Day 11—October 23
Ben-Gurion Airport
Issa wasn’t feeling well, so he had a friend drive the van while he rode with us to the airport. When we entered the airport grounds, it was clear that the guards were performing racial profiling of the incoming motorists. They waved through a few of the cars ahead of us, but as soon as they saw Issa and his friend sitting in the front of the van, they immediately waved us over for inspection. They looked at the ID papers of our two drivers, and began questioning them in Hebrew. They asked for all of our passports, and began asking the drivers questions about our trip. Since our passports had been stamped at the Erez checkpoint in Gaza, they wanted to know what we’d been doing there. Issa got upset at the persistent questions, and began yelling at them in Hebrew that we had paid to be taken to Gaza, he was just doing his job, and how was he supposed to know what we did there. That seemed to chasten the guard, who allowed us through without directly questioning us.
We had been somewhat worried about getting out of the country through airport security, as we had heard stories about people who met with Palestinians having their belongings meticulously examined and sometimes confiscated, and being subjected to lengthy interrogations.
Issa came with us inside the airport terminal and notified a security guard that we had been to Gaza, in order to find out what that would mean for us in getting through security. The guard came over and asked Don several questions about our whereabouts and activities during our trip. Don did not try to hide anything, but simply told her all the places we’d been to. She seemed satisfied with the answers, and allowed us to proceed to the baggage x-ray area. At that point Issa told us there should be no problem getting out, and we said our goodbyes. We discussed our perception that Israeli security had been relatively lenient with us throughout our trip, compared to the experiences of other groups we’d heard about, and decided that it was probably due to the fact that most of our members were between the ages of 60 and 80—a characteristic that made us appear quite harmless.
An Arab family ahead of us in the security line was having their bags and belongings carefully scrutinized, even those of the children and an elderly woman in a wheelchair. It took them a long time to get through security, but we finally did see them emerge with bags in tow.
The baggage inspectors thought they saw a knife in my suitcase in the x-ray, and asked me open it. They conducted a somewhat cursory search of the bag, asking several times if I was sure there wasn’t a knife inside, but then let me pass through with the promise to check the bag. Most of us got through security easily and headed over to the Lufthansa check-in counter. However, one of our members, Henry, had come under suspicion because of the heaviness of his suitcase. Every item in the suitcase was removed and thoroughly inspected. It turned out the extra weight of the bag was caused by the large amount of literature Henry and his wife, Connie, had received from our many meetings over the last 10 days, and the security guard apologized to him for the inconvenience.
As we had a couple of hours until our flight, we bought some food and drinks and went to a waiting area to rest. We struck up a conversation with an Israeli woman sitting nearby who had grown up in the US but had emigrated to Israel 19 years ago. She asked about our trip, and we described what we had seen, and ended up in another heated discussion about the Palestinians, Israeli policies, terrorism, and the like. She had never been to the Palestinian territories and seemed not to have met any Palestinians except for a man who did work on her home. She said she did not support the settlements and thought Israel should withdraw from the territories (except for East Jerusalem and all of its settlements), but she had clearly accepted many myths and stereotypes about Arabs. She believed that the Palestinians had not originally lived in Palestine, but had only come there around the time the Jews arrived. She blamed Arafat for the violence and lack of a peace settlement. At one point, she blurted out that she believed that “all Arabs lie” and that “all the Arabs understand is force”.
She said that her sister-in-law believed the terrorist bombings were justified, and that the occupation was to blame, but even then she said her sister-in-law “hates Arabs”. She described a dream her son had recently where he was walking on tiles, and each tile he stepped on blew up. She wasn’t interested in hearing a comparison of her son’s fears to the traumas suffered by Palestinian children. She seemed unaware of the conditions of Palestinian life in the territories, and somewhat skeptical of our descriptions.
The woman at one point stated that she was a Zionist. When asked if by this she meant that Israel should exist only for the Jews, she said no. Asked if she thought it was essential for Jews to be a majority in Israel, she again replied no. Asked if Jews had to be a majority in her town or neighborhood, she said no, no. When finally asked what she did mean, all she would say was that she liked being able to go to the grocery store and not worrying if the food was kosher. It appeared that while she wasn't sure exactly what it meant to be a Zionist, she identified with Zionism on some instinctive level. Related photos
We finally boarded the flight that took us to Frankfurt, and
then another on to Boston, home for everyone in the group but me. I had another 12-13 hours of flying and
layovers ahead before arriving home in San Diego. Looking back on the trip, I think we all marveled at how well it
went, considering the uncertainty in the months leading up to it. We could never be
certain we would be
allowed entry to Israel, the West Bank towns would be accessible to us, there wouldn't be an escalation of violence,
the US wouldn't invade Iraq, or
some other event wouldn't suddenly derail our plans. All in all, I think we felt lucky and thrilled to be able to see
most of the places and meet most of the people we had originally planned
to. We all felt we’d had a most
memorable journey, and were eager to start educating others on what we had
learned, and to do whatever we can in the struggle for peace and justice in
Palestine.