The journey to work...

Like many commuters, Amaris Cole dreads her journey into London each day. The hours spent on public transport are expensive and stressful. But let’s compare a pretty typical commute of a Londoner with that of a Palestinian travel-ling to work. We hear fro

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5 My name is Nadar. I am a Palestinian Christian and I live in the central West Bank village of Taybeh, but I work in the Old City of Jerusalem. I start my day by getting up at 5am and going through the universal morning rituals of grooming, getting dressed and eating breakfast.

My name is Amaris and I live just north of London, but work at the CEN headquarters in Westminster. My alarm goes off at 6am but it takes me at least 10 minutes of snoozing before I get up.

I leave the house at 5:45am. It takes me two minutes to reach the entrance/exit of my village. If I am lucky, the flying military checkpoint won’t be there. If it is, I just lost 15-20 minutes of questions and ID checks. After the checkpoint, it takes me a 15-minute drive down road 457 to Jaba’.

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I go to the gym about 6:15am for a quick workout and a shower before driving my car back home and walking to the station.

In Jaba’ there’s another military checkpoint, but this one is always there. Here there are soldiers standing in what looks like a tollbooth, except for all the body armour and the M-16s. The minibus I’m in sometimes just gets waved through; if not I have 15-20 minutes of questions and ID checks.

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I leave at 7:50am and spend most of the train journey moaning to myself, to Twitter or to whoever else will listen about how appalling the cramped carriage is or that the train is a few minutes late.

After the Jaba’ Checkpoint I reach my mid-way point, the Qalandia Checkpoint. This big ugly thing is where we get processed. Here I get out of the minibus and enter a large terminal on foot. I go through several turnstiles and narrow, barred, metal walkways as if I’m a cow in a slaughterhouse. If I’m lucky all of the gates are open, but that’s rarely the case. So after 45-90 minutes shoving and being sandwiched between two random strangers, I reach the gate.

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Once I get to London, I get two tube lines across town to Westminster. I rarely get a seat, but spend most of the ride eyeing up my fellow commuters, hoping they are getting off so I can take their seat. As soon as I see any sign of movement, I pounce. I’m a tactical commuter.

Here I take off my belt, keys, watch, mobile phone, jacket, laptop bag, and put all of that stuff in a plastic bin, which I load into an X-ray machine. Then I walk through a metal detector, go back to the X-ray machine to get my wallet, and pull out my government-issued ID card, my work ID card, my permit to enter Jerusalem, and a biometric magnetic, which I use to verify my fingerprints. The soldier behind the window might say “Sa’a” (Hebrew for go). That’s one of about five words that I understand in Hebrew. If I’m not, the soldier will start shouting at me in Hebrew over the loudspeaker. Then I’ll explain I don’t understand, so 50 people behind shouting translations.

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I make sure I get the same carriage each day, so that when the train pulls into Westminster I am right by the exit. Once the doors open, the race begins to get to the escalator first.

They’re usually standing on the side of the road and they jump in the middle of the street when they see a Palestinian bus [they know it’s Palestinian because there’s a segregated bus system]. When the bus stops, they make the driver turn off the engine, and tell everyone on the bus to get off. All of those outside the

bus will then have to furnish their permits to enter Jerusalem.

Once I leave the station I do a quick time check. Do I have time to nip in to Café Nero’s for a coffee or do I have to put up with the instant stuff at work?

Assuming I’m lucky and I pass without any problems, a bus that takes me to Damascus Gate will be waiting just be a few footsteps away, on the other side of the checkpoint. I’ll get to Damascus Gate in on a good day. If I’m not, which is often the case; there will be one-to-three flying checkpoints by the Israeli Border Police.

I then walk past some of the most recognizable landmarks in the world. The Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey and the Thames are so familiar that I often forget to admire them as they deserve, though.

Then two members of the Border Police will board the bus. One will stay in the front with his/her finger on the trigger, and the other will work his/her way down the aisle checking that each passenger has a permit to be in Jerusalem.

I walk past College Green, the infamous patch of grass outside Parliament where interviews with politicians take place for the news.

It’s pretty dumb to do this because the bus is coming from an impenetrable checkpoint. When I reach Damascus Gate, I walk up a hill to New Gate. If I’m lucky, I’ll just walk through and navigate through the narrow streets for a few hundred metres before arriving to work. If I’m not, there will be two Israeli Civil Police Officers. They’ll profile me, which is pretty easy - I’m male, I’m young, and I’m Arab, so they’ll stop me and ask me for my government-issued ID card and permit, but they won’t let me go so easily. They call in my ID number and verify that I have a permit and that the one in their hand is indeed mine. It’s about 8-8:30am. I have a driver’s licence and I have a car, but I’m prohibited by the State of Israel to drive to Jerusalem, because I’m Palestinian. If I could and if there weren’t any checkpoints, it would only be a 25-minute drive from my house to my work.

I walk into the office by 9:30am, get myself some breakfast and start sifting through my emails.

I work in my country, and I remain in the West Bank throughout the duration of my commute. I do not enter Israel at any point on my way to and from work. Yet, I need a permit from Israel to reach my illegally annexed capital, which accounts for 35 per cent of my country’s economy.

I have travelled about 24 miles. Some days the train is late, others, certain tube lines are closed temporarily. If this ever happens, there are alternative routes I can take. I am never left waiting in a cage to be checked. I am never interrogated. I am free to travel where I want, when I want to. The Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI) brings internationals to the West Bank to experience life under occupation. Ecumenical Accompaniers (Eas) provide protective presence to vulnerable communities, monitor and report human rights abuses and support Palestinians and Israelis working together for peace. One way they do this is by standing at the checkpoints to monitor the treatment of Palestinians.