As Ramadan starts, Israel seeks to ease travel
“We try to be sensitive during Ramadan,” Lt.-Col. Sharon Biton, operations officer for the Civil Administration, told The Jerusalem Post on Monday. “We changed operations hours at the checkpoints to facilitate the Palestinian needs and to coincide with their time zone since they are now on standard time.”
To assist the Palestinians, the Civil Administration has beefed up forces at main checkpoints in the West Bank and has ordered soldiers not to smoke, eat or drink in the presence of fasting Palestinians. Biton said that due to the fast, most of the Palestinian traffic was at night and not during the day.
I can’t quite make out if this is good or bad news. In some places, the article seems to be referring to the Palestinians as if they were a herd of cattle; in other places, there is a sign of improvement in Israel’s recognition that Jewish settlers have been assaulting Palestinians. This went on unchecked until B’tselem- who continue to do amazing work on highlighting Jewish settler terrorism- gave cameras to the Palestinians to film those atrocities.
Nevertheless, I wish all Muslim friends a good and successful Ramadan.
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