When I looked out the window of our apartment at 06:00am it was as clear that President Bush would be coming by our neighborhood, as the fog was thick. I have lived in the northern Jerusalem neighborhood of Pisgot Ze’ev for 8 years. As the crow flies my neighborhood is approximately two hilltops away from Ramallah. The fog had never been as dense, from several hundred feet up to right down to the ground. There was no wind. There was no sun. The fog would be around for at least several hours. This morning President Bush was scheduled to be in Ramallah, headquarters of the Palestinian Authority President, for several meetings and a Press Conference. Travel was to be by Marine Corps helicopter. Traveling by helicopter just was not going to happen.

As is our routine, I drove (terrorists blow-up buses) my wife to her office downtown. It was a dangerous drive. I’m from New England and know how to drive in thick fog. My fellow residents of Israel’s Capitol City do not. Enough said. I dropped my wife off at 08:10 and began the trip home. Three minutes later the Ballagan, Hebrew for turmoil, began.

The main road downtown from the city’s north is Route No.1. I stopped behind two cars at the bottom of the Street of the Prophets, across from the wall surrounding Jerusalem’s Old City. We waited for the traffic light to turn green allowing us to make a left onto Route 1. The light changed, but a police officer blocked our path. Traffic was flowing in both directions on Route 1. Several more traffic light changes and the officer still refused to let us go. It was 08:20. By now at least 30 vehicles were backed-up behind me. As is the practice in Israel, we all got out of our cars and screamed at each other and especially at the police officer. He ignored us as did the phone operators at “100,” Israel’s 911 and at the special Information Center set-up the day before by the Israeli police. As an English-speaking Police Civil Guard volunteer, I had worked in the Center the morning before, fielding questions from English speaking callers.

Radio Jerusalem, our local station, was broadcasting that President Bush was meeting with Opposition Leader Binyamin Netanyahu, then with Arik Sharon’s sons beginning at 09:00. President Bush would not even be stepping outside the King David Hotel for another hour. Thoughts of civil disobedience were flashing through every driver’s mind. A convoy of official vehicles going in the direction of the King David (the opposite direction to which I needed to travel) flew past on Route 1. The traffic light started blinking yellow. The human roadblock - the police officer foolishly moved from his position and began putting up police “Do Not Cross” tape across the intersection starting 20 yards to our left. Peddle-to-the metal, screw on-coming traffic, we made a break for it. I got through the intersection. I do not know how many of those poor souls behind me were as fortunate. Those that were not were caught for well over another hour.

As I drove the length of Route 1 I watched police sealing off each of the intersections. North/South and East/West, all traffic was stopped by 08:30. For most of my 5-minute drive I was the only non-police vehicle on the road. It was still Rush Hour. Major traffic jams could be observed at every intersection and entrance ramp along the highway. Radio Jerusalem made the official announcement at about 08:30. President Bush would be driving, not flying to Ramallah. No kidding! Who would have guessed.

The weather was miserable. The fog remained dense. I parked my car in our building’s parking area and went upstairs to make a cup of coffee and get a hat. I was in a bit of a hurry as I poured the coffee in a travel mug and mistakenly put my Israeli Bar Association card rather than my Israeli Press Card in the plastic holder I hung around my neck. I thought that President Bush’s 09:00 meetings might be secretly rescheduled allowing his convoy to Ramallah to depart the King David at a time meant to surprise - because the President’s route was anything but a surprise.

Every Head of State, dignitary and VIP, bar none, who has made the Jerusalem to Ramallah trip by vehicle, takes a right off Route 1 at the corner and drives through the intersection 215 yards from my porch. I know this and the terrorists know this. I walked up to that intersection arriving about the same time as did a Unit of the Tel Aviv Yassam, special police officers trained in crowd-control. They immediately sealed the intersection and began controlling both press and everyone else, including those who simply needed to cross the street to get home, all now captive until President Bush’s convoy passed-by.

A Reuters cameraman cramped me and I cramped an AP cameraman as we stood on the corner designated as the closest spot to the intersection where Press was permitted to stand. As we waited we attempted to secure the agreement of the Yassam Officer detailed to stand in front of us, blocking any move towards the street we might try to make, to move out of camera view while President Bush’s convoy drove past. Bystanders were moved farther and farther away from the intersection as time went by. No one was allowed anywhere near the road the convoy would travel. There was no need to imagine, everyone knew, what the Yassam would do to anyone who even appeared to be thinking about actually approaching the road.

