Tuesday, June 4. It feels like a Berlin Wall in the making. Last night we watched as soldiers tear-gassed and shot at the line of people waiting at a checkpoint on the road between Jerusalem and Ramallah. This morning we were there again, waiting with the people in line.

Our delegation left the hotel at 7 a.m. to reach a conference scheduled for 10:30 in Ramallah. It was just 10 kilometres away, but we barely made it in time. The trip took three hours. Frustrating. But our experience here is daily reality for the women we spoke to while stalled at the checkpoint.

“We cannot breathe,” one woman said, jammed up against us in the crowd. “We cannot work — we cannot take care of our families. They have taken away our lives.”

After waiting for ninety minutes, half of the people were turned back. Today they were only allowing in foreigners and people who lived in Ramallah. Tomorrow, who knows?

We met a dentist who lives in Jerusalem and works in Ramallah. “It is just awful,” she told us. “I told them my patients are waiting for me on the other side. But they don’t care.”

Like everyone else here, she asked us to tell people in Canada what is happening. She is angry at the Israelis and — as with many here — her anger is entangled with anti-Semitism. “They control the media,” she explains.

I have to admit that, sweating among these frustrated people, I was not about to tell her that I too am Jewish. Or that the problem is not that Jews “control the media” — but that the Israeli government and its supporters around the world are brilliant at getting their message out.

One example. Yesterday, I learned that the right of return for refugees was not the reason for the Palestinian rejection of the Camp David proposals. (Not widely reported in the West.) Rather, the Israelis refused to agree to the Palestinians controlling their own borders; they were not actually ceding control of East Jerusalem. Most important, to protect Arafat’s credibility, the Palestinians wanted joint control of Haram Al-Sharif — one of Islam’s holiest sites, also believed to contain the ruins of Judaism’ holiest temple. But the Israelis weren’t budging.

The deepest hate that I saw today was not among the Palestinians in line, though. It appeared in the expression of one Israeli soldier. He kept walking up to our line and ordering us to move back. On one occasion, he spit in front of us with such hatred in his face that I felt, for the first time, truly afraid.

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Judy Rebick

Judy Rebick

Judy Rebick is one of Canada’s best-known feminists. She was the founding publisher of rabble.ca , wrote our advice column auntie.com and was co-host of one of our first podcasts called Reel Women....