were falsely charged, arrested, interrogated, isolated and harshly treated overall. Israel treats children like adults, some young as 10.

International laws were grievously violated, including the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). It's Article 37(b) states:

"The arrest, detention or imprisonment of a child...shall be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time."

In fact, Palestinian children are routinely arrested at checkpoints, on streets, going to or coming from school, tending olive groves, at play, and (most commonly) at home in the middle of the night.

Usually it's from midnight to 4AM. Family members are threatened not to intervene. If they try, they're assaulted and forced onto streets in their nightclothes, regardless of weather, and given no explanation.

Typically, arrests are lawless and violent. Homes are broken into unannounced. Property is damaged or stolen. Children are blindfolded, shackled, often beaten, then thrust into jeeps, sometimes face down.

In interrogation centers, inhumane treatment continues, including beatings, verbal abuse and intimidation. Most often, lawyers aren't present until questioning ends with a signed Hebrew confession children can't read or understand. Once gotten, they're used to convict even though torture extracted evidence is inadmissible under international law.

Article 15 of the UN Convention Against Torture states:

"Each State Party shall ensure that any statement which is established to have been made as a result of torture shall not be invoked as evidence in any proceedings, except against a person accused of torture as evidence that the statement was made."

In custody, children endure:

• blindfolding and painful shackling;
• beatings;
• violent shaking;
• sleep deprivation;
• solitary confinement;
• other forms of sensory deprivation;
• no food and water for extended periods;
• poor quality or inedible food when gotten;
• no access to toilets, showers and clean clothes;
• exposure to extreme heat or cold;
• painful stress positions for extended periods;
• sexual abuse;
• threats, insults and cursing; and
• extremely loud noises.

Often parents and siblings are also arrested, beaten, detained, and their homes sometimes demolished.

Under Military Order 132, children aged 12 - 13 receive maximum six month sentences. Those aged 14 - 15 usually face 12 months, but can receive up to five years.

More serious offenders face no limits. Military Order 378 permits up to 20 years for stone-throwing (the most common offense charged). Moreover, children 16 or older are considered adults and treated no differently. Under international law, adulthood begins at age 18.

Under military occupation, Israel's system is rigged to convict and brutalize before and after incarceration, despite Fourth Geneva's Article 147 requiring fair trials, and holding those responsible for denying them criminally liable.

International law also forbids torture, other abuse and inhumane treatment at all times, under all conditions with no allowed exceptions. Israel ignores all international laws. It does what it please, including against children young as 10 no matter their innocence.

DCI/Palestine and other human rights organizations demand these crimes against humanity end and those responsible held accountable. So far it hasn't happened.

The use of solitary confinement on Palestinian children held in Israeli detention

* Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon.

If this goes on ON-CAMERA, just imagine what goes on OFF-CAMERA. Obama calls these people his 'eternal allies'.

Video link: http://youtu.be/QorJMPtz1Fw

"Animals. Animals. Like the Discovery Channel. All of Ramallah is a jungle. There are monkeys, dogs, gorillas. The problem is that the animals are locked they can't come out. We're humans. They're animals. They aren't humans we are."
- Israeli border police (you can find at 5:03 of this video)

"We let them suffer, in the sun, in the rain, that's it. That's what I wanted to say. Let the whole world know."
- Israeli border police

"When the Palestinians come...we put on our show."
- Israeli border police

"Nobody knows about us here. Nobody in the world."
- Palestinian businessman

"Look at what they do to us, do to our children. Look!"
- Mother with two children

"Food for my wife, Christmas tomorrow. Meal for my family! I'll be back in the morning!"
- Elderly Palestinian man

* Antoine Raffoul is a Palestinian architect living and practising in London. He was born in Nazareth and was expelled with his family from Haifa in April 1948. He is the Founder and Co-ordinator of 1948: Lest.We.Forget. a campaign group for truth about Palestine. He can be reached at info@1948.org.uk.

Sent from Emily Schaeffer, human right lawyer in Israel/Palestine, who asked Archbishop Tutu to write the letter.

Israeli soldiers prevent students and others from crossing a checkpoint between their homes and schools on the edge of the West Bank city of Qalqiliya on 17 March 2010. Some teachers used the checkpoint as a makeshift classroom and held studies despite the closure, which was linked to clashes elsewhere in the occupied territories.

A picture is worth a thousand words:

Source: Maan News

Imagine life for Palestinians behind Israeli checkpoints and the Palestinian experience in a totally different land.

