And as far as I can tell, Israeli security also hates me. While I'm glad that the feeling is mutual – hate those one-sided relationships! - it does make crossing Israel's borders quite the trial.
As I briefly mentioned before (maybe), the difficulty started as soon as we hit Tel Aviv. While I had no problem getting through security, Hannah was caught because of her Lebanon and Syria visas. The whole investigation took about 2.5 hours – first, she had to wait outside the immigration booth for some supervisor. Then she was taken away and asked some questions. Then she told them that she was with me, and I was taking from my nice waiting spot to wait with her instead. THEN we finally got waived through immigration, only to get stopped on the other side and asked MORE questions. I'm not sure what they were looking for, but they didn't find it, and we finally got released ...
Travel within the country was fine, if sometimes a little frustrating. Because we were with a Palestinian man, security details were often a bit suspicious. For example, when entering the Wailing Wall plaza in Jerusalem, Hannah and I had no problem, but Ahmad was hassled – enough that I suspect he wouldn't have been allowed in if he'd been alone. For the most part, though, we were allowed to go on our merry little way ...
Even getting into Jordan was painless – I thought it meant that Israel doesn't care who leaves the country, just enters, but turns out that wasn't right – but getting back into Israel afterwards was yet another experience. We were crossing by land, and the set-up requires us to take a 5 minute bus ride from the Jordan to the Israel terminal. Our bus probably had 15-20 people on it, and we were the only people in the security area ... which should have made things quick, right?
But, of course, our little group made someone suspicious. When our passports were checked, we were asked a few questions and then big red stickers were placed on each of our travel documents – never a good sign. The next step is putting your bags through an x-ray machine and walking through a metal detector, just like standard airport security ... except on the other side of the metal detector, we were left bag- and passport-less and told to sit and wait.
After about 20 minutes, someone came over with our passports, made Ahmad go sit across the room, and pulled me aside for questioning. Ahmad had primed us a couple of times about how to explain our project to Israeli security – we weren't to lie, exactly, but make sure we paint ourselves as innocent university students, rather than human rights activists and general rabble-rousers. So, when asked what I was doing in Israel, I had an answer. Of course, that wasn't enough – I was also asked where else I had traveled, how I knew my traveling companions, what I study in school, and on and on and on. I happened to speak loudly enough that Hannah could overhear me (completely on accident, of course), so when Hannah was questioned about our work, there were no contradictions. And then it was Ahmad's turn. We couldn't hear his conversation, but apparently his answers were legitimate, because soon thereafter our passports were returned and we were sent to passport control to get our entry visas.
And then they found Hannah's Lebanon and Syria stamps. And wouldn't give her passport back. And told us we should probably sit down, as it might “take awhile.” Apparently, the communication isn't great – you would think her record would still be in the computer, and they could tell it was cleared, but nope – and it took another 30-45 minutes before we were cleared to leave the border crossing.
Frustrating, to be sure, but we reassured ourselves that Israel only worried about people entering the country – after all, leaving for Jordan was no problem at all. So we showed up at the airport the next morning our standard 3 hours before our flight, relatively optimistic about the whole security process. Who knew we were so naive?
The Tel Aviv airport, like a lot of international airports outside of the US, requires bags to be x-rayed before they are checked, so the process is typically: a) show your passport and ticket, b) get your backs x-rayed, c) check in/check your luggage, d) go through security, and finally e) go through passport control. Easy enough, right? I've done it at other airports with little problem. But, of course, Israel has to be different ... Hannah and I handed over our passports and tickets to the first screener, who flipped through, asked us a few questions (including “Do you belong to any congregation in America?” and “What school do you go to?”), and then told us to wait for a moment. She ran the passports over to a sinister-looking security guy, and then returned and told us to wait for her supervisor, who had a few questions.
So we waited, still optimistic, and finally the guy returned. He asked the standard questions – whether we have family in the area, what we had been doing, etc. When he asked what we had been doing in Israel, I told him that we had been studying the issue of the Bedouins in the Negev. He asked, “What is the situation in the Negev?” I told him, “Well, tens of thousands of people live without basic services, like electricity and water ... it seems like a pretty big problem.” His response, in a kind of dubious, scornful voice: “Israeli citizens??” At this point, I was just fed up with the ridiculous state-sanctioned discrimination, and answered in a kind of confrontational voice, “Yes, as I understand the issue, the Bedouins in the Negev are Israeli citizens.” He nodded as he marked up stickers that went on all our luggage, that signaled the other security staff that we were to be very thoroughly screened.
Oops.
Before he handed our passports back, he asked, “Has anyone given you anything to carry back with you?” We both answered “No,” and he continued, “Because someone might have given you something that seemed nice, but was actually a bomb.”
Seriously.
We passed our bags through the x-ray machine and carried on to the final security area. People ahead of us were asked questions, and a couple of bags were half-heartedly searched, so we were hopeful for the same treatment. But again, we were thwarted. Instead, they went through all of our bags, running some sort of wand around, between layers of clothing and along the sides of suitcases, looking for something undetermined (I asked, and was told, “I can't really talk about that”; Hannah asked as well, and got a muttered response about chemicals). All of our electronics were removed and scanned separately, and our backpacks were x-rayed a second time. They even removed the battery from Hannah's computer, then reassembled it and made her turn it back on and open a file to demonstrate that it was actually a computer.
But that wasn't all – we were also both afforded the pleasure of a full-body search. We were (separately) escorted to a back room by security personnel and thoroughly patted down and wanded. Hannah had it worse than I did – I was searched by one young woman, who made me remove my shoes and sweatshirt but nothing else, while Hannah had to take down her hair (because she might have hidden a bomb in it?) and remove her pants, with three security personnel crowded into the little cubicle. While the security people were kind and even apologetic, the entire experience was quite degrading. As Hannah says, it gives one an entirely new understanding and respect for what Palestinians living in Israel go through on an almost daily basis.
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