Basically, the students just suddenly decided to go to Ramallah anyway, linked arms, and started walking.
The Palestinian Police freaked out and didn't know what to do. Earlier, as the Birzeit students were approaching the checkpoint, First Lieutenant Nimr Baghdad had told his men, "If anyone of you uses their weapon, I'll shoot you myself!"
This had indeed promising. Those of you who remember the PA massacre of people outside the Central Mosque in Gaza in November 1994 - the result of a severe lack of training and skills in crowd control in an over-armed police force - will appreciate the restraint. It is not true that the PA never learns from its mistakes.
The sight that greeted us as we sped ahead of the students, pictured left, was this pathetic road block hastily put up by other police as the students began to move.
Simple mathematics will tell you that five police with no riot control equipment are not really going to have an impact on 1,000 determined students.
As expected the students walked around them. At this point thay also began to run (below), as it was obvious that to give the police time to regroup would simply result in another checkpoint, perhaps one that merited the name this time.
Things were crazy. The police were running along with the students, trying desperately to get in front of them. The students ran faster.
I couldn't take photos during most of this run. I was too busy laughing my ass off. Some of the police would run ahead and stop in the middle of the road, turn to face the students and hold out their arms. It reminded me of King Canute proclaiming himself God and ordering his throne set before the approaching tides, only to get swept away when the sea disobeyed his command to stop.
Occasionally one of the policemen would get frustrated and grab a student, telling him to stop. The student, understandably, would just point around the two of them at the passing masses and say the Arabic equivalent of "Duh".
A second group of police formed another checkpoint ahead and began firing in the air with live ammunition (left). I had leaped on top of a passing police truck (I had worked out that I didn't have much of a chance of lasting the whole way to Ramallah at this pace) and was uncomfortably high up compared to their line of fire, all but twenty feet in front of me.
I ducked. For those of you who have ever read references to "the sweet smell of cordite filling the air" in cheap detective novels, it's all true.
A single stone curved towards the police, an instinctive reaction to authority figures shooting at you. I saw the stone thrower being rebuked by other marchers.
I spotted one policeman who was fiddling with something on the side of his gun while holding it almost horizontal to the ground and pointing at the marchers, when it went off. It was one of those things you see happening but don't manage to get any sound out of your mouth. Fortunately, it missed anyone.
It hadn't escaped the notice of one of his superiors, who went over and rebuked him sharply.
This photo on the right, taken by Public Relations intern Manon Westenbroek, captured the surreal feeling of the situation rather well I thought, taken from the same truck I mentioned above.
Students running, a policeman huffing and puffing to keep up, and someone's hands (most likely mine!) hanging on for dear life as the driver tore along the potholed roads.
Manon had one of those automatic cameras, which didn't have to be focused (involving taking one's hands off the railing) like mine and so "got the shot", a lesson to us all.
Shortly after this image was taken, our driver took off down a side road to the left, thus getting in front of the students and adding his vehicle to a barrier of them outside the Muqata'a, the former Israeli hub of operations and a prison, now the hub of PA activities and a...prison.
As expected, things continued to get interesting.