No Way Through highlights Israeli checkpoints imposed in the West Bank, that are limiting its habitants access to health care, thus violating a fundamental human right.

Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcYcw-uWqzk

Take Action to help people in the Occupied Palestinian Territories get justice.

By Sameh A. Habeeb

Ramallah, September 11, 2009 (Pal Telegraph) - I think that anything is worth writing about if it is filtered through an aware consciousness. I learned this from reading Billy Collins; I learned this from hearing the work of our former local poet laureate who is ageless and energetic in his eighties. He wrote a most amazing poem from observing life around him while waiting in line at a copy shop.

If Jenny Orvino's observation holds for the written word, how much more so will this apply to the genre of the documentary. The psychologist Carl Rogers, author of Becoming a Person, wrote that it was not therapy in and of itself that helped people, but rather the personal relationship established between the therapist and the patient. In other words, we can only become fully human through our inter-relationship with other people. This documentary, Kalandia: A Checkpoint Story, serves as a path way to the viewer's heart and mind through the sensitive "aware consciousness" of Neta Efrony. Engaging with the Other, she reveals their humanity amidst the unalloyed reality of life for all Palestinians living in captivity under the Israeli military forces. Efrony's genius lies in actualizing the Chinese maxim equating one picture to a thousand words with especial clarity and poignancy.

Neta Efrony is an Israeli filmmaker born and raised in Jerusalem. She is thoroughly Israeli, having lived in Israel her entire life and her background, training and culture is both a product and expression of the Israeli Jewish establishment. Yet it is out of this comfortable social setting that on retiring, she joined Machsom Watch, (Checkpoint Watch), an Israeli Jewish women's organization which set as its goal the documentation of the treatment of Palestinians at Israeli army checkpoints, four hundred or more of which desecrate the West Bank landscape.

Related video:

She has made it her duty to film there on a weekly basis and this documentary is the result of filming between the years 2002 and 2008. Efrony's film work puts her beyond what is called the Jewish "consensus", and it is only people who are willing to risk social approbation who have a chance of breaking through the tissue of official lies which permeate the Israeli body politic, as in all countries.

One is struck by the sparseness and starkness of both the style and the content - not one frame too many for a particular incident, not one word too many for an expressed comment. She tells us that she discovered compassion for all sentient beings through Buddhism, and in her art she seems to have absorbed both the detail and the discipline of Zen Buddhism. This documentary employs no pyrotechny to jump-start one's emotions; no comments that send one reeling off-balance, either in anger or in despair; no special camera angles or chiaroscuro to manipulate images; no accompanying musical theme to tug at the heartstrings and no conjuring up of contrasting memories or images to lessen the devastating effect of the ordinariness of a daily event which creates so much obvious human suffering.

She allows the unimpeded eye of her camera to record the reality in front of it and from time to time the thoughts she shares with us seem to echo those very same thoughts in the minds of the viewers. Without fanfare, the daily tribulations of Palestinians are caught on the screen: the elderly and the sick, men and women, mothers and fathers struggling not be separated from their children, the herding and the pushing and the shoving, barriers appearing suddenly from nowhere, and the disembodied voices of Israeli soldiers barking out orders to people seeking to pass through the checkpoint, sending them scurrying from one locked and barred steel gate to another, like rabbits in a warren, unable to make head or tail of these commands.

These shots were nothing so much as exemplars of George Orwell's Big Brother in his novel, 1984. An unmoving camera catches the bewilderment in children's eyes when their parents were told to abandon them and enter another line, leaving their children unprotected and exposed to the loaded rifles of the soldiers. In one scene, on the first day of the Fast of Ramadan, the crowds are corralled behind an impromptu barrier, exposed to the heat of a merciless sun, after having being informed that it was forbidden for them to go and pray at the Haram al-Shariff, the Great Sanctuary of the el-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. Neither the camera nor her voice hide behind any gimmicks: everything that appears on the screen is precisely what anyone going to a checkpoint can see and hear for him or herself. The greatness of this documentary lies in the respect for the reality it records and for its viewing audience.

Since Israel conquered the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, the Israeli government has been absorbing more and more of the conquered territory into Israeli life: it has built settlements and connecting roads on Arab land for Jewish use only. It has expropriated agricultural land cultivated by Arabs for its own use while making extensive grazing areas inaccessible to Bedouin shepherds under the pretext of calling them "closed military areas". The Palestinians have been distanced from their land, and their living space has been turned into Jewish Lebensraum. One of the means of controlling the population during this continuing dispossession has been the curtailment of Palestinian movement using the system of checkpoints. The West Bank and Gaza have been fragmented into non-contiguous areas whose overall pattern resembles nothing so much as shattered glass reflecting, with no irony nor metaphor, their shattered lives.

