Five Minutes
Editor’s Note: This November, BPFNA commissioned six pilgrims to undertake a Friendship Tour to Palestine and Israel. They learned, grew, and connected with Palestinian peacemakers during special visits to Jericho, Jerusalem, and Hebron. Here, Alissia Thompson shares one experience of witnessing life under military occupation.
In the West Bank, the Israeli Security Forces regularly erect roadblocks and barriers called “checkpoints.” The State of Israel claims they enhance security for Israeli settlements; many Palestinians claim the checkpoints violate their rights of free movement and security personnel openly discriminate against them. Pictured is the checkpoint in Hebron at which the Friendship Tour delegation was detained. (Courtesy of Alissia Thompson)
“Five minutes.”
I heard our host when he said it: he’d learned it took them 5-8 minutes to get anywhere in the city. So when the checkpoint guard told us, “Five minutes,” I knew what that meant.
We had tried to leave Hebron the same way we entered. A hotbed of tension between Israeli settlers and Palestinian residents, our host knew well enough to send us with an escort. We walked back down the sloped road against the setting sun and rising cold, trying to race against the sunset to our checkpoint. It was then I noticed a gentleman at its foot. He was camo-clad—possibly military, but maybe not. Initially, he was just crossing the road, but doubled back when he saw us. Agitated, he approached us and began interrogating our escort: “What are you doing here? Where are you from? Do you speak English?” We intervened and responded with our customary, “We’re tourists from the States,” which did little to appease him. He told us to turn back—our checkpoint was closed—with no further explanation. It was Shabbat, of all days. So when one of us wished him, “Shabbat Shalom,” he responded tauntingly, “We’ll see…we’ll see.”
The Friendship Tour delegation meets with a peacemaker at the foot of the West Bank barrier, often referred to as the “Apartheid Wall.” (Courtesy of Ashlee Wiest-Laird)
The sun had gone down, and the wind had picked up. We now stood at the top of that same hill we had just descended, this time at an alternate checkpoint, waiting. We watched as countless others entered and exited through the same gate without issue, but not us. “Five minutes,” he said. And, just like clockwork, three heavily armed Israeli military were hiking toward us.
It only takes them 5–8 minutes.
We were told we could not exit the checkpoint, because of a “security issue.” Palestinians have come to know these words well. The military routinely deploys these terms, and countless similar ones, to disrupt daily Palestinian life to the point of exhaustion and despair. Wanton road closures when trying to get kids to school, hours-long traffic jams at checkpoints—Palestinians live in a suspended state of uncertainty and dread. The ambiguity of the military language is artful as much as it is effective: how does one argue with “military zone” or “national security issue” or “construction?” And that’s precisely the point: you can’t. It is designed to wear one down and render life unbearable, in the hopes that Palestinians will simply give up and leave their lands.
So, we did yoga in the street. Sang songs. Our generous host made the trek up the hill to help negotiate our ‘release’—there were countless back-and-forth radio calls and phone calls (including the U.S. Embassy), all foolish theatre designed to advance the story that Palestinians and their allies are nothing more than mice for the cats of Israel to bat around. It is humiliating and dehumanizing, by plot design.
After much pomp and circumstance, we were eventually escorted—by the military—through a dystopian demonstration of Israeli male athleticism on the city streets and back to our original entry checkpoint. Our driver greeted us with a warm van and abundant relief. And although Hebron released us that night, I simply cannot let go of Hebron because this is just another day in the life of Palestinians.
And it is captivity.
