It's noon on Thursday and Khaled, a lawyer, noticed immediately: The older soldier checking IDs at the Za'atra checkpoing - south of Nablus - is being nice to people. The soldier looked inside the car, saw the three children, smiled and gave them candy.

Khaled's first impulse was to refuse the sweets. Later he decided to give the soldier a break and not explain that the candy and the politeness do not alter the reality: this checkpoint, at the foothill of the sprawling settlement of Tapuah, is part of the whole complex of fences along roads, obstacles in side roads and dislocation of villages from their land and often isolating Palestinians living in the northern West Bank from the south.

The checkpoints in the West Bank are the focus of attention in Israel, especially when the army or the defense minister promises to lift a few. Indeed, compared to 2002 and 2004, the number of checkpoints has shrunk, but only after Israel achieved its objective: enforcing a separate system of transportation - the best quality roads for the Jews and the settlements, and the worst kind for the Palestinians.