In the Israeli press, not the American press. Haaretz: IDF Closes off Central Palestinian town to cars....
The Israel Defense Forces is not allowing vehicles in or out of A-Ram, a Palestinian city of 60,000 northeast of Jerusalem, because of a recent increase in stone and firebomb throwing at army patrols by local youth, the army said.
Haaretz again: IDF admits barring Palestinians' access to own fields
The state has confirmed that, acting without a court order, the army has barred Palestinian villagers from freely accessing their farmland for two years. The admission was made in the state's response to a High Court petition filed last year by Beit Furik residents.
(Hat tip to the great Ilene Cohen.)
“Soldiers place large boulders across all four lanes of the main entrance to A-Ram, a Palestinian town of 60,000, blocking incoming and outgoing traffic.”
this is surreal.
It’s an obscene abuse of power.
Have they EVER done anything remotely similar to deter those vile settler youth who so frequently stone Palestinian traffic and people? Every time, comparison needs to be made to the difference in treatment between what the settlers do to the Palestinians and the sheer lack of consequences they face for it.
i was just checking out the comment section in haaretz, someone wrote the town was already surrounded on 3 sides by walls. 60,000 people and 70% of them work in ‘israel proper’. it’s insane.
i don’t believe the official explanation. i think something more is at work here.
if you look at the excerpt you posted, annie, you can get a sense of the ‘strategic’ importance of A-Ram.
A-Ram is on the main road leading to Ramallah, between the Kalandia checkpoint and the Dahyat el-Barid checkpoint. As such, the city is a major crossroad through which almost anyone trying to get to other cities in the West Bank must pass.
What you think is a sensible response and what IDF thinks are two different things.
In the Quarter thread we discussed the sadistic twist which is applied to every “solution”. I observed it first when I have read about controlling imports to Gaza. Among other, IDF tried to prevent import of anything that would make food taste well, or what they like to eat in general. After flotilla there was some political need to “relax”, so there was some edict to “allow importation of humus, with the exception of flavored varieties like with addition of mushroom or pine nuts”. To me it is a very good example, because you can check what are the “natural inclinations” when there is no rational basis apart from, well, those inclinations. Obviously, Hamasniks could add whatever they wanted to humus, so it was ultra irrational, but one can trace the “natural inclinations” here.
Another striking observation of “natural inclinations” was in comments to an article about Dan Rather trying to interview Netanyahu and how his crew was humiliated with body searches, in particular Arab Israeli cameraman. I think that 3/4 of 100 comments were expressing happiness that Rather was humiliated with some regrets that this “anti-Israeli a..e” was not stripped himself. I concluded that petty spitefulness is very popular in Israel and as befits democratic country, security institutions serve to implement the will of the people.
One can try to make a more complete sociological analysis of the phenomenon, but my impression is that it is pervasive.
The other issue is that people like to do what they do well. IDF got the technique of blocking roads to the finest detail. They are still struggling with the proper methods of stealing sheep (will IDF purchase some sheep to let conscripts train with the “real thing”?) In time, they will do that well too.
Larissa Sansour, whose work caused the cancellation of a Paris art conpetition last year is now showing in Manchester (UK):
link to guardian.co.uk