Checkpoint. Checkmate.

4th June 2009

Checkpoint. Checkmate.

“What are you doing in Israel?” Wiping the sweat from the back of my neck, I strained to understand the heavily accented Israeli woman with her thinly penciled, arched eyebrows staring at me with some mix of boredom and hostility. I am pressed against the passport control counter, the crest of a wave of tired, angry travellers poised to break out of the narrow queue line at the border crossing from Jordan to Israel.
“I’m a tourist.”
“Are you here alone?”'
“No, with two other students.”
“Students? Where do you study?”
“In Amman.”
“Where are you going?”
I hesitate. I’m with two American students I just met, going to Ramallah, the de facto capital of Palestine, to carouse with some Palestinians for a few days. I’m not going to tell her this. I glance at Faye, one of the two American students who are my ticket to the West Bank, and say, “We’re going to Jerusalem”. At the time, we didn’t know if we would make it to Al-Quds (Jerusalem); we did, but that’s a story for a later entry. It was safer to say Jerusalem.
“And where are you staying in Jerusalem?”
“We haven’t made reservations.” I study the insignia on her uniform and glance over at the next window where Wes is flirting with a considerably more attractive guard; she quickly stamps his passport, half-smiles, and Wes grins smugly as he passes through the checkpoint. Faye and I groan.
“No reservations? And how long will you stay?”
“Three of four days.”
“Three or four days. And have you booked a flight out of Israel?”
“No, I’ve booked a flight out of Amman in August. That’s where I’m living, Amman.” I told her this already. I push closer to the hole in the glass. My voice is rising, my tone strained, rising to join the other heated voices in the crowded checkpoint. She calmly holds my passport up as if to compare my present appearance with the 2006 passport photo, and stares blankly, unimpressed, stalling as she surveys the crowded checkpoint; then a quick stamp and shove under the window. “Next.”
“Can you stamp this piece of paper, not in the passport?” asks Faye. Countries like Lebanon and Syria deny entry to persons with an Israeli visa in their passport.
“I have to stamp the passport,” says the guard. Faye and I share a knowing look. Refusing to stamp a separate piece of paper is arbitrary on the part of this testy guard, not a uniform policy.
“But I have a piece of paper, just stamp that,” Faye protests.
The Israeli woman looks up at Faye pressed against the checkpoint glass, theatrically raises the stamp above the passport, and says pointedly as she snaps it downward, “I am stamping your passport now”.

When the checkpoint was behind us and our frustration subsided (although Faye will need to apply for a new passport to gain entry to Lebanon or Syria), we could laugh. We imitated the guard’s curt “I’m stamping your passport now,” over and over. Granted, it’s a serious conflict, and sure, several months of being on the Palestinian-Jordanian sides of things does skew one’s view. I fully acknowledge that. But it was something about my initial impression of unrelenting Israeli seriousness juxtaposed with having the time of my life with new-found Palestinian friends, a contrast which by degrees would convince me of the power of laughter in the face of oppression.