A Personal Diary: "Locked in Ramallah for two weeks, part I"

Discovering Oslo 2 Diary
5th-18th March 1996
Locked in Ramallah for two weeks, part I

Good Morning, Ramallah

Left: Students trapped in Ramallah, the taxi drivers unable to travel to Birzeit University.

The sight I dread. On arriving in the Manara - the central node of Ramallah - to catch a taxi to the university, huge queues of students lined the sidewalk. The fortnight before this had seen some of the worst violence in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv for a long time, three bus bombings and a bombing outside the Diesengoff Centre in Tel Aviv, the latter killing scores of Purim shoppers. On Sunday 3rd March, two days ago, the No. 18 bus in Jerusalem was targetted for the second time in a week and yesterday, there was the attack on the Diesengoff Centre. The reason for this closure today was simply that the Israeli government had thus decided to punish the Palestinian population by not simply closing off access into Israel, but also between the myriad of Palestinian areas created by the Oslo 2 map. Israeli President Weizmann put it bluntly, "Sometimes, when you are searching for a needle in a haystack, you have to burn the haystack."

The Haystack

Let's look at it from the point of view of the people of Ramallah, something that will undoubtedly win me no friends amongst most Israelis. The students here, pictured to the left and right, have got up this morning after watching the news yesterday on television. They, being human beings, were undoubtedly sickened by the mounting carnage of the last two weeks. They arrive in the Manara, as I did, to take a taxi to their classes. And what happens? The drivers tell them that there is no way to the university because of an Israeli checkpoint. "What the hell?" they think, "I didn't put any bombs in Israel. I don't even like the idea of people bombing Israel. Why do I have to pay for somebody else's crime?" Unless of course you think that some of them had something to do with it? The two students copying up their class notes on the left might be planning something. The girls on the right, especially the one wearing a hejab who is obviously a Muslim, might be supporters of some illegal organisation. Welcome to the Israeli worldview of Birzeit University, where guilt by association is a way of life.

Back to the story. These students, suddenly caught up by the usually distant events on television, have just been given a lesson in collective punishment, which is going to last for the next two weeks, as they sit frustrated at home with nothing to do. After ten or more such closures, they won't give a fig the next time someone blows up a bus in Jerusalem. After twenty closures, beatings from a soldier, seeing their brother put in detention without trial or charge, having their house demolished, they may even be glad. So might you be if you were living in this situation. Congratulations! You just became a terrorist.

Click here for Locked in Ramallah for two weeks, part II

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