From the desk of Reuven Kaminer June 28, 2013
Two Items on the Evening News
I heard them on the radio which was broadcasting the daily evening TV news digest. I do not have a text of the broadcast but I remember it quite vividly. Two main stories got to me. The first item described the travails of Palestinian construction workers who must pass through an IDF checkpoint daily to earn bread for their families.
The second item was about the latest developments on the Israeli high school graduation scene. Parents and educators are concerned about displays of exorbitant wealth and affluence in dress and preparations for the graduation party and other expensive tastes like hiring a limo for the evening.
These Palestinian workers, four thousand five hundred of them, rise at 2:30 AM (really in the middle of the night) so as to reach the checkpoint in order to have their papers examined in time to go through the Turkomia turnstile and to reach their work site by 7:00 AM. The Palestinian workers, almost all in the construction field, must spend more than four hours of their time, reserved for rest and living before they can reach work and begin a 7-8 hour day of labor. Many thousands of workers go through similar checkpoints along the border between free and easy Israel and occupied Palestine.
Why am I almost certain that the limos are circling into the depths of sickness and decay? It’s the classic case of moral rot that just happens without any specific sponsor, as just one of those things that appear with the latest fashion.
There in the shadows of the checkpoints and their turnstiles, the Israeli warder and his superiors forfeit their humanity. Thus, we control the lives of the drowsy, huddled Palestinian workers, who prove by the dint of their mind, heart and muscle that they will overcome. Meanwhile, our only real hope for our link to humanity is in solidarity with those who have arisen in the middle of the dark night to go out into the dark night to search for bread to feed their children.