Kalandia checkpoint gives us only a sliver of the daily suffering borne by people separated by checkpoints from their work, hospitals, schools, families or houses of prayer. It would not be an exaggeration to say that at least one million people each day confront this traumatic and often frightening reality. I am not sure that we were shown more than fifty faces in close-up and yet the knowledge that this is only a tiny part of a much larger reality is emotionally overwhelming. What is stunning, though, is the dignity of these people under these tragic conditions, conditions which should serve as a profound rebuke to all of humanity. One of the men standing in line wondered aloud whether the Israelis knew that Palestinians were also human, and whether it was appropriate for one group of human beings to treat another group of human beings in such a manner. This question should challenge all those holding the power which makes such a situation possible in Israel and abroad.

A turn of phrase describing the documentary which arose in my mind spontaneously was "Black and White - in Color". I looked it up to discover that it is the name of a French anti-militaristic movie made in 1977. The title is the first line of a song Le Chant du départ, a song of departure (don't I wish!). For me the title conveys the clear and unambiguous nature of the checkpoints: there is absolutely nothing to commend or justify them and at least by my standards, and I would argue by the standards of Neta Efrony as well, they stand utterly condemned for their inhumanity and in their humanity. What is even more frightening, is that there is no special machinery or magic on the ground: it is all so banal, embodying Hannah Arendt's unforgettable observation of "the banality of evil."

Haifa Cinematèque screened the documentary on a Friday afternoon at 14.00 hours, a most inconvenient time both for those observing the Sabbath as well as for those who ordinarily prepare the de rigeur traditional Friday night dinner. One gets the feeling that this showing time was deliberate in order not to offend anyone's political sensibilities. A great pity! But yet it was an almost full house. I have no hesitation in pressing for further showings both in Israel and abroad. Turning our heads away from the truth cannot liberate us. Only the truth can set us free.

"The trouble is that once you see it, you can't unsee it. And once you have seen it, keeping quiet , saying nothing, becomes as political an act as speaking out. There is no innocence.
Either way, you are accountable."

Source: The Palestine Telegraph

Check these testimonies from checkpoints of the West Bank.

By Anna Baltzer

When I first visited the West Bank in 2003, checkpoints were controlled by young Israeli soldiers, nervously clutching their weapons and yelling at Palestinians to stay in line. When I returned in 2005, I found many checkpoints replaced by metal turnstiles into which Palestinians were herded to wait for soldiers to push a button, letting them through one by one or sometimes not at all. Each year I return, the method of control over Palestinian movement is further institutionalized, most recently Israeli terminal-style buildings, entirely separating soldiers from the Palestinians whose movement they are controlling.

I first encountered one of these terminals after visiting a women's cooperative in Tulkarem to purchase embroidery to send home. Because there are no reliable postal services in the West Bank, and because I did not want to risk the products being damaged or confiscated by Israeli airport security if I transported them in my luggage, I knew I would have to send them to the US from a post office in Israel. I had traveled from Tulkarem to Tel Aviv once in the past by taking a shared taxi to the nearby Einab junction, where I had walked from the Palestinian road to the Israeli one and caught transport into Israel.

This second time, I was traveling with my backpack and six plastic bags full of embroidery, and I assumed the trip would be as straightforward as it had been in the past. When I arrived at Einab junction, I found a large new building, fortified by several layers of metal fences, walls, and gates. The first layer reminded me of rural parts of the Wall-wire fence reinforced with electric sensory wire and razor wire with a heavy iron gate. The gate was open but nobody was on the other side. I walked through and came to two large iron turnstiles surrounded by a wall of iron bars. The turnstiles were locked. Frustrated, I put down my six bags to rest for a moment. Maybe someone would come back? I waited, but still there was nobody.

I called out. "Hello? Anybody there?"

"Please wait a moment," a staticky voice above me blared. I looked up
to find a speaker attached to the turnstile.

I didn't have much choice but to wait.

Whoever was operating the turnstiles didn't seem to be in much of a
hurry, so I took out my camera.

"Excuse me!" the voice snapped.

"Yes," I answered as I took my first photo.

"Please put your camera away immediately!"

"Please let me in immediately," I answered.

"I said to wait," said the voice, and I answered, "And I am waiting."

