We arrived!

We are here! We arrived last night at our hotel in East Jerusalem, walking into the courtyard to the sounds of prayers reverberating throughout the city. It was surreal to be standing next to the Bab-al-Amud, a gate of the Old City, hearing the gentle chanting. Three of us had arrived much later, taking a taxi from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem, because Anna was held by Israeli security at the airport for a little over 4 hours.

We were lucky that Anna only found herself waiting four hours, since there is many stories of people held for up to twelve hours and some even being sent back and refused entry. Some are activists working for an end to the occupation but many more are Palestinians or folks of Arab descent. Israeli society has incredible racism, which is played out in the airport by racial profiling. Anna met a young Palestinian-American who was being held for no apparent reason and was coming to visit a friend who is suffering of from cancer. She was frantic to get on her way so she would be able to make visiting hours at the hospital. Anna says, although frustrated with Israeli security she was good humored with those in the waiting room, offering cheese and fruit and telling everyone, “This happens every time, all the questioning. They want to make coming here so unpleasant that I will stop coming back, but I never will let them discourage me from coming to my homeland.”

Anna was finally pulled into the questioning room and asked about various solidarity activities, most of which were vague and none too focused on Anna’s specific work. Her phones were confiscated briefly and then she was finally released after all of her items were returned.

We then sought out a taxi to take us to East Jerusalem since the bus had gone ahead. Most of the taxi drivers refused to take us into East Jerusalem, so we went through five or six before we found one who said he would take us, although not understanding clearly where we wanted to go. It quickly became clear though when we reached Jerusalem that he did not intend to take us where we wanted to go, repeatedly saying he was going to take us to Jaffa gate, (which is a gate that is about 5 minutes by car from the other gate). At one point, he became insistent saying, “NO, NO, Arab. NO.” We did finally convince him, but his anxiety was palpable. And it was only because Anna gently challenged him and refused to create a space that allowed his racism.

Later that evening, as I was sharing the story with one of the young women, a Palestinian-American, on our delegation, she said, “If it was a Palestinian saying, ‘NO, NO, Jewish’, they would be labeled as anti-Semitic”. A good observation that she has already witnessed with less than 24 hours in the country, is that Israeli racism is totally acceptable and in fact, perpetuated with the separation that creates a culture of fear and distrust.