WASHINGTON, 16 August 2004 — This writer and eight other Americans were recently invited to take a one-week tour of the Palestinian West Bank which ranged from Hebron in the south to Jenin in the north. The trip included Jerusalem and Bethlehem and a lunch with President Yasser Arafat at his Ramallah headquarters.

Conditions were not safe for a planned visit to Gaza but some of the group had been to Gaza previously. Our group saw the dramatic deterioration of living conditions in the places they visited.

The most startling development was the separation wall, or apartheid wall, which was actually under way in many parts of the West Bank. Farmers whose homes have been separated from their orchards and fields were forced to wait for Israeli soldiers to open a gate during brief periods of time, two or three times a day. They must have a permit to visit their land. The same problem was encountered by schoolchildren who sometimes missed the brief intervals and then had to travel using circuitous routes. Sometimes caught on the wrong side of the wall, farmers, children and others trying to conduct routine business sometimes had to stay for a night with friends or relatives. Situations, ranging from medical appointments to emergency needs such as childbirth, gunshot wounds or other unanticipated illnesses were simply not dealt with whenever the apartheid wall was closed. There seemed to be no exceptions of any kind. People have died for lack of emergency medical attention.

Even as members of the group traveled from one place to another there were unanticipated stops. In one case a settler in Jayyus, near Qalqilya, suddenly appeared and eventually forced us to halt and go back with no explanation and for no apparent reason. He was carrying a gun and threatened to use it if we continued. In other places flying roadblocks appeared when Israeli soldiers suddenly halted traffic.

From the day the group arrived in Ramallah Israeli soldiers stopped us. The driver was told to turn around so he took a more circuitous route to another checkpoint where the group was allowed to pass. This happened again the next day but subsequently the group was allowed to pass.

This happened so regularly that it was clear this was routine harassment designed to make life intolerable for all the residents of the West Bank. Sometimes Israeli soldiers created long delays for no discernible reasons. Other times the soldiers would wave people on with virtually no interruptions. The randomness and unpredictability seemed to follow no pattern.

Therefore when people arrived for events and meetings, they were sometimes on time and other times were delayed. The people on the West Bank adapt accordingly. Some, such as members of the Bir Zeit faculty, broke up into smaller groups for lively and courteous personal interchanges. There are 700 checkpoints in the very small area of the West Bank and Gaza, not including flying (unexpected) checkpoints. When the Israelis have torn down buildings they generally insist on leaving the damage untouched and have warned people against cleaning it up. Everywhere there was extraordinary property damage.

On one occasion a checkpoint had closed early, leaving travelers stranded. Our bus had to travel to a more distant checkpoint to get back to our Ramallah hotel. Two other times the bus stopped at the Qalandia checkpoint and we walked across a so-called no-man’s-land to take taxis to get back to our hotel. It was then that we realized that there was no nighttime illumination to help the travelers make their way in the dark. This writer, who is physically impaired , had to be helped by other members of the group, while stumbling through bricks, boulders and collapsed walls in the unlit crossing.

In the dark we could see people in even worse predicaments than any members of our group. They included babies and toddlers and old men and women barely able to walk. It was very clear that the hundreds of people passing silently in the darkness were accustomed to this extraordinary level of daily hardship.

All members of the group have their own stories. But the common denominator is cruelty, extraordinary cruelty committed daily with apparent malice. What is particularly frustrating is that none of this would be necessary if the Israelis would abide by international agreements.

With the exception of some Western European countries, participants on the visit learned that in addition to the UAE only Saudi Arabia routinely provides significant budgetary assistance to the Palestinian Authority. This is a major source of income, given the refusal of the Israeli authorities to turn over tax money owed to the Palestinians. This annual Saudi subsidy has remained constant for a long period of time.

— Richard H. Curtiss is the executive editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs Magazine.