Sky McLaughlin
There has recently been
much debate in America surrounding the proposed installation of roadside
checkpoints intended to deter alcohol-impaired people from getting behind the
wheel of their car and endangering the lives of every other citizen on the road.
These checkpoints were conceived with the idea of safety and security for
American citizens in mind. However,
the very people that these checkpoints were intended to protect, vehemently
rejected their implementation on the grounds that they heavily infringed on the
individual human right to privacy. It
seems that the public chose human rights over their right to security.
Unfortunately, in the West
Bank and Gaza Strip, the reality is much different. Here too, checkpoints have been installed to protect the
security of the public, but military checkpoints have not been built on
Palestinian land to protect the Palestinian people.
Instead, they have been implemented as a security measure to protect the
people on the other side--the citizens of Israel. Apart from the functions the checkpoints are intended to
serve, the very concept of the checkpoint itself stands in gross violation of
the human rights of the Palestinian people.
Each human being should be guaranteed the right to emotional and
psychological health and security. However
the symbolism of these checkpoints has severe psychological repercussions on the
Palestinian people. The implication
is that Palestinians are entirely too dangerous and evil to be allowed the
freedom of movement in their own country, or their neighbour’s.
The damaging impacts on the psyche, not to mention self-esteem,
particularly of young people, are tremendous.
Freedom of movement and
the right to physical safety are just two of the fundamental human rights
violated by the Israeli checkpoints. Palestinians
are not free to travel from region to region in their own country, and this has
far-reaching effects on the relations of the family.
Families are split and divided, and cannot join together to provide
emotional support and comfort during this time of tragedy and suffering.
Fear has become a permanent part of the Palestinian psyche, as they
constantly worry about the time when there may be an emergency in their family,
whom they cannot reach in time. Often
times this emergency may be of a medical nature, and there have been numerous
accounts of ambulances which, due
to the checkpoints, have been barred from reaching the hospitals.
Many of the passengers have consequently died. This is a flagrant violation of each human being’s right to
medical care.
When freedom of movement
is denied a population, it is not only the right to medical care that is
violated. Similarly, the right of
children, youth and adults to education is revoked. Children from villages which are under closure are unable to
reach their schools, thus further affecting the quality of education they
receive; their studies have already been severely damaged by their fear and
inability to concentrate as a result of the violence of the occupation.
Students studying at Bir Zeit University have been forced to walk through
valleys amidst tear gas and random shooting in order to educate themselves.
When the closures deny people the right to an education, they are
impacting society on a much greater level: without an education, the citizens
have less exposure to literacy skills and therefore are denied the ability to
lobby for their rights and defend themselves in an articulate and effective
manner.