for one of my last nights my host family decided to make a nice dinner for me and julia. Being christians, my family is allowed to eat pork, and for some reason they decided that massive amounts of pork would be the perfect goodbye bbq. It was delicious, but several pork chops, pieces of bacon, and countless sausages later i was stuffed! It was really nice to have a nice goodbye dinner with them, they set up a whole, almost romantic, dining area outside and we smoked argilah and drank arak and had a really nice time. It was unfortunately cut somewhat short because i had decided i wanted to go see the only club nearby in beit jallah called cosmos, which was incredibly lame, and not at all worthwhile as it was an off night. I didnt have much left to do besides pack which i put off until the absolute last possible time. My host mom made me my favourite beef stroganof-ish lasagna and i was debating the whole day what to do with all my political souveniers like free palestine shirts. I was joking that i would just wear them all under another shirt because if i was going to get strip searched at the airport i was already in hot water and it might make for a nice laugh later. I wore it the whole day and joked with everyone that i was going to just walk through ben gurion airport that way. I went to the bible college where my group was having its weekly meeting to say goodbye to everyone which was really hard and sad. Everybody gave me huge genuine hugs and promised to keep in touch, and i could see my sadness reflected in some peoples eyes. I tried to keep a smiling face because there was no point in anyone getting too upset over something like that when they were going to continue to live under occupation for a while longer. My roommate caught me when we were leaving shedding a few tears, and that was alright with me, i just didnt want to make some kind of scene. We went home and i said goodbye to my family and i just wanted to stay more than anything else. They kept telling me that i could but we all knew that was unreasonable. They made me promise to come back, which wasnt an empty promise at all. I knew i hadnt stayed for long enough to see and do all the things i wanted and that i was going to come back and do what i could to help or at least shed some light on their cause.
Ultimately i just packed all my political wear inside of other clothes and was on my way. A driver came to pick me up, he had residency in jerusalem and was therefore able to drive me all the way through. We actually had a pretty fun ride joking in arabic, though he told me his family spoke aramaic which i thought was fascinating because i had always assumed that language was dead. Aramaic is the language that jesus spoke, it is very old and rare to encounter. We made jokes about the occupation the whole way, which was really nice because i was honestly pretty scared about going through security, especially after hearing about all the other people that got strip searched and had their computers taken and everything. I didnt do anything that was illegal while i was living in the west bank. I was volunteering and helping people and there wasnt anything wrong with it, but the israelis really want to discourage this kind of thing so they like to make it difficult for you. Its very different that security in america where really they just want your sharp objects and liquids as opposed to going through your books for political things. My driver just told me to keep smiling and that everything would be fine, when we drove up to the airport they put a sticker on my passport, which he peeled off despite my objection saying 'they do this to everybody it is just to say you have an arab driver so they can search you' so i suppose that was for the best even though i was feeling pretty strange about all of it. It didnt matter because they searched everything i owned anyway and took my computer to a special room. Luckily i had prepared myself for this beforehand, but it was still a hassle.
On the flight back i was sitting next to an christian american couple. they said they had been to israel a few times. i asked them what the most powerful thing they had seen while they were there was, and they replied 'the wall'. I was really excited thinking i had found someone who understood some of the things i had seen while i was there but it turned out to be a huge miscommunication because they meant the wailing wall. i was so confused i was as
king 'you mean you didnt see THE WALL, its twice the size of the berlin wall!' but they hadnt. on the israel side it is often buried and painted like the landskape around it and sometimes it actually looks pretty nice, especially in comparison the the concrete barbed wire atrocity we were forced to look at every day. They were christians, but they decided to skip the bethlehem part of the pilgrimage since in israel it is portrayed to be a hotbed of terrorism and violence and completely unsafe for anyone. they went on to explain to me how happy they were to be in israel because it is more free to speak because apparently 'america is so anti israeli, you cant say anything'. I decided i wasnt really in a good place to talk to them much more. First of all israel gets millions and millions of dollars from america to do things like build that wall. Those are our tax dollars, and if that isnt blind support i dont know what is. They may as well have checked up on their investment. Second i dont think it was very fair for them to have such a stron
g opinion on the situation without seeing what was really happening any closer. If they were in jerusalem it was just 20 minuites to where i was staying if there wasnt any checkpoint hassle. Before they decide that the international community is 'too hard on israel' they should probably see what israel is really doing and then they are entitled to whatever opinion theyd like. The situation has been likened the most to what happened to the native americans in pioneer times, and to the south africans with their aparthied wall and white government. One would be able to see these comparisins with ease if they put forth any effort at all to see what was going on with human rights there.
Ultimately i just packed all my political wear inside of other clothes and was on my way. A driver came to pick me up, he had residency in jerusalem and was therefore able to drive me all the way through. We actually had a pretty fun ride joking in arabic, though he told me his family spoke aramaic which i thought was fascinating because i had always assumed that language was dead. Aramaic is the language that jesus spoke, it is very old and rare to encounter. We made jokes about the occupation the whole way, which was really nice because i was honestly pretty scared about going through security, especially after hearing about all the other people that got strip searched and had their computers taken and everything. I didnt do anything that was illegal while i was living in the west bank. I was volunteering and helping people and there wasnt anything wrong with it, but the israelis really want to discourage this kind of thing so they like to make it difficult for you. Its very different that security in america where really they just want your sharp objects and liquids as opposed to going through your books for political things. My driver just told me to keep smiling and that everything would be fine, when we drove up to the airport they put a sticker on my passport, which he peeled off despite my objection saying 'they do this to everybody it is just to say you have an arab driver so they can search you' so i suppose that was for the best even though i was feeling pretty strange about all of it. It didnt matter because they searched everything i owned anyway and took my computer to a special room. Luckily i had prepared myself for this beforehand, but it was still a hassle.
On the flight back i was sitting next to an christian american couple. they said they had been to israel a few times. i asked them what the most powerful thing they had seen while they were there was, and they replied 'the wall'. I was really excited thinking i had found someone who understood some of the things i had seen while i was there but it turned out to be a huge miscommunication because they meant the wailing wall. i was so confused i was as
king 'you mean you didnt see THE WALL, its twice the size of the berlin wall!' but they hadnt. on the israel side it is often buried and painted like the landskape around it and sometimes it actually looks pretty nice, especially in comparison the the concrete barbed wire atrocity we were forced to look at every day. They were christians, but they decided to skip the bethlehem part of the pilgrimage since in israel it is portrayed to be a hotbed of terrorism and violence and completely unsafe for anyone. they went on to explain to me how happy they were to be in israel because it is more free to speak because apparently 'america is so anti israeli, you cant say anything'. I decided i wasnt really in a good place to talk to them much more. First of all israel gets millions and millions of dollars from america to do things like build that wall. Those are our tax dollars, and if that isnt blind support i dont know what is. They may as well have checked up on their investment. Second i dont think it was very fair for them to have such a stron
g opinion on the situation without seeing what was really happening any closer. If they were in jerusalem it was just 20 minuites to where i was staying if there wasnt any checkpoint hassle. Before they decide that the international community is 'too hard on israel' they should probably see what israel is really doing and then they are entitled to whatever opinion theyd like. The situation has been likened the most to what happened to the native americans in pioneer times, and to the south africans with their aparthied wall and white government. One would be able to see these comparisins with ease if they put forth any effort at all to see what was going on with human rights there.
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