Julie Peteet

Time, like space, is critical to Israel’s colonial rule of Palestine.

“They are stealing our time. Everything takes so long!” Muna lamented, referring to the Israeli system of permits and checkpoints that governs daily mobility in the West Bank and makes the normally short trip from Ramallah to Jerusalem a nightmare of delays. She had just been granted a one-day permit to travel those six miles, a requirement for West Bank Palestinians who want to enter Jerusalem. Obtaining such a pass requires advance preparation: a trip to the Palestinian office that coordinates with the Israeli office that confers travel documents. A wait of days or weeks then ensues, followed by another trip to pick up a permit that allows entry into the city for a delimited period of time. On top of such preparation, the actual trip, which in the past would take about 15 minutes, now takes anywhere from one to two hours, given the expanded network of roadblocks and checkpoints along nearly every route in the West Bank.

From: Adbusters