Jessy the Mad Dog Becomes A Thief

So, Jessy the Mad Dog--you know, the dog who bit me, also known as the Israeli Settler who became a Palestinian--has become a thief.

A few months back we took her to the Grumpy Jewish Vet in Jerusalem because she had had a rash on her belly for a long period of time. She wouldn't stop itching and licking and none of the pills we gave her made her any better.

It was a long way going there, to the Grumpy Vet in Jerusalem. Jessy is, as previously mentioned, a little mad and bites everyone she doesn't live with, so we can't send her in a car to go alone and meet us there.

Why would you? She's a dog.

Well, if you're Palestinian from the occupied West Bank, you're not allowed to go to occupied Jerusalem without a special permit from the Israeli authorities, and even if you do have this permit, you're not allowed to go by car. You have to walk through Qalandia Check Point and you're not allowed to take a dog. Of course.



So we had to send Jessy in a car. But like I said, we couldn't send her alone, and since I'm the only one with a foreign passport (who can therefore go to Jerusalem in a car) that Jessy doesn't bite on sight, I had to take her. But since I can't control or carry Jessy alone (the importance of which will become clear in the next sentence), Tarek had to meet up with us on the other side before we went to the Grumpy Vet.

Because Jessy doesn't like the Grumpy Jewish Vet. She hates him. She won't go near his clinic unless dragged, pulled and carried over the threshold.

This is what we did. Twice in one week. And Jessy was super pissed off at us and wouldn't talk to us for two weeks.

We had betrayed her. Twice.

On top of that, the Vet told us she has a food allergy and that we can't give her anything except the special dog food he sold us for a lot of money. This meant that Jessy would no longer get chicken especially cooked for her, barbecue leftovers, or pieces of bread from us when we were eating.

This was too much for her little dog heart, and she not only didn't talk to us, she got depressed. She just lay in her corner on the couch facing the cushion for days. She wouldn't go out and run with me, she wouldn't go out and walk, she wouldn't eat her expensive dog food, she didn't come and meet us at the door when we came home.

We had betrayed her. Again.

It gradually became better, though. The rash went away, and feeling confident that it was the chicken that had caused her rash, we started giving her small pieces of bread again at the dinner table. And at the breakfast table, and at the lunch table (all of which are, incidentally, the same table). Before we knew it, Jessy got up from her couch corner, and things were back to normal.

Or so we thought.

But it turns out that underneath all of that white fluffy fur she harbors a deep, dark secret.

She can't forget about the chicken.

She must have been dreaming about it. It must have consumed her. The desire. The longing. For that sweet, sweet chicken.

So on Wednesday when we had a barbecue in the garden with people from outside, and we had left Jessy in the house in order not to have any unfortunate biting accidents, the desire had finally burned a hole in her self-control.

We didn't know it at first.

Twice, Tarek went inside to get something and found a piece of half-eaten chicken on the floor. Twice, he came out and asked us who had given Jessy food, blamed his father and yelled at him a little.

Then Tarek went in for a third time, and lo and behold! There was Jessy, on her hind legs, thieving grilled chicken off the kitchen table!

We scolded her, but couldn't help but feeling guilty. After all, if we hadn't taken chicken off her menu, she wouldn't have been forced into this new habit.

Yes, habit. The other day when we were watching TV, I turned my head just in time to see Jessy snatching meat leftovers from Tarek's dinner plate on the coffee table.

Jessy. The dog who would never have stooped so low as to steal food, has become a Chicken Thief.


I guess desires left unfulfilled will eat away at your character.

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.