The Wall tempts its victims to jump it, if only in their dreams.

It tempts the strong and sturdy to wish that God had made them flying birds or climbing creepers.

It tempts one to infiltrate and penetrate it, as in a cartoon fantasy.

It tempts one to think of rock crushers, drills, and explosives.

It tempts one to make an unparalleled victory of the simple ability to move.

Israel has decided to put us in cans. Every crossroads is a cement can that we are stuffed into. Our movements, on the spot or in any direction, are hostage to a signal from their hand. Yes! A signal from their hand and no other. Otherwise, what would be the meaning of the Occupation? The Occupation is stagnation and the inhibition of movement to the point of paralysis. It is the inhibition of great ambitions and a decline into small dreams. It is the rejoicing of the oppressed over victories that dissipate as fast as hurrying clouds.

Yes! One of the things for which the Occupation will not be forgiven is its narrowing of its victims’ ambitions. It hurls them, or most of them, into an abyss of small wishes and simple dreams. As a Palestinian whose will, like his land, is occupied — his history subjected to erasure and denial, the map of his country spread out on the table of the mighty masters, who have thrown on top of it a pair of super-charged metal scissors, ever ready to set to work — I fully realize that the repressed and oppressed of this world do not float high among the clouds of the sublime or of absolute beauty. They dig deep in the earth, looking for a living root, a viable shoot, a tree that may one day grow. Yes! The existential crises so long that they turn to boredom, the daily aggressions that expand to fill decades, imprison their victims in simple dreams, such as the dream of crossing a street safely, of a child’s reaching his primary school and returning from it on the school bus and not on the shoulders of his stunned schoolmates, of a safe stroll on the beach. The dream of there being anesthetic at the hospital, a glass of water when one is thirsty, a permit to visit the son in detention, idle chatter in the café, success in renewing one’s passport, the ability to bury one’s grandfather in his place of birth, to stay five minutes longer with the beloved, or to get the nod from a gum-chewing teenager in uniform to allow a lady to reach the maternity hospital before she’s forced to deliver her baby at his feet. And just as a reminder, I say to those who are willing to listen, dreams become more dangerous when they are simple dreams.

The ambulance brings us to the place where the road divides.

The right arrow points to Ramallah.

The left arrow to Jerusalem.

This then is our promised ‘Qalandahar.’

No one knows when the checkpoint will be working and when they will close it. Clearly, today it is working.

“We’re lucky, Faisal. Inferno is open today. Prepare for the pleasure of entry, my friend.”

“We have a long time ahead of us in Purgatory, Signor Alighieri.”

“This Comedy is in no way divine. It’s covered in mud, as you can see.”

“Don’t forget that this is the mud of the Holy Land. We can call it The Muddy Divine Comedy.”

“And this is your crossing point to Paradise, Poet.”

“Paradise Regained or Paradise Lost, Mr. Milton?”

“We’re starting to talk nonsense.”

“Yes, we’re talking nonsense.”

“Are we really?”

“No, the Holy Land is talking nonsense.”

“The Holy Land or us?”

“We are the Holy Land.”

“The Holy Land that’s landed up in an ambulance.”

“We’re talking nonsense again.”

“Yes, we’re talking nonsense.”

“But we aren’t talking nonsense.”

“If you want to be serious, we aren’t talking nonsense.”

“What are we doing now?”

“Talking nonsense.”

“Do you think we’ll go mad?”

“No. Don’t worry. We’re too cowardly for that.”

“Long live courage.”

“Long live cowardice.”

“We’re talking nonsense again.”

“So what? What’s wrong with that?”

“And what’s right?”

“You’re a man with a cause and a big-shot writer and you’re talking nonsense?”

“What else do you expect from me when I’m creeping across the border in an ambulance like a mouse? Do you want me to roar? What do you want from me?”

“I want Godot.”

“You’re waiting for Godot and what you’ll get is his brother, Shlomo.”

Our travel companions thought that we really had gone mad, or become temporarily deranged. “Writers, dear God, and poets!” commented the doctor. “We deal with guts and scalpels but you’re in a different universe. Watch out. We’re close to the checkpoint. You never know, they may get it into their heads to check the mental capacities of people crossing at Qalandya as well.”

The wait begins here. Hundreds of human beings standing outside their cars waiting their turn to be inspected. Car horns in short, sharp, pointless, stupid bursts. Some people smoke, some eat sandwiches wrapped in newspaper. Some curse and yell, and we still haven’t reached the crossroads. Children and old people, the disabled and the sick, youths in jeans, girls wearing head coverings with jeans, fully veiled women, chic and would-be chic women with Gucci bags and high heels, peasants and old men and priests and business men and government employees and students. Psychologists say that crowding produces a ‘hatred of the Other’ and that that Other is the person standing in front of you in the line. You want him to get out of your way, to give you his place; in a word, you want him to disappear. This happens to humans and cars at rush hour and in front of cashiers’ windows at the bank, the post office, and in airports. At Qalandya, the crowding makes you furious at yourself, at your countryman, and at the Occupation all at the same time. Boarding the buses at the bridge or getting off them, and in the bag inspection lines, your criticisms of your fellow citizens fly.

Why is she so fat? Why are they traveling with all that luggage?

Look, she’s carrying a basket too! Why does that old woman have to bring blankets with her from Amman — aren’t there any blankets in Palestine?

Why doesn’t that idiotic child stop crying?

While all this is going through your head, you have no idea what the person standing behind you in the same line is saying about you. He too thinks you’re dawdling deliberately and gets angry at you, not the one who’s holding you up.

The long wait in the crush creates a need for many things, and needs create people to meet them. Purveyors of strange services multiply: there’s a wheel chair to transport the old, the sick, and the pregnant, or a porter with strong muscles who will do the job, and there’s a lively donkey for hire too. These services are agreed to after tedious bargaining. A whole vegetable market has been spread out here, along with carts selling food, drinks, ice cream, tea, coffee, socks, cheap clothes, hats, falafel, kebab, children’s toys, colored balloons, and more.

I realize we’ve arrived when I see the first tank, the barrel of its gun almost touching the mirror of our ambulance. Little by little, the entire martial scene reveals itself before us. More tanks are distributed on either side of the crossing point. Earthworks, rocks, and artificial mounds on either side of the road prevent anyone from leaving the asphalt. Everyone has to pass between the cement blocks, and over the heads of these hundreds flutters the flag of Israel with its six-pointed star. As though raising it in the air were not enough, they have also drawn it on the cement blocks.

The rows of cars have no end and there is nothing to gauge time by. Time here isn’t measured by your wristwatch; it’s measured by your ability to be patient. So long as you have the ability to be patient, time passes; when you lose it, it doesn’t. The waiting leaves you rooted to the spot in front of its own dumb stupidity, like someone without eyes gazing at a non-existent picture of a billy goat hung on a non-existent wall.