Police Story 2

Alas. Not a Jackie Chan film, but a story that contains perhaps as many laughs. On my way home yesterday, the police were still out catching those who hadn't paid their car registration. However, contrary to popular belief, they had rather craftily moved their checkpoints to one of the back roads that people were using after their friends told them about the checkpoints in the morning.

After seeing this, I went to T. shop to pick up a few supplies, and found T. looking concerned. His car, it turns out, had been impounded by the police, because he had yellow plates (not registered properly) and hence hadn't paid the tax in two years. As he put, 'why should I pay when I can't drive anywhere?' However, what made the story tragically amusing, was that T. wasn't driving the car at the time. Instead, he had sent his shop assistant, J., to run some errands, who was then caught in the car and arrested. T. had even known about the police checks, and suggested an alternative route to J., only to be scuppered by the unprecedented/unexpected show of police intelligence.

However, in Palestine it's possible to talk your way around/out of anything. T. sent his brother-in-law, M., to the police station. M. has a Jerusalem ID, and was therefore able to claim the car was his and reclaim it (and J. at the same time). However, T.'s car, like many others here, is now sat outside his house, since he can no longer drive it.

During this incident, I was also told that you could buy a little car (e.g. fiat punto) for NIS 2000 here (just US$400) if you get it on the black market. T. suggested that 80% of people buy their car that way, because the import taxes may double the value of a car bought abroad. (His example was a $40000 car would cost $100000 by the time it reached the buyer living in the West Bank). On top of that, the Palestinian Authority tax apparently comes to NIS 3000 (US$600) a year (another T. quote). Hence the thriving black market.