Checkpoint – Every Day Life in Palestine Documentary ( Subtitles )
” Published on Apr 27, 2013
A film showing the day to day reality of Palestinians subjected to demeaning humiliation at Israeli military checkpoints as they attempt to go about their daily lives in their own lands.
No political speeches. No opinions. Just an honest record of the drudgery and humiliation of dealing with checkpoints.
Supported by the New Israeli Foundation for Cinema and Television”
This movie should be shown at every school and university in Israel. We need to defend ourselves, but the way the Palestinians are treated at the checkpoints bring us little security in the long run. Not to mention the damage it causes to their lives.
Thank you for posting.
Regards,
Meir
I also feel for them because as someone who is born in Iran I sometimes get stopped at airports and it always makes me feel angry. Imagine going through this experience every day!
I am always troubled to hear lines like “We need to defend ourselves” or the more common “Israel has a right to …” A more useful question would be: do the Palestinians have a right to resist oppression? I hope that we can all agree that the answer is: yes.
Before you start talking about Palestinian violence ask yourself do they have any other choice? Can the Palestinians get equal rights through peaceful protest? Could the Palestinians peacefully march to the steps of the Knesset and demand their rights?
We acknowledge the right of the people in other countries to overthrow their brutal and repressive regimes. Some of us cheer the Arab Spring. Don’t the oppressed people of Israel have the same right?
Juan, thank you for posting this. You are one of the few people i know that keeps a clear eye and mind on the issue.
Meir Javedanfar, you are right and I would also like to add that i would like to see that video played everywhere else in the world.
I am very sorry that you are being stopped just because you are Iranian.
Having stood in line with other hundreds waiting to go through the Kalandya checkpoint three times a week, some years ago, I remember and experienced the daily humiliations Palistians encounter on a daily basis. One experience pointedly reminded me when, one day, I was in a crowd of people standing in line, waiting to be screened and processed. One man asked me where I was from, and I replied, “from America.” Whereupon he said, “well, now you see how we are treated like animals, like cattle, everyday. Ahlan wa Sahlan! I am a veterinarian who treats animals and always being treated like an an animal.”
I have only watched a few minutes of it (so far). I am thankful that this film exists! But I’m wondering, how could it be that it was allowed to be filmed? Maybe the answer to this question will become evident if I watch it all. I pray for a just peace between my Israeli brothers and sisters and my Palestinian brothers and sisters.
Peace and all good to you,
Lou Recine OFS (Secular Franciscan Order)
Great depiction of the symmetry between the two parties. Kind of like Jim Crow, separate but equal.
It’s hard to see where the term “Peace Process” comes from. Where is the “war” that needs to be ended? Could it be that it is the Israelis’ total unyielding domination against the Palestinians’ unruly and argumentative reaction to the domination?
Of course from our Israeli controlled (dominated?) perspective, there is no rational reason for those 46 years of humiliation to be the root cause of violent reactions by the Palestinians. Israel is no King George III.
The footage in the video is from 2001-2003:
link to imdb.com
so even the separation wall was not in place yet. I’d guess that the situation is even more dire now for the Palestinians.
(And as a nitpicking point, since this film is 80 minutes long, close to a typical documentary length, why is it called “short” in the title?)
Machsom Watch maintains a good collection of short videos on this topic based on its activism:
link to machsomwatch.org
Machsom Watch is a Jewish human rights organization, consisting largely of older Israeli females that stakes out IDF checkpoints and documents abuses carried out against Palestinians.
Following the 1967 Six Day War, many Christians from the West Bank immigrated into the United States from Chritian enclaves, such as Ramallah, to avoid living under IDF occupation and the checkpoints are a key reason for their leaving their homeland. Very few have returned.