Checkpoints Quotes

When I visited Jerusalem and the West Bank back in 2008, I was shocked by how individual Palestinians and whole Palestinian communities were treated by the Israeli government. From the illegal settlements to daily humiliations at checkpoints, the evidence of gross injustice and the human suffering it brings is indisputable.

I remember going through checkpoints as a kid. It felt normal but, looking back, of course it created tension. People standing with guns, sometimes your car getting searched and being asked where you are going. It changes the atmosphere.

You can look at the West Bank. Cities are like prisons. They can be closed quickly by the Israeli forces, and everything stops in these cities. This is the result of Oslo.

Protecting a border is not a nice thing. It is not a matter of aesthetics; it cannot be done with flowers and teddy bears.

The West Bank is essentially imprisoned.

As a child I sometimes used to travel to the West Bank to visit my family, so I know what the checkpoints felt like. I knew what it was like to live under occupation.

You don't ever want to be a mechanical basketball player, but as far as technique and things, I like to have certain check points in my shot, certain things that I can count on and think about. It kind of helps me to be consistent.

You can go and visit those places. Nothing there, nothing at all. There are Iraqi checkpoints. Everything is okay.

All border crossings in and out of Iraq must be under the exclusive control of the federal state.

The most valuable advice I can give is plan for your success. Write down your ideal goal, creating checkpoints for yourself along the way that align with the end goal. Set up rewards for achieving both little victories and big ones.

Then there is my country, the Philippines. President Rodrigo Duterte placed most of the country under a lockdown on the ides of March. Surrounded by men in uniform, he cut public transportation and talked about home quarantine, checkpoints and curfews, but said little about the virus or economic aid for those in need.

When you go to the Holy Land and see what's being done to the Palestinians at checkpoints, for us, it's the kind of thing we experienced in South Africa. Whether you want to say Israel practices apartheid is immaterial. They are doing things, given their history, you think, "Do you remember what happened to you?" Then they clobber you and say, "You are anti-Semitic."

When you have a nation that is suffering collectively from a situation of injustice - of violence, of imprisonment and closure and checkpoints, from a sense of vulnerability and of hopelessness - attitudes are going to be affected by these measures.