Anyone who has traveled through Ben Gurion
International Airport in Israel knows that it is a unique experience.
For most Israeli Jews, the experience is comforting, a quick and
accommodating entry into a nation created and developed for
the Jewish people. For Palestinian-Americans and many activists working in
occupied Palestine it is quite a different experience. Most of these
travelers are held for hours and questioned repeatedly; some are stripped naked
and, in some cases (especially in the last two years), denied entry.
As I write from Ramallah, I recall my and my brother's
experience in Ben Gurion just one week ago. After a sleepless 15-hour trip from
New York, we arrived at the airport and went directly to the check-in booth.
After waiting in a short line, a friendly woman asked for our passports, yet
immediately turned sour once she viewed them. We were asked to step aside and
after about 15 minutes a woman from airport security told us to follow her into
one of the detainment rooms. Given the countless stories of harassment I had
heard and read about before my trip, I wasn't so foolish to think that my
journey through Ben Gurion would be a walk in the park. I had initially
anticipated a four-hour wait, interrogation, and a thorough pat down by
Israel's finest.
When we arrived at the first detainment room, several young
female security agents asked us where we were going, about our ethnic
background and family history, whether we had family in Israel or the occupied
territories (and if we would be staying with them), and if "there was
anything they should know." We were then taken to another detainment room,
where a few other detainees were being held. Over the next three hours, several
female security officers came into the detainment room where we were being held
to question us, while at other times we were called into other detainment rooms
for questioning. One African detainee, an elderly black woman, was not allowed
into the country with her husband despite a seemingly innocent decision to
visit her family.
After about four hours, pure exhaustion set in. At this
time, we were taken to a large room with metal detectors, an X-ray machine and
a coffee machine that looked like it wasn't in use. Still, in a token attempt
at friendliness, the security agent offered us a cup of coffee. But the offer
was rescinded once he noted the machine was out of service.
About every 10 minutes another member of airport security
entered the room. After about 30 minutes we were taken into a back room, patted
down, and scanned with a hand held metal detector. After being held for an
hour, Sami, who claimed to be a higher up in the IDF and airport security,
entered the room. He had apparently been called in by regular airport security
because of certain "red flags" we had raised.
Sami didn't look particularly happy to see us. He started to
go through our bags, which had been checked by every member of airport security
that previously entered the room. He had a determined look on his face as he
sifted through my brother's book on corporate law and became more agitated when
he didn't find the holy grail of information.
After about 15 minutes, Sami looked up at us and told us
that "something was missing;" we were "leaving out part of the
story," and he was going to find out just exactly what that
"part" was. He was looking for what he called the "truth."
So I repeated what we had told the previous soldiers: we were staying our first
two nights in East Jerusalem, we would be traveling to the holy sites (to see
where baby Jesus was born), Haifa and Yaffa (the cities our grandparents were
dispossessed from in 1948), Nazareth and Bethlehem. We told the truth, but
kindly omitted Ramallah, Nablus, Hebron, Jenin, Dheisheh, and any other
intended stops in the occupied territories that didn't involve conventional
tourism. In all honesty, we had only planned out our first two days in East
Jerusalem, which made Sami increasingly annoyed.
Sami put it bluntly, as of the moment we were called in we
were considered "terrorists" or people intending to "engage in
terrorists activities" because we "lied" to airport security
about the intention of our travels. Sami defined terrorism and terrorist
activities as meeting up with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM),
working in "terrorist" branches of the Alternative Information Center
(AIC), and nonviolently protesting against the Apartheid Wall in the village of
Bil'in. He was trying to a strike fear in us that went well passed being denied
entry. It had become a matter of whether he was going to tell the US government
if we were terrorists or not. He claimed that if he told the US government we
were terrorists, it would not only affect us the rest of our lives (i.e.
anytime we tried to get a job, bought a plane ticket, or applied for a credit
card), but it would affect our family, immediate and extended, in a similar
fashion. The explanation was clear: nobody would believe two Palestinians males
over a respected man in the IDF with 40 years of experience. At this
point I started to offer up information that may or may have not been
considered "terrorist activity," essentially the plans for our trip,
which my brother and I were still faintly excited about, plans that didn't seem
to bring much joy to Sami.
Sami started to go through our phones, writing down numbers
and asking questions about anyone with an Arab, Persian or Jewish name. He was
particularly angered when he saw the name of a well-known Jewish activist who
had done extensive work in the occupied territories in my brother's phone.
Ironically, the number in my brother's phone was the number of a paralegal in
New York City, not the well-known activist, but Sami wouldn't get off the
subject for a solid half hour.
After about 90 minutes of intense bullying, Sami concluded
we weren't terrorists. At this point, good old Sami started to warm up, but not
without first telling us what we explicitly weren't supposed to do: no ISM,
stay away from AIC activity, and do not engage in anything that we would
categorize as nonviolent activism.
By the end of our stay at Ben Gurion, Sami informed us that
we were lucky to catch him on a good day. He became extremely open and candid
in the last 30 minutes. He said that he may not agree with everything that he
does and he may not agree with the political situation, but he's a soldier of
the state, and serving its interest is his job. While I appreciated his
honesty, this type of rationalization has been used throughout history,
justifying war crimes and human rights violations ad infinitum.
As our seven-hour detainment came to an end, Sami began
telling us personal stories. I'm not sure if it was an attempt clear his
conscience, but he told us about his diverse group of friends, which included
Arabs, and how his life had been saved five times, all by Arabs. It was amazing
to see how human and forthcoming some of the "toughest" people in
Israel have become, while at the same time keeping up their walls of discrimination
and oppression, walls that have ultimately been encompassed by a greater wall
of rationalization. For us, it was seven hours of hell in Ben Gurion. For a
Palestinian here, occupation is a reality every day of the year.
Remi
Kanazi is a Palestinian-American
poet and writer based in New York City. He is the co-founder of www.PoeticInjustice.net and the editor of
the forthcoming anthology of poetry, "Poets for Palestine." He can be
contacted at Remroum@gmail.com.