After a long night in Tel Aviv, the White City, I found myself in the back of an Israeli police car. Within two hours of my departure from the airport. With two other Americans and a Portuguese South African girl, who was wearing a miniskirt shorter than my bandana. We ran out of gas. Jet-lagged, I am still amused as we push the car across three lanes of speeding traffic at two in the morning. The girl in the short skirt and heels longer than my forearm? Not as much. After spending two hours at the airport checkpoint trying to pick me up, the three of them were definitely not when the the flashing lights appeared. This only heralded more glorified authority figures. This was something they had become very accustomed to.
Driving a car owned by a Palestinian Israeli with expired plates and no insurance didn’t make the matter any better. For my friends, working as teachers for the “other side” means developing an elaborate lie at every checkpoint. When they are in Israel, their complete lives are a lie. Luckily, the short skirt is a long enough veil to cover our story as we get towed off the freeway and are brought gas- free of charge. We are happy the police helped us “Western” tourists out. We breathe easy and decide that, by four a.m., going out is no longer worth it. Speeding off, we pass without problem past a checkpoint entering Ramallah. I now feel part of a secret. I can feel the big elephant in the room, but it’s dark and I am speechless. Seeing parts of it only make it harder to give words to it’s enormous presence.
It’s an eerie experience that I can finally say I’ve come to “know.” Whatever that actually means. After the brief stay is said and done, I ask, where can I find my truth in it all? I feel baffled and brainwashed by this situation. After leaving Jerusalem on Friday to go back to where my friend Curtis is in the West Bank, I find myself breathing better and experiencing a hospitality that I will not easily forget. The people are kind, the police don’t intimidate, and I feel like I’ve left the situation knowing a lot less than I did before. After writing all of this, I feel I’ve processed something. I’m content with the confusion, the complexity of the situation. I know nothing, actually.
Having dinner with Curtis, his friend Kaitlin from Reno, and her Palestinian-American boyfriend, I feel like I could live here for another forty years and still not completely understand everything that is happening here. This is just a taste and I’ve savored as much as I can for now, but this is a seven-course French dining experience, and I’ve only tried the appetizer. Hearing the verbal portraits of persecution and experiences from the Palestinian, I am numb. Recalling bits and pieces from his memory of the uprising, running from bullets, and throwing stones at strangers entering his sacred land finds me frozen. Sleeping until late in the morning, I sweat out a fever and awake from a horrible nightmare. Little did I know, that I would soon be entering a new dream, a glimpse into another world.
This one, much more real, however. I get a call from the American girl I had dinner with the previous night. She invites me to paint Palestinian children’s faces at a nearby refugee camp she volunteers at. In the taxi on the way there, I ask her why she does this:
“It’s a way to make at least a little instant change. To make a place a little better than before. It’s a place where the children know they can’t leave, but can’t fathom why. They simply want to go to the beach, but the beach is impossible. The beach is in Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv is a world away.”
Each week, she goes there to the delight of dozens of children whose biggest requests are a very patriotic flag of Palestine, but also rainbows, flowers, and kitten faces. We had a great afternoon together and I became an expert at painting a Palestinian flag and learning the colors in Arabic. The situation is complex at best. It’s complicated to most from the outside.
Passing through the barren border today, I lost my coins in the metal detector that lacked baskets, showing my ID to a windowed soldier. Catching the next bus to Jerusalem, without coins, I was paid for by the Palestinian gentleman in front of me who helped me through the degrading border crossing. After leaving the scene? I can only determine that healing the situation requires justice and dignity; rightfully served to each “side.” A “no one is right, no one is wrong” approach must be taken. As I leave Jerusalem, I say a silent prayer at sunset and board the bus towards Tel Aviv, the New York City of the Middle East. Nightfall curves along the mountain pass as the lights of the city signal my arrival.
