New Intifada coming

In the last days of 2006, an Arab friend who is an Israeli citizen offered that I join him on a drive from Jerusalem to Ramallah and back. "I want to drive one of my employees who lives in Ramallah to her home – come with us so you can see with your own eyes what happens on those roads," the friend said. After all, most Israelis are unaware of what's happening there. We passed through the neighborhoods of Shuafat and Beit Hanina quickly, yet when we reached the Dahiat al-Barid neighborhood on the outskirts of Ramallah, the story started to unfold.

At the heart of the neighborhood (still within the boundaries of greater Jerusalem) near the separation fence (wall), a roadblock was positioned on the main road to Ramallah along with three Border Guard police officers who prevented cars from passing through (including our car, which bore Israeli license plates.)

The Ramallah resident we were driving (an Arab Israeli married to a resident of the West Bank) recommended that the driver turn right to a dirt road that bypasses the fence. We droved over stones and potholes for about 20 minutes until we again reached the main road, all the way to the Kalandiya refugee camp and from there to Ramallah. Not even one police officer or soldier stopped us on the way there, which took about an hour and a half. Before the separation fence was erected, this drive would take 15 minutes at most.

Our passenger told us that the drives to Jerusalem and back take three hours or more in total. Now the real story begins, she said, as the drive to Jerusalem is much more difficult than the drive to Ramallah. Indeed, we spent almost three hours on the road in an annoying wait amidst hundreds of cars belonging to Palestinian West Bank residents and Israeli settlers, until the long-awaited-for arrival at the Pisgat Ze'ev neighborhood roadblock, where a grim-faced female soldier was checking IDs.

If this slow wait was meant to advance security needs, then there were countless chances for terrorists to take over settler vehicles if they wanted to.

My friend the driver, the Arab citizen of Israel, told me that because of his work he drives to Ramallah at least twice a week, and every time the humiliating driving experience repeats. Look at the Palestinian faces, he told me. It's as if they're indifferent, yet in every such ride another 10 young men join terror groups. Nothing happened here during our ride, nobody was hurt or killed, he said, yet the humiliation is too difficult to bear. Ninety nine percent of the people here are traveling to work and back, and every day their hatred to you grows. I have no doubt, he added, that the explosion will happen soon and that 2007 will be the year of the Intifada's renewal, as the Palestinians feel that they can no longer bear the suffering.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert promised in his last meeting with Mahmoud Abbas to remove roadblocks within the West Back, but IDF officials oppose this for fear of terrorist infiltration. I hereby advise all the objectors to drive, even once, from Jerusalem to Ramallah or from Ramallah to Nablus, in order to sense the population's suffering and see that the terrorists can reach anywhere if they only wanted to.

So if in a few weeks or months, when we are told that the Intifada is being renewed, we won't be surprised at all.