Seriously 972, I know you want to give voice to Palestinians, but can’t you find some one who can get past the doctored quotes and tendentious self pity?

These are the stories that you don’t hear because there is already so much separation, within the Green Line as well as without, and most Israelis and overseas occupation supporters don’t want to know – overseas occupation supporters because it damages the idea, and Israelis because thinking about these things is tough for them personally. You talk about suicide bombings, but you don’t mention what was being done to Palestinians for decades before they began – and this is actually an illustration of Amer’s point. When you think of death and suffering, you look first at Jewish life. The Palestinians who died before that you don’t even know about. What is a Palestinian supposed to conclude from that other than, “In their eyes we are not as human as they are”?

Your justification of the arbitrariness of checkpoint behaviour is one that the soldiers themselves don’t trouble to give, and the way you keep altering it to try and excuse or explain the soldiers’ every action suggests that no matter what they do, you’ll find a reason to pass it. Interestingly they don’t always try to excuse themselves with the same determination. There are enough testimonies out there from soldiers who have used the checkpoint to degrade and humiliate to show what drives it, and it’s not special security intelligence. Try boredom, peer pressure, a sense of power, and difficulty saying no all shaken up in a nasty cocktail – all things that people in their late teens are particularly vulnerable to. The only thing missing from Amer’s article is commentary on what this system can do to the people who administer it. It’s not just about seeing Palestinian life as beneath Israeli life, but about seeing life in general as worth less than power. A sense I also get from your own comments sometimes.

2) Bypassing the checkpoint is something that is possible at the moment. In case of the likely renewal of hostilities I can assure you this will stop.
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3) See 2. No intelligence warnings, no need to do much checking. Given a renewal of violence you will see a very different behavior at the checkpoint.
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4) I would like Israel to separate from the Palestinians, which includes not employing the Palestinians in Israel and not allowing them access. This is what is normally done to foreigners who have a repeated tendency to take advantage of easy access in order to blow up your country’s civilians.

Why won’t you ask your Arab “brethren” the very same question?

Apparently you have no problem with dehumanization of Palestinians by the Ummah.

A Palestinian comedian with a law degree. No wonder K9 cannot understand you.

The institutionalized treatment of a targeted class creates acceptable racism, and racism usually does not see itself as arbitrarily racist. If you want to prevent future bombing you need to understand the families, hopes, despairs and laughter of Palestinians. That can’t happen looking at them in crushingly long lines. It is my view that what they have gone through, what has happened to them, how they respond, can tell us something reaching far beyond those long lines.