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Like the Wall, most of the roadblocks aren't at the Green Line, but are sprinkled all over the West Bank. They strangulate Palestinian movement, both personal and commercial, within their own territory. They fragment the West Bank, undermining its commerce, leashing its people, generating resentment.
The roadblocks seem intended to ratchet up daily misery. Maybe even more Palestinians will simply pack up and flee. The goal: to transform the West Bank (in the words of the old Zionist canard) into "a land without people for a people without land."
One way I've come to visualize the Occupation is to imagine the indigenous Onondaga Nation here in Onondaga County, a Nation that white settlers long ago reduced to a fraction of its former territory. But to make the situations more comparable, suppose a 25-foot wall separated the Onondagas from the surrounding white-controlled county. Imagine that the Onondagas risked being shot from sniper towers or detained for months without trial if they somehow passed thru the wall without a permit. Imagine further that within the Onondaga Nation there were numerous militarized roadblocks cutting Onondagas off from their neighbors or their crops. Such a bizarre scenario would be a microcosm of the occupied West Bank.
During Ed's first two weeks in Israel/Palestine he traveled with a Christian Peacemaker Teams (www.cpt.org) delegation. The dozen delegates met with Jewish, Christian and Islamic peace and justice activists in Jerusalem and in the West Bank (Bethlehem, Hebron, At-Tuwani). Then for two more weeks Ed toured Israel. The delegation did not visit Gaza still blockaded by the Israeli military.
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