The light above the turnstile turned from red to green and I put away my camera and picked up my bags to walk through. It was difficult squeezing into the tight rotating cage with all my bags, and by the time I'd made it to the other side, I was hot and cranky.

In front of me was a metal detector surrounded by iron bars. I began to walk through but the voice called out from another speaker above: "Stop!"

I continued through the metal detector and groaned, "What?!" into the air, wondering where he was watching me from.

"Go back and put down your bags."

I went back through the metal detector and set down my six bags, which were feeling heavier by the minute. I took the opportunity to take another picture. The soldier didn't bother protesting this time, but ordered me to walk through the metal detector again. I tried to pick up my bags again but he ordered, "No, without your bags." I walked through. Nothing happened.

"Now, go back."

I closed my eyes with a sigh, walked back, picked up my six bags, and walked through again before he could give me the order to do so. Somehow this seemed so much worse than the turnstiles and metal detectors I had seen at Huwwara checkpoint. At least there you could see the people humiliating you. Or maybe it was more upsetting because I wasn't used to being the one humiliated.

Beyond the metal detector was another set of turnstiles, locked again. I took a deep breath and stared at the red light, hoping to see it turn green rather than let the guard hear my voice crack if I spoke. Thankfully, the turnstile buzzed and I squeezed through to reach the building itself. That was the end of the pre-screening. Now it was time for the real screening.

The inside of the building reminded me of an airport terminal-high ceilings and multiple floors, and multilingual signs for travelers. The ones here read, "Prepare documents for inspection" in Hebrew, Arabic, and English. The signs didn't clarify where one was supposed to go, however. There were a series of five doors with red lights on top, and I called out, "OK, my documents are ready... Now what?" I had yet to see a human face.

This time nobody answered, so I asked again. Again, nothing. I set my bags down, annoyed. My back was hurting, I was sweating, and I didn't know where I was or what was going to happen to me. I yelled, "Is anybody there?! Hellooooooo!"

Eventually a second staticky voice came through from a speaker on the wall. "Please proceed to the door."

"Which door?"

"The one on the left."

"Left of what? Where are you?"

"I can see you," the voice said. "Walk backwards and go left."

I saw a door behind me on the left and carried my bags over to it. Above the door was a red light, which I stared at. Nothing happened. I was ready to cry. "Now what?" I yelled. Silence. I yelled again, even louder.

"What am I supposed to do?!"

"Calm down!" yelled a cheerful soldier walking by on an upper level above me. He was finishing a conversation on his walkie-talkie, and put up his hand for me to wait. I glared at him. "Go there," he pointed to another door near the one I was standing at, and began to walk away.

"No, please!" I blurted out, forgetting my policy of not pleading with soldiers. "You're the first human face I've seen and I'm starting to lose it."

He motioned towards the door and promised that if I stood there, the light would eventually turn green. I picked up my bags, approached the door, set them down, and waited. Eventually, the light turned green, this time accompanied by a little buzz that unlatched the full iron door. I expected to find a soldier on the other side, but as the heavy door slammed behind me I found myself in a tiny room with white walls, no windows, and a second iron door. That door eventually buzzed as well, and I struggled to open it as I held my bags, settling to kick one in front of me instead.

The next room had three walls and a double-paned window with a soldier on the other side. The soldier asked for my ID and I slipped it under the glass. He tried to make small talk and asked me what part of the United States I was from. I told him flatly, "For the first time in my life, I want to blow something up."

He must not have heard me because he let me through to the next tiny windowless room. The next buzzing heavy door led out into the other open-spaced side of the terminal, where I picked up the pace, hoping to get out finally, an hour after I'd arrived. No such luck.

One more soldier behind a window beckoned for my passport again. "Where's your visa?" he asked, not finding the stamped slip of paper issued by Israel when the passport itself is not stamped. I answered truthfully, "They told me at the airport that there were none left and that it would be OK." As the words came out, I realized how absurd this sounded, and I kicked myself for falling for it when I'd flown in the week before. How could the airport run out of visa sheets? Wasn't it more likely that they were deliberately trying to inhibit my travel in the Occupied Territories?

It was hard to blame the soldier, since, for all he knew, I'd snuck in over the hills of Jordan. "Whatever," I sighed. "Call airport security-I promise I'm in the system."

I knew it would be a while, so I sat down again. I thought I was past the point of anger until I noticed a line of 25 or so Palestinians waiting outside to come in from the other direction, heading back to Tulkarem. Had they been waiting there all this time? Why weren't they being processed? I asked the guard holding my passport and he said he'd tend to them after I left.

