I'm Back

After way too long, I'm finally back.

I mean back to blogging. The past month was crazy busy at work and I sat with my laptop in the office, at home after work hours, on my days off and just wrote and wrote and wrote. This is what it's like working in fundraising, I suppose--sometimes you have several deadlines at once, and sometimes your partners don't do their part, so sometimes you sit with about three times the work you're supposed to have. Hence the lack of updates.

I'm also back in Palestine. Tarek got a Schengen visa, so we packed our bags and went on a surprise visit to Sweden. Almost gave Mom a heart attack when we walked in through the door.

On Friday, we came back. Barely, but we made it. Let me tell you:

Tarek is Palestinian, which means he is not allowed to travel through the airport in Tel Aviv, Israel. And if he's not allowed, I'm not going.  If he wants to go anywhere, he has to cross the border into Jordan and fly from there. So this is where I went with him.

When we came back, we landed at Amman airport at two in the morning. Arrived at the border at around 3.30 am. Waited until around six or seven before we could go inside and go through the Jordanian border control. They check Palestinian passports in one place, and people with other passports in another.

Tarek went with the Palestinian bus to the Israeli border control at around 7.30, and I was left alone, standing in the early morning sun, waiting for the tourist bus. People around me were talking about last night, when the Israelis turned back several busloads of people from the border and gave them no other choice than wait until this morning to go back and try again.

The first bus finally came at 8.30 and around 30 minutes later it took us to the Israeli border control. The ride is maybe 5-10 minutes plus the time it takes to stop at the first Israeli passport control, have everybody get off, show their passports to the Israeli soldiers, wait outside while a soldier searches the bus, and get back on the bus. So we arrived at the Israeli border at maybe 9.15.

I got my bags, went and stood in line in the sun, handed over my bags to the border control, had my passport checked again and a sticker attached to it with a number 2 on it (that's the next to lowest security number you can get, 6 is apparently the highest, which I know because I got a 6 at Tel Aviv airport once). Then I waited in line again, had my passport checked again, was given a little piece of paper with a number 9 on it, went and stood in the line in front of passport control window 9, and waited.

(All these details? It's for people who are thinking about traveling through the Allenby Bridge into Palestine).

Anyway, it was soon my turn and the 18-year-old girl behind the window started asking me all sorts of questions.

Israeli girl: "What is your purpose of visiting Israel?"

Unlike the first time I went to Palestine (through Tel Aviv), I decided to tell the absolute truth this time. Mostly because I've been here for 8 months and they know I'm not exactly visiting the Holocaust Museum every day.

Me: "I work in Ramallah."

Girl, looking through my passport: "You know you don't have a work visa for Israel."

Me. "I know, but I work in Ramallah." That is, not in Israel.

Girl, either being very incompetent or trying to get me nervous: "You stayed almost a year after your visa expired, why did you do that?"

Me: "I didn't, I had a one-year, single-entry visa right here." I showed her. (And for the record, I'm allowed to stay for 3 months without a visa, which means I only stayed 5 additional months, so even if I didn't have a visa for that period, it certainly wasn't "almost a year" extra). "I lost the visa when I left last week, but it is until 31 of December so I certainly didn't overstay my visa."

Girl: "But this isn't a visa for staying in Israel."

Me: "This is what the Israeli authorities gave me." Thinking: if it's not a visa for staying, then what kind of visa is it?

Anyway, you get the level of our conversation. Unable to look me in the eye, she said to my passport: "You shouldn't work in Ramallah," under her breath. Meaning I'm wasting my life. "You should go back to Sweden."

After a series of questions concerning my work, my living situation, and a phone call in Hebrew triggered by the mention of my Palestinian boyfriend, she handed me a sheet of paper and told me to go and sit down and fill it out and wait to be questioned further.

I went and sat down. And I'll tell you all about what happened after in my next blog post.

To be continued...

The Arbitrariness of Israeli Occupation Policies

Apparently, they have a new rule at Qalandia check point.

Those of you who read my blog regularly will recall the previous rule changes at Qalandia:

When I first came here, the Israeli soldier's rule was: stand in whichever line you wish.

Then they changed it to: men in one line, women in another, and mixed in a third.

Then there came a new rule: those with handbags in one line, those without in another.

Today it's suddenly: people with green IDs (that is, West Bank resident IDs) in one line, all others in the other.

But the good news is that it only took us about 20 minutes to walk the 20 meters or so to get to the other side. Which, according to the whole world, is illegally occupied East Jerusalem. According to Israel, however, it's Israel.

To make their point, they have put up signs that say "Israel" in Hebrew and Arabic, with arrows pointing towards the exit.

Israel ------->

(Pictures aren't allowed at the check point, hence the weird angle and low cell phone camera quality).

The Difficulties of Boycotting Israel in the Occupied Territories

I must confess that there has been a hiatus in my boycott of everything Israeli since I moved to the West Bank.

I know. I'm ashamed. But I have been telling myself that it is all but impossible to avoid buying Israeli products when you're here, because about 80 % of the products that the stores carry here is of Israeli origin. What do I buy? What do I eat?

But last week, on the day the Israeli navy attacked the flotilla of ships headed towards Gaza with humanitarian aid on international waters and killed at least 9, injured tens others, detained almost 700, cut off all communication with the people who had been on the ships and confiscated all pictures, audio and video recordings from the journalists and the other witnesses... so that the Israeli version was the only available the first three days... on this day, my boyfriend Tarek and I decided that we can no longer justify to ourselves buying Israeli products.

We can't support the economy of a state that arrogantly disrespects the lives of human beings to such an extent.

So we went shopping. And seriously. If you think I exaggerated when I said that 80 % of the products are Israeli here, I didn't.

Shopping is like detective work now. 

We can buy Palestinian vegetables and fruits in season at the open market in downtown Ramallah, no prob. We'll do without off-season veggies. And without those that require too much water when they grow them, like water melon right now, or mango in the summer. Because Israel doesn't allow us to use our own ground water so we can only water our fields so much.

We can get Palestinian tahina. And Italian pasta, Jordanian canned goods and Egyptian fruit juices (with insane amounts of sugar in them).

But if Tarek wants hot dogs? Not a chance. Certain kinds of cheese? Forget it.

And if you think that just because that shower gel bottle only has Arabic text on it, it's made here or maybe in Egypt or Saudi Arabia, think again. It's either settlement products (which the Palestinian National Authority forbade the selling of since a couple of months, but somehow they're not really off the shelves yet), or made inside Israel. Marketed as all-Arab products. As if they know that people are sort of reluctant to buy Israeli here.

We will start showering with Nablus olive oil soap. It's better for the skin anyway.