In an age where hyper-connectivity and technological advancements mean that fast transportation and instant gratification are expected, traffic jams are the plague of modern development. There is nowhere where the cumbersome experience of sitting in a long tailback is more pronounced however, than the West Bank.
Hundreds of military checkpoints scattered around the occupied Palestinian territory are prone to arbitrarily closure without prior warning, restricting the freedom of movement for Palestinians whose daily lives are already defined by a sense of chaos, temporariness and unpredictability.
However, a new smartphone app Azmeh – which translates to mean ‘traffic jam’ in Arabic – has been designed to tackle this very problem.
20-year-old Basel Sader, a Palestinian student from East Jerusalem who developed Azmeh, explained to Mondoweiss how the smartphone application allows users to post travel updates, receive traffic warning and message other users via an integrated interface. Using a simple color coded system, drivers can now predict and accordingly alter their commutes based on traffic updates at most of the permanent checkpoints.
Sader acknowledged that while the app doesn’t cut to the heart of the problem by challenging the existence of the checkpoints, he hoped that Azmeh is easing what is usually a very burdensome experience for the 11,000 people who have downloaded the app so far.
This is a very very worrying development as it potentially undermines JSIL`s policy of maximum disruption , inconvenience and humiliation heaped on to the Palestinians in the Stolen Territories and could mean that the gravely ill , gravely injured , heavily pregnant etc could make it to hospitals on time and not die – thus underpinning the ongoing demographic threat to JSIL. Can`t be long before JSIL bans the possession/use of this app by Palestinians as an existentially threatening / JSIL deligitimising/ anti – Semitic terrorist weapon.
Be careful out there Basel Sader – you may well be arrested and detained in a JSILDF holding cage on suspicion of incitement , existential threatening , deligitimising , terrorist sympathising , anti – Semitic etc etc etc etc yawn yawn without charge and without a lawyer for indefinitely renewable periods .
On top of that they may well “acquire” your patent and add it to the cherry tomato list of wondrous JSIL inventions.
It doesn’t solve the problem directly, but it documents Israel’s ongoing crime of restricting the Palestinian’s right to freedom of movement. I hope that all the data is stored.
RE: “Hundreds of military checkpoints scattered around the occupied Palestinian territory are prone to arbitrarily closure without prior warning, restricting the freedom of movement for Palestinians whose daily lives are already defined by a sense of chaos, temporariness and unpredictability.” ~ Megan Hanna
SEE: “Permanent Temporariness”, by Alastair Crooke, London Review of Books, 03/03/11:
SOURCE – http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n05/alastair-crooke/permanent-temporariness
This is brilliant! on do many levels. From proving that non-violent resistance works, to disproving the Israeli characterisation of Palestinians as “two-legged beasts”. Hopefully it will inspire Palestinians to trade the ineffective rockets, rocks and knives – for education. A population that knows how to side-step the crude blows thrown by their oppressor, wins.
The only “weapon” that the obdurate and obtuse Israeli zios fear is a highly educated Palestinian population able to come together to create a constructive, non-violent intellectual infrastructure ready to tackle the many problems that will come with the coming Independence and forged under extreme present duress.