When all pose the threat of mass murder

QALANDIA CHECKPOINT, WEST BANK - Whether they were businessmen or labourers, schoolgirls or elderly men with canes, Palestinians were searched and questioned by Israeli soldiers yesterday after back-to-back bombings in Jerusalem.

"It doesn't matter what you look like or what age you are, if you are Palestinian we are all in one lot," said Sani Meo, a 41-year old Palestinian publisher in formal shirt and trousers.

"Old, young. None of us is better than the other," he said before crossing the checkpoint from Palestinian-ruled Ramallah into Jerusalem and opening his bag for soldiers to check.

Said Israeli police spokesman Gil Kleiman: "We know that it is Palestinian terror. There are no Jews doing Palestinian terror. So we know who the enemy is.

"It is one group and it is only that group. Of course Palestinians are targets."

Yesterday, Israeli Army chief spokesman Ron Kitrey told Army radio there was an "unusual concentration, even by the standards of recent months, of warnings" of more attacks.

Police were pulled out of training schools and put on the streets. They set up impromptu checkpoints, laying studded chains across main roads to control the flow of cars.

They questioned a car full of Arab women in Muslim headcoverings.

An Arab man gesticulated persuasively to a stony-faced Israeli officer in a car who was checking his identity papers.

Dark-haired men who appear to be Arab on buses are asked for identity cards by police who board and scan passengers' faces.

At a roadblock near the edge of Jerusalem, Palestinians with briefcases lined up next to others who appeared to be labourers.

"They check our bags every day. It doesn't matter who it is, even little kids," said 13-year old Maha Hamouda, wearing a green school uniform, after she crossed a checkpoint into Ramallah from the school she attends in Jerusalem.

Asked if she and her schoolmates understood what the soldiers were checking for, her friend said: "Yes. For a bomb."

Bombers have often disguised themselves. Some dye their hair or dress as soldiers. One carried a guitar and was escorted to his target by a young woman, Israeli officials said.

Police say the profile of bombers has changed in many ways - except that they are Palestinian.

"At one time there were general guidelines and then suddenly what happened was they were broken," said Kleiman.

"Now they can be married with children, or be young women, older people."

Lior Yavne, spokesman for Israeli rights group B'Tselem, said: "They have been using racial profiling here since I don't know when. You can see it everywhere. In the streets of Jerusalem, or when police approach people who look Palestinian."

But Kleiman noted that even Israelis are required to open their bags for inspection at shopping malls and restaurants.

He said when Israelis were acting suspiciously outside an Arab school in Jerusalem recently, they were stopped by police. Some were detained and accused of planning a bomb attack.

But Palestinians say that when it comes to Palestinians, Israeli suspicions go too far, sometimes with deadly effect.

In the Gaza Strip, the Israeli Army has shot dead Palestinians who it said appeared "suspicious", but then later found that they were not carrying any explosive or weapon.

Palestinian taxi drivers say they are scrutinised by police when they are spotted in mostly Jewish West Jerusalem.

"We are not in a position to offer alternatives," rights spokesman Yavne said. "I don't think we can blame them. But from cops to soldiers, we see it stigmatises the whole society."

- REUTERS

Feature: Middle East

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