"We're kidnapping you!"

5th June 2009



(The wall, behind it are the rooftops of an Israeli settlement)


“We’re kidnapping you!” The Palestinian man pulled me and the two Americans into the backseat of a dark car and we sped away…to a trendy Ramallah restaurant.

(Did that opener send up any red flags?)

The wall separating Palestine from Israel flew past Sharif’s car, the graffiti melting into a continuous stream of colors of pain and hope. Sharif’s music rattled his tiny Asian-make car, and we Americans settled into the backseat; I let my eyes roam over the streaming wall, rising and falling with the roadway speeding beneath. It was one of those timeless moments I sought to internalize, until Sharif interrupted our reverie by pointing out an architecturally unusual section of the wall: “Look, the Israelis are trying to get all creative with building the wall!"




(Graffiti on the wall - "free Palestine, from Palestine with love", etc.)

Later, at Rami’s house in Jerusalem, he and his friend Nidal showed us mock terrorist videos they made in high school: young Nidal and Rami stood defiantly in front of a Palestinian flag draped in the background, hattas (koffiyas) and flags wrapped around their faces to disguise their identity. Holding a shaking piece of paper to the camera, Nidal read his last testament as a soon-to-be martyr, and Rami offered an occasional rousing “Allahu akbar!” In the dozens of outtakes, they doubled over in laughter or broke into dance moves. In one spoof, Rami huddled behind Nidal’s desk, pressing a yarmulke to his scalp, speaking to the camera as if he were an Israeli reporter while Nidal, off-camera, pelted him with various bedroom objects – pillows, crumpled pieces of paper, school textbooks.

I could not begin to recall and relate all the wisecracks and parodies my new Palestinian friends related to me, with a bewildering mixture of good humor and melancholy. As Omar, our host in Ramallah, ran his finger along the trench cut by a stray Israeli bullet through the stone framing his bedroom window (his house adjoins a military service road), or where a car bomb had exploded across the valley, or related events of the second Intifada as we drove through the city, it was with this strange mixture of enthusiasm and sadness.

There was no laughter, however, at Arafat’s tomb. Noisy Ramallah disappeared behind us through the gates as we stepped onto the eerily silent tile platform. A quote by Darwish, the late Palestinian poet, was engraved on a granite slab near the entrance. A solitary building, modeled after the Kaabah, but in the smoothest white stone rather than gleaming obsidian, rose before a reflection pool. Inside, we stood before the tomb guarded by two Palestinian soldiers, and we were silent, our various political beliefs put to rest. The only sound was the gentle flapping of three Palestinian flags billowing in the breeze, pressing outward like soldiers’ chests thrust forward and collapsing back into one another, inhaling, exhaling.





To learn more about the Separation Wall, check out NPR's four-part series "Israel's Barrier" at http://www.npr.org/news/specials/2009/israelbarrier/part4.html

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.