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Checkpoint snapshot

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A boy waiting to cross an Israeli checkpoint in Jerusalem (Photo: AP/Tara Todras-Whitehill)

The scent is sweet and mildly at a grasp; it is circulating the stuffy room. I glance around, hoping to find my sanctuary; my place of comfort.

The atmosphere around me is musty. I feel as if my veins are going to burst. Twisting and turning, with the hope of finding that place of comfort, I realize that it’s all just psychological.

Creeping from over my shoulder, the scent flows into my nose like the Mississippi flowing into the Gulf of Mexico, tranquilizing my brain cells. My nose widens and dilates; the smell rushes in as the memories of my childhood summers enter my psyche, nourishing guiltless feelings and overriding the evil that has consumed me. This aroma smelled like fear, I could feel it and smell it. It was in the air; frustration, anger, and screaming were the ingredients for this fear.

My eyes started to droop like a dogs tail, waving up and down until finally they are shut. I am not asleep.

A familiar foreign wind brushes against my face. My eyes start opening up again. “How could you do this to an old man, he did nothing to you”, I noticed that that was my father speaking.

As a child, you are trapped in the effect that is similar to that of narcotics; it is euphoria, everything from the colors to the playgrounds to the trips… but then it soon wears off and the land of Utopia diminishes to unravel a very deteriorated surrounding.

In the midst of these surroundings comes that smell of fear. There we were moving at snails pace through the checkpoint of one of the Palestinian territories. That is where his voice keeps echoing, “How could you do this to an old man, he did nothing to you.” And as I was digging through the piles of luggage that were scattered in the back seat, attempting to get my hands on a digestive biscuit, the smell of fear seemed to overtake the buttery scent of that biscuit; I let it go and rotated to observe the scene.

It was an old man, about eighty-five or so. He landed on the floor; his cane was spiraling in the air; the soldier showed no remorse. I could tell that my dad’s blood pressure was rocketing. He was furious; I was scared. Adrenaline seeped through my veins paralyzing my brain and the only thing that was there; the pounding beat of my terrified heart. As I plod towards my father, the gravity anchors me down to the ground.

The old man was scrambling to get up. My dad was there to this stranger’s defense. The soldier’s gun was facing my father as a vulture about to eat it’s decaying carcass. My adrenaline was seeping even faster now and my slow pace started to accelerate. As the gun got closer, so did I and then involuntarily I wrap my arms around my father and turn around; the gun was facing me now.

And that is where the deteriorated surrounding comes into sharp perspective. Creating an awareness that makes you more responsible for demanding a more just tomorrow.

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wow. just wow.

What bothers me is that the Zionists, the “patriotic” Israelis, who haunt this blog never want to answer for this.

Most of them pretend like it isn’t even happening.

And how many have done these same sort of crimes with their own hands?

What about answering for this?

Don’t MISS: Thrown to the Dogs!!
An article in Haaretz of 20Jan2012 tells a horrendous story entitled “How Israeli negligence led to the death of a Palestinian car thief “:
Link: http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/features/how-israeli-negligence-led-to-the-death-of-a-palestinian-car-thief-1.413555

This is an example how Israel delegitimizes itself and has made itself an OUTCAST of basic Civility and of the civilized international Community.
The story comprises nearly all the ingredients of what Occupation is and leads up to inhumane behaviour without compassion beyond imaginable limits!
As you read on in utter disbelief you will be devastated by the degree of the lack of basic humanity prevailing not only in Israel’s Police, Army and large sections of its Society but even among medical Doctors and Nurses.