Arranging Translation

Every once and a while I read a report from an Israeli paper which has been translated into English but something is definitely lost in translation. I read this in the Jerusalem Post and decided to re-arrange the structure so it reads a little more cohesively. Let’s start with what happened last March in the political echelon:

At the end of March, Defense Minister Ehud Barak met with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salaam Fayad in Jerusalem and presented them with a detailed list of goodwill gestures Israel planned to begin making to the Palestinians in the West Bank to ease their lives and bolster Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Barak pledged to remove 50 dirt roadblocks in the West Bank as well as one major checkpoint.

And there is insight on what is going on today in the political military echelon:

Earlier Sunday, the IDF announced that Israel had removed 10 roadblocks in southern Hebron. The move came following decisions by the political echelon and in accordance with security assessments, the army said. The IDF added that the removal was part of a series of relief measures that the army and Civil Administration were implementing for West Bank Palestinians.

The recent removal of the roadblocks, said the army, was a further step in the relief plan authorized by the Defense Ministry and IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen Gabi Ashkenazi. The army stressed that it would continue to defend Israel's citizens, while doing its utmost to allow the Palestinian population to maintain daily routine life.

And the result:

An 18-year-old Palestinian was arrested Sunday afternoon at the Hawara checkpoint near Nablus after military police on duty discovered he was carrying six pipe bombs, an ammunition cartridge and bullets, and a bag of what appeared to be gunpowder.

Cpl. Ron Bezalel of the military police's Taoz Battalion told Army Radio that the youth had sent his bag through the checkpoint's X-ray scanner. When the explosives were discovered, the troops on duty immediately implemented the protocol for stopping a terror suspect. "It's routine to find bombs at this checkpoint... every day, we find knives and other weapons," Bezalel said.

The military said the Palestinian was most likely on his way to perpetrate an attack in an Israeli city. He was arrested and transferred to the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) for interrogation. Three weeks ago, another Palestinian carrying five pipe bombs, which he had attached and strapped to his chest in the manner of an explosives belt, was stopped at Hawara.

Now the report not only informs but makes a cohesive statement as well.