It was a small item in Sunday’s Hebrew newspaper – small enough to ensure that it wouldn’t make the foreign press at all. It said in part: “Israeli soldiers prevented a suicide bombing yesterday, apparently meant to take place in central Israel, when they detected an explosives belt at the Beit-Iba checkpoint, at the northwest exit from Nablus. A Palestinian arriving at the checkpoint aroused the suspicions of the soldiers …. who, on examining a bag in his possession, discovered a belt with two kilos of explosives attached to a detonating device that was harmlessly blown up by army sappers.”

Who, apart from the Palestinians living in the area and the soldiers serving there, has ever heard of the Beit-Iba checkpoint? It is one of many dozens of Israeli checkpoints scattered throughout the West Bank, along roads, at key junctions, and at the exits and entrances of large cities. Most are manned by small numbers of troops – rarely more than a squad – whose days are spent in a combination of tension and boredom. They stop Palestinian drivers, check their licenses and IDs, take a look at their cars, make them open their baggage compartments, and sometimes ask them to get out and be personally inspected.

It’s tedious. The cars and trucks come and go, as do pedestrians and the occasional horse or donkey. The waiting lines, short in the early morning, grow longer as the day proceeds. The soldiers take turns, some doing the work while others stand guard and others eat, make coffee, play backgammon, or nap. In summer, the air is hot and full of flies; in winter, the ground is wet and muddy. The Palestinians in line grumble and wheedle and swear. I’ve never met the soldier who liked serving at a checkpoint.

Or the Palestinian who liked passing through one. It’s a miserable experience, and if you’re a student who has to leave his village for school and return, or a worker or a businessman who has to do the same, it’s an experience you go through twice a day. The lines are maddening. The soldiers can be nervous and brusque. You can get shouted at and pushed around and insulted. In fact, being made to wait and getting insulted are, from your point of view, all that the checkpoints are about, since you have probably never once seen a weapon or a bomb discovered at one.

By no means all of the soldiers at the checkpoints are rude. The great majority, probably, are not – certainly not in the morning, before the lines are too long and the flies are out in force. If you’re a young man who’s reasonably polite in ordinary life, you’ll try to be polite here too, at least until your patience runs out; if not, not.

The worst are the border police, who tend to be ornery and tough. Next come the regular army conscripts, some of whom enjoy wielding an authority they’ve never before had over anyone. The reservists are usually the most decent. They’re older men with families, and they know what it’s like to have children waiting for you at home or to be late for work or an appointment. They wish they could be home with their children themselves.

These are the checkpoints you hear so much about these days, especially from the Palestinians and their supporters. They’re humiliating, you’re told. They serve no purpose. They do nothing but hassle innocent people and jangle their nerves and waste their time and disrupt the social and economic life of their society. They’re simply a nasty Israeli way of rubbing the Palestinians’ noses in the dirt and letting them know who’s boss.

Get rid of the checkpoints! Dismantle them! Let the Palestinians breathe if you want there to be a peace process!

This makes a lot of sense to a lot of people. And in fact, you can’t blame them. After all, if you pick up the morning paper in New York or London and read “10 Israelis Killed In Tel Aviv Bomb Blast,” it’s obvious to you that the checkpoints don’t work anyway. The Tel Aviv bomber either got through them or around them, and in either case, they’re useless.

And if you pick up the paper and read “Israeli soldiers prevented a suicide bombing yesterday when they detected an explosives belt at the Beit-Iba checkpoint”?

Ah, but you won’t – not in New York or London. Suicide bombs that don’t go off in Israel aren’t news in such places. The headline has yet to be printed in the Times that says, “10 Israelis Not Killed In Tel Aviv Bomb Blast.”

One can ask, of course, how much, in terms of the inconvenience and teeth gnashing caused Palestinians, 10 Israeli lives are worth. A Palestinian might say, “Not as much as all that.” An Israeli might answer, “Ten times as many checkpoints as there are now.” It’s a matter of perspective.

It’s also a matter of more than 10 lives. Hardly a month goes by in Israel without a Beit-Iba somewhere or other. It’s hard to keep track because who reads all those little items in the Hebrew papers?

Yes, the checkpoints are aggravating. They’re hard on innocent Palestinians. They’re inefficient too, because on the one hand, sometimes bombs or weapons do get through them, and on the other, thousands of soldiers can spend many days manning them without anything turning up. (Which also means, however, that they’re a deterrent: Many bombs never leave the workshops they’re made in because their potential transporters know the checkpoints are there.) But they do save lives and maimings and the ghastly reports of blood-spattered buses and strewn limbs that do make the Times. They’re there for a very good reason.

Mr. Halkin is a contributing editor of The New York Sun.