Watermelons Force Palestinians To Institute Checkpoints For Palestinians!

Oh, the horror!
Oh, the outrage!
Oh...the prices!!!

The Palestinian boycott of Israeli goods is not working:

So how did the [Palestinian] Ministry of Economy handle the failure? An emergency meeting was conducted to adopt a policy to inspect all vehicles entering the Palestinian cities with checkpoints based on the borders of cities, such as the point located by the entrance of Beit Sahour and Ram.”

You heard it right, Palestinian checkpoints to prevent their own people to exercise the freedom to shop. One thing is certain, cursing Israel was not a great idea after all.

The Palestinian Authority is trying to do more than just keep out Israeli goods. Lenny and Shellie Ben-David write that more than just good prices can be found at the Rami Levy Supermarket. In Middle East Coexistence? On Aisle Two, Next to the Cornflakes, they write:

The parking lot started the amazing experience — late model cars with Palestinian green and white license plates, interspersed with Israeli vans and jalopies with their black and yellow plates.

The Rami Levy supermarket is located a few hundred yards from the Gush Etzyon junction in the West Bank, 10 miles south of Jerusalem on the road to Hebron. Next door is a former Jordanian army fort, built at the strategic crossroads after the Jewish communities in the Etzyon bloc were wiped out in 1948.

The store opened in June and has been packed with Arabs and Israelis every day except on the Jewish Sabbath or holidays.

Rami Levy is no ordinary supermarket. Shellie Ben-David writes:

My Rami Levy shopping is still a wonder to me: if I need a few items, I don’t have to shlep into Jerusalem, but can just hop in my car and in five minutes be at the supermarket. Today, as I was whizzing down an aisle in my jeans skirt, Lands End shirt, and crocs, I noticed five or six very well-dressed Arab ladies in their caftans and hijabs, probably in their late 20s to early 30s, checking out the store. They were speaking among themselves as they gazed and pointed at items. At one point a worker in his Rami Levy uniform came over to speak to them in Arabic. Later, I saw that they had finally settled in the shampoo aisle, comparing different brands. Women will be women.

Rami Levy is something of a phenomenon, one that has been ignored by a media that has its own agenda on how to portray the Israeli-Arab relationship anyway. They don't know what they are missing:

Press accounts, political pundits, and pontificating politicians portray the situation in the West Bank as bleak and insoluble. Perhaps that’s why I was in awe on my first visit, when I saw Palestinian families and Israeli “settlers” mingling in the aisles, thumping the watermelons and squeezing the plums. My checkout cashier was a Jewish woman from Kiryat Arba of Moroccan descent, on the cash register next to her was a blue-eyed Muslim woman from Halul, and working the register behind me was a member of the Bnei Menashe tribe from India who had formalized her conversion to Judaism.

I really shouldn’t have been surprised, however, since out here in the Etzyon bloc region we “settlers” had good relations with many Palestinian craftsmen and workers who live in the area. The intifada in 2000 quashed almost all relations and ties, but in recent months they’ve been reestablished. I’m back in touch with Khalil, who taught me how to prune my grapevines, and Mahmoud, who was the subcontractor on a construction project in my home 14 years ago.

Across the street from my house one Arab crew is currently working on the remodeling of a house. (Careful, they mustn’t add on to the house lest they violate the settlement freeze!) Next door to them is a Jewish crew remodeling another house, owned by a strong nationalist who insists on employing “Jewish labor.” But I think I’ve spotted workers passing over a bag of cement or facing stone if the other team had a temporary shortage.

Hebrew, Arabic, and English are the languages I hear in Rami Levy. Many of the Palestinian male shoppers speak Hebrew, indicating that they had once worked in Israel or the “settlements” prior to the intifada. They translate their Hebrew conversations to their wives and children.

This may sound like a unique experience--and maybe it is, but it needn't be. The fact is that this is not a new idea at all:

In the late 1990s and even in early 2000, there were several encouraging and productive joint Palestinian-Israeli products, but the Palestinian Authority — then led by Yasir Arafat — decided to abandon the road to peace and prosperity and chose to launch the bloody intifada that left thousands of Palestinians and Israelis dead and wounded.

Read the whole thing.

When the Palestinian Authorities and Abbas get it through their heads that only peace will bring the prosperity they claim to want for their people, maybe there will be real movement by them to at least take the step of talking face-to-face with Israel.

Maybe it would help if their wives would take them shopping.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad

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