‘That’s the point of the checkpoint, to remind you they’re always there’
The Container checkpoint
Mya Guarnieri Jaradat writes in +972:
As the Bethlehem-bound service taxi left the West Bank village of Abu Dis and the Israeli checkpoint came into sight, the other passengers, all Palestinian men, stopped talking and put their seatbelts on. The driver turned off the radio. Just moments before, music and conversation and laughter had filled the air. Now it was silent, save for the clicking of the prayer beads that swayed from the rearview mirror.
This happened every time a servees approached “The Container” checkpoint: everyone held their breath as though they were diving underwater. But diving comes with the expectation of surfacing. The thing about The Container is the uncertainty — you never know what’s going to happen. Maybe the soldiers won’t even look your way. Maybe they’ll wave you through. Maybe they’ll pull you over and search you. Maybe you’ll end up in administrative detention. Who knows?
It is the uncertainty that terrifies, and it is the uncertainty that made everyone lapse into silence that day in September 2013. Everyone held still. Even the driver seemed to try to minimize his movements. Keeping his hands at ten and two on the steering wheel, he moved as little as possible, just enough to guide the vehicle through the checkpoint.
On that day, we bounced over the first set of tire spikes and an Israeli soldier — standing in the road, a gun slung across his chest — gestured for the driver to pull over. It didn’t make a bit of sense because, just five minutes ago, I had cleared this checkpoint going in the opposite direction and they hadn’t been pulling anyone over.
But now they were.