It was one thing to feel frustrated and humiliated, but another to know that my ordeal had held up dozens of Palestinians from getting back to their homes and families. "Wait," I said. "Are you telling me that in your fancy new facility you can't process people coming in two directions? Don't let the problem with me delay these people any longer."

He told me not to worry, that the Palestinians were used to waiting. This made me even more upset. I insisted that I would rather wait longer myself, and eventually he beckoned the group forward. I marveled as they waited patiently and yet somehow not submissively, beacons of dignity next to my defeated and angry presence. I took out my camera and took a few photos. Within seconds, a guard appeared next to me-in person, nothing but air between us!-and said sternly, "Come with me."

I followed the guard back towards the section of the terminal from which I had just come. We passed through the windowless rooms and into a new room with crates on the floor. From there, the guard opened another, even heavier iron door, and motioned for me to pass ahead of him. Expecting the guard to follow me in, I turned and instead found him placing my bags into the crates. Realizing that soldiers were going to go through my bags, I demanded to be present during the search to ensure that nothing would be damaged or stolen. "That's not possible," the guard said flatly, and the door slammed shut between me and my belongings.

I kicked the door with frustration, realizing that all my contact information for Palestinian organizers and friends was still on my computer. I realized that I still had my phone in my pocket and quickly called my friend Kobi, an Israeli activist. I told him where I was and asked if he might make some calls on my behalf. He said he'd do what he could and we hung up.

I looked around the room. It was empty except for a chair and an empty crate on the floor. There were no other doors, but there was a two-paned window with a soldier watching me from the other side of it. "What are you looking at?" I snapped at the soldier, and he walked out of view. Another soldier appeared, a young woman. She spoke into an intercom so that I could hear her through the window. "Please take off your clothes and put them in the container on the floor."

It took a moment for the words to sink in. Once they had, I looked the soldier straight in the eyes, and I began to undress. I removed each piece of clothing slowly, not once taking my eyes off hers. I watched her with a look of hurt. I wanted her to see that she was not just searching me-she was humiliating me. Several times she looked away. When I was down to my underwear, the soldier stopped me; she said that was enough. A part of me wished that she hadn't. Perhaps if I were completely naked, she would more likely recognize the extent of my humiliation and her role in it.

The iron door behind me buzzed and the soldier told me to place the crate containing my clothes and phone into the room where I had last seen the guard. My other belongings were long since gone, and I could hear soldiers in the next room going through them. When I got back to the room, the soldier in the window was gone. I sat down on the chair and waited. The soldiers next door were chatting and laughing. I imagined them examining my personal photographs and letters. I was too upset to sit still. I stood up and started pacing back and forth in the small room. I had to do something-anything-to express my emotions. If I could hear them, then they could hear me. I began to sing.

I sang an old song that I'd learned at summer camp as a child. Its words were meaningless, but I sang it at the top of my lungs. Within seconds, the female soldier was at the window, looking alarmed. I waved. I sang that stupid song until my voice hurt. It felt good to sing-I felt empowered. It was easier to act like a crazy person than a prisoner. If I was unpredictable, then they had lost the power to control me.

Half an hour passed. Or was it an hour? My energy had worn off and I sat down miserably on the chair. I was tired. The soldiers were gone from the next room now. What was taking them so long? It was cold in the room, and I had nothing to cover myself with. I began to shiver and rock back and forth on the chair. I had no more energy to yell. I began to cry. I cried for what felt like a long time. Eventually, the female soldier appeared in the window. I could tell she felt bad for me. I looked away. The door buzzed and she instructed me to open it. On the other side was a jacket and a cup of water. I put on the jacket and drank the water to soothe my throat, but I was unimpressed. I didn't want a jacket or water. I wanted my freedom to leave. I wanted my dignity back.

Time passed. I stopped looking at the soldiers and talking to them. I stopped thinking of ways to pass the time or express myself. I didn't even feel like myself anymore. I felt empty, defeated. I just sat and waited, with a feeling of profound loneliness.

After what felt like an eternity, the iron door buzzed and I opened it to find all my clothes and bags in a large pile brimming over the tops of the containers. The soldiers had emptied every single item separately into the crates. The papers from my notebook were strewn about loosely. Each piece of embroidery had been removed from its protective wrapper and crumpled into a pile. A can of tuna had been opened and left amidst the hand-sewn garments. Even the boxes of Turkish delight-a soft sticky candy covered with powdered sugar, which I'd brought for some friends-had been opened and rummaged through.

