Nablus

I visited Nablus for the last two days hence the lack of posting as I didn't have access to Internet there. Nablus and the Old City are incredibly beautiful and the people are incredibly friendly as always. The main job of internationals here has been to pick olives and protect Palestinians from Settler attacks.

However the Olive Harvest is now over so I was just visiting. The city is often invaded by the army, in fact pretty much nightly, who tend to kill fighters in the town and throw sound bombs. Whilst this is happening the Palestinians would rather we were safe and to be honest there wouldn't be much point hanging around the streets. You can achieve nothing and just likely to get killed as the army can be trigger happy.

The contacts we have there showed us around including the candy factory, and we were pretty much force fed candy. Tea was provided pretty much everywhere we went as was cake and for those who smoke, cigarettes. You can pretty much spunge off the Palestinians here if you so choose!

Anyway after that I've returned to Jerusalem, its taken about 4 hours and that's lucky. We were stopped at one checkpoint for ages. I was asked if I had a bomb in my bag (despite temptations to make a stupid joke I said no) and was told that this area was not safe and we should not visit. The soldier also told me that Palestine wasn't worth a visit and told us to go to Haifa.
At which I did innocently reply, oh no I've heard its not safe.
Anyway during this time my bag was searched, I had to walk through the metal detector a number of times. Then finally let through. Whats interesting is that me and a friend ended up in two different queues, he got through in 5 minutes. I had about 25 minute wait; random decisions about which line to take can hold you up for ages. Of course this wasn't the first checkpoint, we were then stopped again (briefly) and then crossing the wall. Which again took ages. I don't know how much longer this adds to the journey but it is well over an hour. I know people though who have been held up for 4 hours at one checkpoint. It also increase the cost of the journey: instead of just one bus, you have to take taxis to one checkpoint, then switch, then switch again.

How many 'terrorists' has this stopped? Not many I imagine as there are plenty of back roads left and the army believe there are lots of fighters in Nablus but manage to kill people off at quite a rate. How many 'terrorists' are created through the daily grind and humiliation of these checkpoints? Probably a considerable number. I'm cold tired hungry, it issnowing here, and I'm really pissed off by the soldiers stupid attitute. I can't imagine putting up with it daily