Life, taxicabs and their worries with closure of territories
Palestine, Essay, 9/8/1997

Naji, the taxi driver got stuck in a bottle-neck style traffic jam just 50 meters away from a point where Israeli soldiers blocked one of the southern entrances to Ramallah on the West Bank. Those cars were on their way to bypass the Israeli roablock using one of at least seven other side ways into the city. Be it as rough as it is, the road was still preferred by hundreds of Palestinians to being held against their will within or out of the PNA areas.

When all cars rush to this road, hoping to get through before being caught by the Israeli troops, they all get trapped in this rocky alleyway which can hardly allow passage for two cars at a time. I asked one of the drivers if he really thinks the Israeli soldiers are that stupid not to know about the existence of this road and of perhaps hundreds of others like it.

"You seem to be too naive to ask this question," he said with a big ear-to-ear smile one his face. "It is the soldiers who tell us to go through this road. One soldier once suggested to me to use this road and admitted he would be glad to see torment on our faces." His statement, though, has come to support Palestinian arguments that closures Israel imposes on the PNA areas are only meant to punish the local population and are never motivated by security considerations.

"Can you imagine someone having a load of explosives driving through Israeli army roadblocks or even using the routine routes to enter Israel," exclaimed Naji. However, he admits that sometimes he feels that perhaps one of his passengers is loaded with explosives. "Sometimes I wonder what could happen if a passenger boards my car with a belt of dynamite around his waist. What could happen if I get involved in a car accident? A simple collision might detonate the device. In a few seconds we become history."

The fear of spiriting suicide bombers into Israel, admits Naji, has lived with him since last year's wave of suicide bombings in March and February. "Every passenger is a potential suicide bomber," said Naji. "If we escape a sudden detonation of his load, the Israeli authorities would not spare us any torture later on. But unfortunately, it is our job and this is my only means to earn my living."

Like many others of the same profession, Naji thinks that the percentage in risks involving his work has increased with the present stalemate in the peace process. He said the variety of people he meets everyday strengthens his belief that ordinary people on the street have lost faith in the peace process. "I can see the depression and anger on people's faces. I can see the dismay and rage every time I stop by an army roadblock and with every move of every passenger to take his identity card out of his pocket for the routine check."

Naji recalls dozens of brief conversations among his passengers the minute his car drives through the roadblock. "one would voice a comment here. Another would air a curse there. A third tries to carefully pick his words praising all sorts of anti-Israel activities, including, sometimes, suicide bombings.

Leaving Naji to his own fate with traffic jams and fear of the unexpected, I decided to try my luck into Ramallah. Even if no meetings or interviews are scheduled, it was enough for me to test how sterile the closure is. Every day, there is another story. And every day, a new set of rules are applied. One day earlier I spent some 45 minutes waiting for clearance to enter Ramallah. On Saturday, I was less lucky. I was not allowed through. All my arguments with the soldiers fell on deaf ears. The army spokesman's office, which usually handles permits for journalists in crucial days, opted not to intervene. The lady answering my phone calls said she would not like to damage the "quiet Saturday" with phone calls to her superiors. Instead, she asked to speak to one of the soldiers. I handed my cellular phone to one of them and said: "The lady wants to have a word with you." Amazed with my approach, he held my cellular phone and traded a few coded sentences with her to make sure I was not cheating him and that the female voice across the line was authentically an army servant. "The journalist I have here is an Arab and only foreign journalists are allowed in," he said and handed me my phone back, but of course not before he uttered a few more nice words to the lady from the army spokesman's office.

To her, I guessed, he was convincing. But not for me. I took a long bypass road and after 20 minutes I reached the northern entrance of Ramallah. It took me only seconds to pass through. The soldier manning that rodblock saw my press card and said "Press? What are you going to write about today? That we are not nice and that we do not allow the press easy access or freedom of coverage?" I looked at him and said to myself: "Sure I am not going to write on how nice or bad you are as much as I want to describe how unpredictable your rules are."

Previous Stories:
  Blast follow-up   (9/5/1997)
  Suicide bombing in Israel - a thorough dissection   (9/4/1997)

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