Morning Travels - part #1

Originally I wanted to blog today about a miserable checkpoint I drove through last week from my side of the fence to the "Israeli" one. I took lots of pictures and thought it would be an interesting read.

However, driving to Jerusalem today took my entire appetite away from blogging about checkpoints, border crossings and driving to work.

One of the checkpoints I drive through is called "Chawara North." Its a checkpoint on road 60, just north of the Arab village, "Chawara." Chawara's not the friendliest of places; the 2 mosques are landmarks commonly used by settlers when calling the army if they are hit by rocks, Molotov cocktails, shooting attacks, road accidents, etc.

There's a roadblock of burning tires by the old mosque

I just got hit by rocks between the old and new mosques

There's a car stuck on the side of the road just after the new mosque, heading north.

Lately, the IDF has put up a new checkpoint to search for terrorists at the northern entrance of Chawara. Settlers are usually able to drive around the checkpoints rather freely, since we're not at all who the army is looking for -- we don't want to blow ourselves up (and please, no comments on apartheid).

This morning's checkpoint congestion was rather bad, and the Israeli minibus in front of the Muqatamobile was asked by the soldier to pull off to the side of the road. Normally, Jewish traffic isn't pulled over, but since it was a commercial minibus-type van, I guess the soldier wanted to see who was in it. Fair enough.

The driver started yelling at the soldier not to bother him. The soldier yelled back at him to pull over. I waited patiently.

More yelling...the minibus started to move to the side, but I guess not quick enough for the soldier.

Then it happened.

The soldier put his left hand on his M16 right next to the back sight of the rifle, and yanked back on a piece of metal, chambering a 5.56 caliber bullet into the M16.

It was now fully loaded, and ready to be shot.

Gun Rule #1: You only chamber a round into a weapon if you think you are going to need to shoot. You don't do this for fun.

He had just chambered a weapon and pointed it at a Jewish driven minibus.

An officer ran over from the other part of the checkpoint (leaving the entire checkpoint open for all to drive through) to calm down the soldier and the situation.

With the minibus on the side of the road, I drove on...feeling miserable at what I had just seen.

The driver should have been more understanding of the soldier's situation; its nerve racking at these checkpoints, and if the solider wants to stop him for a minute, then go with the flow. Don't yell at him or try to ignore him.

The soldier, even with the mission he's charged with, should never chamber a round into his M16 unless he's going to shoot his weapon. Frustration, even valid frustration is not an acceptable reason to chamber a round and point a weapon in someone's direction; and especially if its another Jew, where its obvious he's not a terrorist.

That was enough to keep me from posting what I wanted to. Maybe tomorrow or later today I'll post part #2, with lots of pictures...though still disturbing.



Wherever I am, my blog turns towards Eretz Yisrael