Movement controls stunt Palestinian lives - and democracy

For my other "crossings," I waited in the long line of Palestinians in the corralling system that brings them to the Israeli checkpoint at Kalandiya. No Palestinian vehicles can cross. People seeking to pass through must exit vehicles on one side, wait in the long line for the ID check, then walk across a rocky quarter-mile zone to taxis or friends waiting with vehicles on the other side. The walk across the zone is long, humiliating, and treacherous for anyone with mobility problems, young children, or lots of baggage.

On my last crossing, a rare snowstorm was battering the West Bank highlands. A harsh wind cut sideways through the open-sided corral. Many of the Palestinians in line were ill-clad; they shivered through the 15-minute wait. The young Israeli soldiers checking IDs had better clothing, but they looked almost equally miserable as they stood otherwise unprotected for their multihour shifts.

Most of the Palestinians crossing were residents of Jerusalem, coming to do business in Ramallah. Very few Ramallah residents ever get the special permits now needed to enter Jerusalem, where many of them have relatives, or used to work. They are, in effect, imprisoned inside their own town, and have been for some years now.

Nor is Ramallah special. Throughout the West Bank and Gaza, nearly all the Palestinians have been fenced into their home communities in this way. The big new separation wall that Israel is building in the West Bank is just the latest part of this vast movement-control system.

The Israeli government claims these movement controls are needed to prevent suicide bombers from reaching Israeli cities. But in addition, the Israeli chief of staff has told Israel's Hebrew-language press that the military's policies toward Palestinians have a clear purpose of political coercion.

Such an attempt to impose collective coercion on an entire people is illegal under the Geneva and Hague Conventions. It is also counterproductive. Israel's movement controls have been the single major cause for the collapse of the Palestinian economy and the rise in Palestinian militancy. Sharon has not brought to either Palestinians or Israelis the era of "peace and security" that he promised, nor does his newest "Disengagement Plan" look set to do so.

How much longer will Washington give him a free hand to continue these destructive, repressive, and highly anti-democratic policies?

• Helena Cobban, the author of five books on international issues, spent two weeks last month in the Middle East. Her first column from Ramallah appeared in the March 11 edition of the Monitor.

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