The Truth About Hebron

In January I went to Al-Khalil (also known as Hebron) for the first time, and I was struck by how eerily empty the streets were. Since I know that the old city has been invaded by the Israeli army and that Jewish settlers have taken over whole areas, I (a little naively) assumed that the reason why all the shops were closed and the streets were empty was because the native Palestinian population can't keep their shops open because they get harassed by the settlers. I wrote a blog post about it.

However, I was wrong. Naive. The streets of the old city of Al-Khalil are not empty because business isn't good with Jewish settlers harassing shop keepers and shoppers (although they do harass them on a daily basis, and that can't be good for business), but because the Israeli army has welded shut the doors and windows of Palestinian homes and shops so that the Jewish settlers can pass through the streets "freely."

Here is the story (by B'tselem) of how Malka Kafisha, an old Palestinian woman from Al-Khalil, was shut inside her home when the Israeli army welded the door and windows of her home shut. She now has to climb up on neighbors' rooftops to get out of her house.




I can't even find words to express how this makes me feel. What the hell is the world letting Israel get away with?!

At the Allenby Bridge

Okay, so where were we? Oh yes, I was filling out the form the young Israeli border control officer gave me.

Another female border control officer--a few years older than the first one--came up to me, asked me to move to another waiting area and also be sure to write down the ID number of my boyfriend on the form I was filling out. I called Tarek who was already through the control, and we figured they already know everything about him so giving them his ID number wouldn't really make a difference. I wrote it down for them.

After quite some time, the woman came back, took the form, and left me waiting again. And then finally, she came with my passport and papers in hand, sat down beside me and started interrogating me.

Woman: "You were here in 2008."

Me: "Yes."

Woman: "You were here for three months and we know you weren't here as a tourist. We know what you did here because people you thought were friends have told us, so there is no use to lie."

Me: "Yes, I'm aware of that." I know how they work. Thinking: if they know everything already, why bother interrogating me?

Then she changed the subject completely (probably some kind of interrogation strategy they get taught) and started asking me about what I'm doing in Ramallah. I told her everything. She asked me about my boyfriend and about our future plans together. She asked me if I was Jewish (which I'm not). By way of asking more questions, she then came with the following assumptions:

1) I'm Christian (which I'm not).

2) Tarek and I will get married, and when we do, we will have problems because he is Muslim and I'm not.

3) We will have children, and when we do, we will have problems because he is Muslim and I'm not.

Then she changed the subject again. Asked me about my studies. Wanted to know the topic of my Masters thesis in detail. I told her it was on the UN and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but kind of felt it would be better if I left out the main assumption in my thesis (namely that Israel is equal to, if not worse than, Apartheid South Africa, and that it is therefore puzzling that the UN Security Council will not call for sanctions against Israel the way they did against South Africa).

Anyway, she switched subjects again, asked me about my family. Then she came back to 2008.

Woman: "What did you do here in 2008?" She added, "I know you were in Jenin."

(Flashback to the interrogations in 2008 at Tel Aviv airport: both coming and going, I denied ever having plans on going to or ever having been to Jenin. I said I would visit Israel only, maybe Bethlehem).

Me: "Yes, I was in Jenin." No point of lying anymore.

Woman: "What did you do in Jenin?"

I told her. But surprisingly enough, she was more interested in what I had done in Ramallah in 2008. Surprisingly because Jenin is where the vast majority of the martyrs/suicide bombers came from during the second Intifada.

She asked me who I knew in 2008. I gave her names. She wanted to know how I met one of them.

Me: "Through Facebook."

Woman: "You're lying."

Me: "No, I met him on Facebook." Why would I lie about Facebook?

Woman: "You're lying."

Me: "No. I met him on Facebook. Then we met in real life."

Woman: "I know you're lying."

Me, not being able to contain my irritation: "I don't know what else to say, I'm telling you the truth."

Woman: "Give me his phone number."

I gave it to her, knowing they probably monitor his phone already anyway.

She kept asking me questions about Ramallah, about the political activism I was engaged in, the demonstrations I attended. I denied all involvement in political activism. She told me I was lying. Over and over again. But I wasn't. I don't attend demonstrations because of the risk of being shot at by Israeli soldiers and/or deported.

(The loyal reader will remember that I did attend two manifestations in Ramallah, but they were quiet and completely without (official) Israeli military involvement).

She then switched again and wondered where Tarek and I will live. Will we stay here? The first time she asked me, I said I don't know. The second time she asked me, after having asked some other questions in between, I said we haven't decided. The third time she asked me, I had lost the little patience I still had and went: "No, we want to move."

Woman: "Why?"

Me: "Because it's such a hassle traveling in and out of the country!"

Woman: "Why?"

Me: "Because of this!"

Woman: "But this is the first time this happens to you."

Me, going bonkers inside because she kept provoking me by telling me that I'm lying and making up things that weren't true: "No it's not the first time this happens to me."

Woman: "Yes it is."

Then I thought it's probably better if she thinks it's the first time I'm being interrogated, seeing as how I lied about Jenin and pretty much everything else the first two times.

She kept asking me questions. Why am I here and not in Sweden? Why do I care about Palestinians? Why don't I worry about my own people? Why do I want to work in humanitarian affairs and development? (As if that's something bad).

Finally I had enough and said: "Look, if you want to deport me, then go ahead. Let me just go and get my bags and then I'll leave."

Woman: "This might happen."

And then she left me again. For almost three hours. I knew her threat was most likely empty, and I was sure it was a only a matter of time before I would be let inside. But the problem was that I didn't know how long it would take. It was Friday and Shabbat would start soon, would they send me back to Jordan and tell me to come back tomorrow?

The waiting area was full of people, mostly Palestinians, waiting to be questioned, waiting to have their luggage searched. Old, old women, young women with newborn babies on their arms, mothers with small children... everybody is a security threat in Israel's eyes.

I dared only take one photo with my cell phone. You can see the waiting area, with kids waiting for hours for their parents who get taken to separate interrogation rooms inside; and people standing in line in the background, waiting to go through the last two passport controls after they have had their passports stamped or their visas granted.

All this time I was sitting in this area, without anything to drink or eat (remember we had landed at two in the morning, had hardly slept and hadn't eaten since we had the food served on the plane the night before), Tarek was waiting outside in the scorching hot sun, having gotten through the border control at around 9 in the morning.

He called me every two minutes to check on me and ask if there were any news.

Finally the woman came back, only to tell me to wait in another waiting area. This was at around one in the afternoon on a Friday. The Israelis working there were getting nervous about getting home in time for Shabbat, and so things were beginning to move faster. An Israeli man in military uniform called out my name and asked me to step aside with him.

He started: "What is the purpose of your visit?"

Without an ounce of patience left, I went: "Come on, I already answered this twice!"

He said that he knew, but he had to ask me. So he asked me question after question, and after protesting some more, saying they even had my answers in writing, I answered them again because I had to if I wanted them to stamp my passport. I gave Tarek's ID number again, I gave him my address, my work details, everything. Finally he said, "I can only give you a three-month visa, then you will have to go to Beit-El to have it extended. Your passport will be ready in 15 minutes, they will call your name."

"Oh okay thanks," I said, a little taken aback by his almost-excuse for not being able to give me more than three months.

After maybe a half hour, they called my name and I finally got my passport back, complete with an Israeli stamp allowing me to stay for three months.

It was two in the afternoon. I went through the last two passport controls, found my bags among the hundreds of other bags thrown in a heap on the floor after the Israeli security check, and finally got through to the other side.

I burst out in tears. Relieved and angry at the same time. And more committed to helping the Palestinians than ever.

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...