Time was when the Qalandia checkpoint on the outskirts of Ramallah meant mostly this: a handful of menacing Israeli soldiers picking off random groups of Palestinians on their way to work or prayers in Jerusalem. You never knew who would get stopped for an ID check or a verbal battering from a fresh IDF recruit.

Now you know.

Need to get to Jerusalem for a meeting, a doctor's appointment, a funeral? Step into line in the shadow of Israel's Apartheid Wall, and you'll hear someone, sight unseen, barking orders to move. Line 3! was my order.

In line again, I wait - this time at the turnstile pictured below. A buzzer sounds, the turnstile clicks, and I push my way through. Still no soldiers.

Mimicking the Palestinians ahead of me, I empty my pockets into a plastic container and nudge it onto the belt of an x-ray machine. I step through what looks like a metal detector and hear the voice again. To my right, behind glass too thick to be simply bullet-proof, I see a blond-haired kid seated at a control booth of some sort. (Had he worn a white coat, he could have easily been a lab technician, I his experiment.)

The kid looks more annoyed than the people under his gaze, and I realize I am suddenly the object of his disdain. He gives (ths word is too generous) an order in Hebrew. I shrug my shoulders and hold up my blue American passport. He commands me to open it, takes a long look at my seven-year-old photo, and, by directing his gaze to the next grown man behind me, lets me know—this once—I have the Jewish state's permission to enter Jerusalem.

I wonder: what becomes of those who fall afoul of the blonde-haired kid behind the thick glass? Especially those without the blue passport.

React: samer@helpupa.com