On the Importance of Thugs

Abstract

For almost three years, from March 2001 through December 2003, the final leg of a commute between Birzeit University and Ramallah, both located just north of Jerusalem, meant a one- to two-kilometer walk across the Surda checkpoint.¹ Commuters would disembark from transit vans that jammed both ends of the no-drive zone. Skirting rubble and concrete blocks, they tripped down the valley, holding their breath as they passed the Israeli soldiers, before finally trudging up the incline to the vans on the other side. Thousands made the walk every day. In the morning, the flow of fashionably dressed students on their way to the university crossed the flow of villagers heading into Ramallah for work and the services that can only be found in a city. In the afternoon, the pattern would repeat in reverse. Refreshments and groceries could be purchased along the way from peddlers or makeshift stands called “the duty free.”

Editors note: this essay is a shortened version of the original published in Middle East Report 231, Summer 2004. It is part of the author’s wider research on the impact of checkpoints; we have included it here as indicative of the checkpoint regime which currently dissects all of the occupied territories, including Jerusalem.