Oppression Starts With Concrete and Ends With the Mind at West Bank Crossing

This is an adapted excerpt from the introduction of Checkpoint 300: Colonial Space in Palestine by Mark Griffiths. Copyright 2025 by Mark Griffiths. This text was originally published by the University of Minnesota Press and has been reprinted here with permission.

Checkpoint 300 is between two of the most important centers of Palestinian life, Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Built into Israel’s West Bank wall (the “separation barrier”), the checkpoint complex is itself an extraordinary organization of space: turnstiles and corridors corral and subordinate a colonized population for inspection and validation by soldiers and security staff. Crushing queues, unpredictable delays, and the always-pronounced threat of denial or detention have made crossing part of a punitive commute endured by th