It was getting close to 10:00. The fog had cleared enough to see across to the other side of the road. No more than 50 yards back, up on the hillside paralleling the road, are three large multi-story dwellings. The residents are Arab. I have observed the buildings for years. I now saw folks looking out of windows, windows that had until just a little while ago been sealed-up. There were also folks watching from the rooftops. Political correctness aside, sorry, but this was not a good situation.

From November 1995 through the summer of 2007 when all Israeli Police and Border Police Sniper Units were disbanded, I was a member of the Jerusalem Region Police Civil Guard Sharp Shooters Unit. Call the officer with the scoped, high-power, extraordinarily accurate rife and the skill firing it to match, what you will, Police “Precision Marksman” or “Sniper.” Our unit was on duty up above and all around for every VIP event. We would be included in the advance contingency planning of such major events and know what and where we needed to do whatever, whenever. It was second nature for me to “scan” the area around the intersection and notice “things,” while all the time thinking “where should we be – where would they be.” My observations were not comforting. I called over one of the higher-ranking Yassam Officers and had a chat with him. He sent a Border Police officer and the officer’s partner, a IDF soldier whose unit was sent to Jerusalem to support the police efforts securing President Bush’s visit, to the other side of the road to keep watch on the Arab buildings. It was certainly better than nothing.

Two buses full of snowmobile suit wearing police officers, many of them female, drove up to within yards of the “Do Not Cross” tape sealing off the intersection. One behind the other the buses stopped and parked. I figured the officers were a reaction force being held in reserve or that the officers would be positioned along the entire mile length of the road from Route 1 to the Security Checkpoint where the Palestinian Authority territory begins. The police never got off the buses. They remained warn and dry inside.

The police radios began to crackle. A police command car drove by yelling to the police officers, “Eyes Outside” meaning watch the perimeter. Motorcycle patrol officer teams drove by and then so did the President’s convoy. The Yassam Officer kindly ducked down. I snap some photos. The cameramen got their film. A few moments later the “Do Not Cross” tape came down. Pedestrians were allowed to continue on their way back home. The party seemed to be over.

The driver’s window on the lead police bus was open. It framed a nice photo of the female officers inside. I closed to take the picture. Damn. No more film. Yes, I’m a dinosaur shooting film. The officers inside the bus called out asking me to please open the bus door and “let them out.” I was sure I had misunderstood, after all they were speaking Hebrew. When I went around the front of the bus and tried to find some way of opening the bus door, I found none. Convinced that I had misunderstood, I went back around the bus intending to ask the bus driver what the officers wanted from me.

“The bus’s door is locked. We can not get off the bus. We need a bathroom. There is one in the gas station. There are more in the Mall. Please open the door.” I understood what I was being asked. I just could not believe what I was hearing. For a second time I walked around the front of the bus to the door. A police Chief Inspector got there first. So did a middle-aged non-descript man in civilian clothes that looked as if they had been slept-in. The civilian suddenly removed a key from his pocket and inserted it into a keyhole in a panel on the side of the bus. Then he opened the panel stuck in his hand and appeared to flick a switch returning control of the door to the bus driver. The officers piled out and there ensued a 25-yard dash to the gas station. The slower officers had to dash 100-yard all the way to our neighborhood Mall.

Unbelievable, what a simply mind-boggling, potentially fatal thing to do. Is there such little faith in members of the Israel Police that they must be locked inside their buses!

I walked home shaking my head in disbelief of all I had just witnessed. At 11:20 I could see patches of blue sky, but Radio Jerusalem announced that our schools were being dismissed now, so the children would not be part of the pedestrian throngs soon to become captive until President Bush’s motorcade passed. What the heck! I decided to return to the intersection. I grabbed my press identification necklace only to discover it held my Bar Association Membership Card. Now I knew why, when the Yassam Officer had taken the AP and Reuters cameramen’s I.D. cards, he did not take mine. Could it be that even attorneys are shown more deference than are reporters?

I exchanged Bar Membership for Press Card, grabbed my camera and headed out. Once back at the intersection with not only blue sky, but also sunshine, my “sniper’s eye” observed so much of a troubling nature that it began to twitch.

My film had already been processed. The photos were OK despite the dark, foggie conditions. I asked for the Email address of one of the Yassam Officers so I could send the guys the photos in which they appeared. Their commanding Officer came over to look at my photos. I shared with him my “observations” and several suggestions. His response was interrupted by a radio call. I listened in. President Bush was returning to Jerusalem by Marine Corps helicopter. Thank goodness. Within minutes the Police and Border Police were gone. I walked home thinking how sorely my Civil Guard Sharp Shooter Unit was missed and that if you can’t be good at least be lucky. But how long can luck last?