The Legend of the Removed Checkpoints

The Legend of the Removed Checkpoints
Ran HaCohen, April 19, 2007
In this exceptional case, it took less than a week to expose the dirty deal between the government and the army. Scores and dozens of such deals – among the government, the army, and the settlers – are never exposed; the entire Israeli colonial project is based on such deals, made behind the back of all democratic mechanisms.
But this was an exception.

On Jan. 22, following an embarrassing UN report, the army had to admit:

"The Israel Defense Forces admitted yesterday that the 44 dirt obstacles it said had been removed from around West Bank villages did not actually exist.

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But why bother to tell the truth when a lie is just as good?

Three months later, Israel is again counting on our short memory. In an official meeting between the Israeli prime minister and the Palestinian president, no less, the army airs once again the legend about the 44 "removed checkpoints."

The lie exposed in January is recycled as truth in April, and everybody is happy: Israel can claim it kept its promise, the Americans can claim progress in the "peace process," even President Mahmoud Abbas can claim an achievement.

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IDF source admits 44 barriers allegedly removed did not exist
Avi Issacharoff, Haaretz Correspondent, 22/01/2007

The Temples of the Occupation
Meron Benvenisti, Ha'aretz, 01.01.2007
So far, of the dozens of checkpoints promised to be removed from the West Bank in a "gesture" to Mahmoud Abbas, not a single checkpoint has been dismantled.