When Israel removed the checkpoint at the southern entrance to Jericho, the Palestinian Security Agency started to work harder and began to despise the local people even more. It claims that Israel has given them too much work by removing the checkpoint. I, as a Palestinian, in consideration of the Palestinian Security Agency's need to take some tasks off its shoulders, request that Israelis put back the checkpoint. But of course that is left to the judgment of Ehud Barak and not me.
After saying good-bye to one friend I met in the streets of Jericho, another would arrive and warn me that the first was under "a question mark," meaning he was apparently a security agent. Events of this sort bring me back to the 1970s, several years after the beginning of the occupation, when people in the streets of Palestine feared each other.
I would like to suggest that Gen. Dayton not just train agents in the use of weapons, beating and torture (eight prisoners have been tortured to death in Palestinian prisons so far this year: five in Gaza, three in the West Bank), but also train them how to behave among their own people. However, I don't believe that ranks high on Dayton's list of priorities.
Whenever someone is beaten or tortured, the justification given is that the person either "opposed the peace process" or "belonged to Hamas."
At the end of the day, people return to their routines and shut their eyes to the reality around them.
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