There is a joke among Palestinians that goes something like this: A man applied for a permit to the Israeli authorities to build a barn for his farm animals. The permit was denied and the Israeli officer told the Palestinian he didn't need an extra room. All he needed was to put his animals beside him in the room where he sleeps. The man obliged but after a week of bleating, crowing, mooing and barking, the man thought he would go crazy and put in another complaint with the Israeli authorities. This time, the same officer offered an even simpler solution. "Just let the animals sleep outside. That way you will get some peace and quiet at night." When the man obliged, he had his first restful night in a week and thanked the Israeli officer for making his life easy again.

Like many jokes, this one is also a reflection of reality. While it may elicit laughs, it also elicits sighs of sorrow and unfortunate recognition. One only has to look at Israel's latest "easing of restrictions" to see the similarities.

Today's edition of Haaretz hailed a "dramatic change in Israel's roadblock policy in the West Bank." According to the article, "right under the nose of the right-wing government" the Israeli army removed some of the permanent roadblocks in the West Bank, thus easing restrictions on movement for the Palestinians.

Checkpoints, as everyone knows, are synonymous to the plague for Palestinians. Long waits in queues of impatient people, producing ID's and permits, emptying your pockets of change, keys and mobile phones, pulling off your belt lest you beep through the metal detector, opening your car trunk so a soldier or two can rummage through your stuff and ensure you are not carrying anything that may somehow compromise Israel's state security. Etc., etc., etc.

Needless to say, these un-pleasantries result in people being late for work, school, or a doctor's appointment. Mothers can be seen at any given checkpoint calling their kids, calmly explaining to them that the checkpoint is backed up and to sit tight until they get home. Goods are not easily transported from one area to another, people and merchandise are turned away and everything, everything needs a permit from the Israelis.

Now Israel says it is easing these "restrictions" just a bit. According to the aforementioned article, barring the many checkpoints at the border crossings with Israel, there are only 10 permanent manned checkpoints left in the West Bank as opposed to 35 last year. This is deceptive, especially if we consider a report released by OCHA, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which states that there are a total of 630 checkpoints, obstacles or barriers speckled throughout the West Bank hindering Palestinian movement. Israel is basically counting the major checkpoints like Huwwara at the entrance of Nablus, which looks more like a terminal crossing than a checkpoint but not all of the smaller barriers that basically serve the same purpose – barring Palestinians from getting from Point A to Point B.

Many, including myself, have asked why Israel has erected so many checkpoints between Palestinian cities in the first place. Israel's number one excuse for these awful structures has been for (yes, you guessed it) security reasons. That is, to prevent Palestinians from entering Israel to carry out attacks or from transporting other people or materials for the same reason. There is also the excuse of making sure Israelis do not enter Palestinian territory, which is punishable by law. This would loosely explain the checkpoints into Israel (although in practicality, their main purpose is hardly to prevent Palestinian "terrorists" from entering but rather to create a Bandustan, Swiss-cheese-like, geographically disconnected Palestinian area that, in the future, could never constitute a viable contiguous Palestinian state). But this rationale is even more ridiculous when it comes to West Bank areas.

In terms of everyday life, these internal checkpoints are a nuisance, a daily inconvenience that could sometimes turn dangerous. Take for example, the cases of pregnant Palestinian women who were delayed or turned back by Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint and gave birth right there, sometimes to a dead baby. Or an elderly man who suffered a heart attack and died because his ambulance was held back for security checks at the checkpoint en route to hospital. There are endless instances, but I will suffice with these.

So, when Israel announced that the Jericho checkpoint, as one example, had been removed, of course the Palestinians were happy. Why would they not be? That's one less spot where they are questioned by soldiers barely old enough to shave and asked completely inane questions like "Why are you going to Jericho?" or "Where do you live?" How these questions might help protect the security of Israel is beyond me. Besides, everyone knows removing that checkpoint in particular also allows Israelis to travel freely to the country's only casino, Oasis.

Hence, we come to our little joke. Israel squeezes the Palestinians to the point of strangulation. There is virtually no Palestinian who has not been plagued with the checkpoint system, not one Palestinian who has not been turned back, delayed or harassed at one of these Israeli manned blockades. We would like nothing better than to see these checkpoints go, so even when one is removed, we let out a tiny sigh of relief. But here is the danger in this as well. Just like the man in the joke, who ends up thanking the Israeli official for "solving his problem" we cannot allow ourselves to fixate only on the unpleasant trappings of this conflict without addressing its core. We have nothing to "thank" Israel for. The checkpoints should never have been there in the first place, just like the Israeli occupation. Even if Israel removed all of these checkpoints, making movement for Palestinians practically normal, this is still not enough. On the contrary, this is Benjamin Netanyahu's master plan, to placate the Palestinians with economic enticements and easier movement in their own areas so they will back down on political demands.

With that in mind, what we need now more than ever is to focus. Netanyahu will not give us our state served up on a silver platter, that's for sure. Neither will we ask him to. Regaining our national rights is our responsibility and we cannot afford to be sidetracked along the way.

Joharah Baker is a Writer for the Media and Information Program at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mip@miftah.org.