The only thing stronger than my anger was my desire to leave. I sat down miserably and folded everything back into my bags. I was crying uncontrollably, but I bit my tongue each time I was tempted to speak. When I was dressed and ready, I stood up, collected myself, and tried to open the door. It was locked.

"The door's still locked," I informed the soldier watching through the window.

"Yes, please wait a little longer."

"Why?" I asked. "You saw everything I have. You know I'm not a security threat, and surely you know by now that I have a visa."

"I'm sorry but you're going to have to wait," she said.

I couldn't hold myself back any longer. I lost it. I opened up my bags and took out what was left of my canned tuna. With my fingers, I began to spread the oily fish all over the window.

"What are you doing?" asked the soldier, disturbed.

"You don't respect my stuff, I don't respect yours," I answered.

Next, I opened a box of Turkish delight. "I'm not going to stop until you let me out," I announced as I began mashing the gummy cubes into the hinges of the iron door.

"OK, OK," said the soldier's voice over the intercom. "You can go now." The door buzzed.

I gathered my bags and walked out. A soldier was waiting for me on the other side. He gave me my passport and said I was free to leave. I called Kobi as soon as I was outside. He said it was the US Consulate that had helped get me released. The army claimed they were holding me because of the photographs I had taken inside the terminal. Interestingly, they hadn't bothered to delete the images from my camera when they searched my bags.

I told Kobi what had happened. I felt as if I had lost a part of myself inside that terminal as I had slowly lost control. Kobi reminded me that even the option of losing control was a sign of privilege-Palestinians who behaved as I had would not likely have been freed. I tried to imagine what it would be like to endure such an invasive screening every day of my life.

Kobi told me a story about his Palestinian friend, Sara, whom he'd met in Maryland. Sara would frequently travel back and forth between her home in Palestine and the United States, where she was studying. Each time she returned to Palestine, she was able to walk right through the checkpoints. She had enough confidence to just assert her will and go through, simply by the fact that she was used to being treated like a person. And each time, after a few months in Palestine, she would lose that ability.

In just a few hours I had gone from empowerment to craziness to submission to destructiveness. What would I become after months of such treatment? What about a lifetime of the even worse treatment that Palestinians experience?

It was dark outside the terminal as I hung up the phone. I had been held for 3 hours, and there were no more buses running. I could see the lights of a settlement on a nearby hill. I began walking in what seemed like the direction of Tel Aviv. I stuck my thumb out to the occasional passing car, and eventually a settler stopped. He moved his gun out of the front seat so that I could get in. Feeling lousy about it, I accepted a ride to the nearest bus stop from where buses were still running to Tel Aviv. I boarded the first bus out and cried the whole way back to the city.

1. Planting Trees Against 40 Years of Occupation

Demonstrations against Israel's 40 years of illegal Occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and Golan Heights, are springing up all over Palestine and the world.

Here is one at Huwara checkpoint, one of the most notorious and humiliating in all of the West Bank.

51,000 trees from Nablus alone have been uprooted by Israeli Occupation Forces have been uprooted in the past 5 years.

2. Fire, tear gas, beatings, rubber bullets in Bil'in
Filmed by Emad Bornat in the West Bank village of Bilin. Demonstrators were protesting the illegal confiscation of Palestinian land and Israel's Apartheid Wall.

At this demo, 7 were injured, 4 with rubber bullets. One Chilean activist was shot in the head and leg from a short distance with rubber-coated steel bullets.

This video shows the Israeli Occupation Forces firing tear gas and rubber bullets at non-violent demonstrators-- also Palestinian land and olive trees catch on fire due to the sparks from a tear gas cannister.

Full story can be read here:
http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2007/06/01/chilean-shot-twice/

3. Settlers throw stones at woman and baby
Last but not least, this is what Jewish settlers teach there kids. Tel Rumeida, Hebron-- Israeli settlers children throw stones at Palestinian woman and her baby-- May 30, 2007.

Want to understand Israeli society? Spend some time at a checkpoint. “Anyone who wants to become acquainted with Israeli society should go to the checkpoints. Not for a quarter of an hour, under the guidance of commanders who will glory in the pavilion they built for the people waiting in line and will explain that the upgrading and the expansion of the checkpoint are intended to benefit the locals. Those who really want to know the checkpoints should rather dwell here for hours, during several days. When you observe the soldiers, you will discover many Israeli characteristics among them, characteristics in which we have always taken pride,” Amira Hass said.