“The thing I remember most is the fear. A cell phone is always with me, always. It was forbidden to ride the bus. Even walking around in the street was bizarre.” So tells Corp. Noy Berkovich, a soldier in the Military Police Corps born in August of 1991 in Kfar Saba.
“There was one huge attack which happened right near me,” she says of the attack on Nov. 4th, 2002, when a suicide bomber exploded at the entrance of the store Shekem Electric in the Kfar Saba mall, Arim. The explosion killed two and injured close to seventy people.
“I remember to this day. I was in jazz class, which was in a bomb shelter, a place with no reception. When the class ended I went outside, as usual. But everywhere I went there were people crying. Everyone was in shock. I asked and was told ‘there was a terror attack’. I didn’t know how to respond. Till then attacks were something that happened on TV, something you see on the news.”
Noy Berkovich is a soldier in the Taoz battalion, part of the unit responsible for checkpoints in the Military Police. This past year she’s taken positions in checkpoints in the Judea and Samaria region, mostly in the Gush Etzion area and near the Dead Sea. Every day she checks thousands of vehicles and people, part of an army effort to eradicate the wave of attacks which marked daily life in Israel at the beginning of the decade. In the coming months, she’ll begin officer’s course.
“What do territories have to do with me?”
Did she want to serve in the military police? “No,” she says and smiles shyly. “I didn’t want to be a combat soldier. I knew it wasn’t for me. On the other hand, I didn’t want to do a secretarial position. When a letter from the military police arrived at home, my mom started crying. She didn’t really know what it meant to be a military police woman, what the options and the different positions are, but she knew that they’re hated.”
Regardless, when the time to make a choice arrived at the induction center, she chose military police over field intelligence observer. “My service began in total shock. We got to the base at night, in the dark, and as in every basic training period the orders started right away. They ordered us not to drag our bags,” she says, remembering.
“The second wave of shock came at the end of basic training - the placement tests for different courses [for different positions] started. Everyone, of course, wanted to get to the Criminal Investigations Division. Almost no one wanted to get to the checkpoints. When I was told where I’d be going, I didn’t know how to react.”
Why, in her opinion, was this position so awful? “It’s a position that wears you down,” she answers. “But the main reason was fear. I had never in my life been at a checkpoint before that. The closest thing I’d ever seen was a terminal at the Airport. What do territories have to do with me? My parents were very worried and so was I.”
But the course, she says, was actually a unique experience. They were taught about security checks, different checkpoints, about interactions with those passing through the checkpoints. What’s stressed the most is technique: how to check if an ID is fake, what to check in vehicles, how to check people. There is also a short course in Arabic. “Despite that,” she says, “even as the course raised my level of motivation, I still didn’t really understand the position. You can’t really understand until you’re there.”
”Don’t stop him and he ends up being a terrorist who carries out an attack”
“In my first time on guard duty we got to the post and dismantled our weapons. It didn’t occur to me to load a cartridge. When they asked why it wasn’t loaded I got really nervous. Why would it be loaded? What if it goes off? I didn’t know how to approach vehicles and how to stop them. I felt terrible when I asked them how they were and where were they going.”
There are two kinds of checkpoints in the Judea and Samaria region, permanent and temporary. “In my first month I was only in the permanent checkpoints. They’re built, their organized. Although they’re somewhat bizarre, there’s a sense of protection. Temporary checkpoints are something else altogether. In truth, they’re just a few walls of cement and chairs. There’s nothing solid stopping traffic, except for a “stop” sign, speed bumps and my outstretched hand. The experience of temporary checkpoints was easily the scariest, but also the most important for me. That’s where it hit me. That’s where I really understood our purpose here.
“Two months after starting the position I was sent to a checkpoint near Metzoke Dragot [a resort village] on the coast of the Dead Sea. At first, it seems the whole atmosphere is less dramatic. It’s a small checkpoint on a narrow road, but it’s actually what separates Judea and Samaria and the road leading to Eilat. The first thing that the commander of the checkpoint told me was ‘imagine that right now a vehicle is passing through on the way to Eilat. It’s hot, you’re tired and it looks harmless. You don’t stop him and he ends up being a terrorist who carries out an attack.’ Somehow, in that moment, I felt that this is real. Two thoughts ran through my mind then, first – shock and second, the undeniable understanding that this can’t happen. I wouldn’t be able to live with it.”
There are many tough moments, she tells. But after the first few posts, when the understanding that this was the way of things started to sink in, the difficulties came less and less from the danger.
Apart from the masses passing in the morning hours, when many Arab Israeli workers go through on their way to work, in general, the cars passing through belong to Jewish people. “There’s no choice but to check all of them,” she says. “We have a responsibility. Anything is possible. Whether a person is Jewish, Arab, Israeli, Palestinian, young or old there is always a danger.”
“The Israeli Arabs understand. They cope with the fact that this is the reality of life, and they listen, patiently. It’s actually Jewish people who start the arguments. People don’t always understand how critical the security checks are and don’t understand the reality in which we work. We stand in the blistering heat hours on top of hours. The burden is huge as is the pressure. Most people think it’s ridiculous that we would stop them, and they’re always angry. ‘I was an officer in the army,’ they tell me, or ‘I’m wearing a yarmulke, you should be ashamed of yourself.’ It’s not easy. There are many times I get off duty feeling very offended.”
In the end, there is no other choice
“There are sad events which, again, come from the fact that we have to check everything. One time an Arab Israeli salesman came to the crossing with his wife and kids. It was eleven o’clock at night. Very nicely and in fluent Hebrew he asked to pass through with many baby clothes and toys. Mounds of children’s clothes. He tried to explain that he needs them, that that is how he makes his living. I checked him and found nothing suspicious. With that, the rules are clear: Palestinian merchandise can’t enter Israel. The situation was heart breaking. There was no way of checking that the merchandise was valid. I told him to turn around.”
“But with that, despite everything, the work gets easier every day. Often the mood in general is positive, you laugh with those who pass through and come back, we ask ‘kif halak [how are you in Arabic]?’. The technique is also improving. We are learning to identify suspicious people faster and with more accuracy. Unnecessary waiting is avoided. And in addition, we learn that this is the reality. Every time we catch weapon smugglers, we are reminded once again that the threat exists. That what we are doing here we have to do. In the end, there is no other choice.”
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