The Foreign Service Journal, February 2003

matches the picture on the page to my face, smiles as she says “Bevakasha [please],” and waves me along. Before the Intifadas Fifteen years ago, before the first intifada in the late 1980s, such an encounter would never have hap- pened. Checkpoints between the West Bank and Jerusalem or else- where in Israel proper would have even been unusual, and unheard of inside Jerusalem. Now, the check- points for crossing into the “territo- ries,” or between areas in the West Bank, are manned by heavily armed troops, and known as flashpoints for trouble and occasional exchanges of fire. The checkpoints within Jerusalem itself, though not yet entrenched or barricaded, are an indication of how the city is again dividing itself along Arab and Jewish territorial lines. I first entered Arab East Jerusalem from Jewish West Jerusalem in 1967, not long after the war, as a junior officer from Embassy Tel Aviv. By the end of July 1967, all evidence of the so-called Green Line, beginning with the Mandelbaum Gate, had ceased to exist within the city of Jerusalem. Several junior offi- cers from the embassy, trusty copies 58 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 3 The checkpoints within Jerusalem itself show how the city is again dividing itself along Arab and Jewish territorial lines. Potomac Suites Ad Coming 1/20-21/02 Cummings -- I will send to you to place here. Thanks