Did You Feel Safe?

The #1 question I am getting from people who find out I was in Palestine for 10 days is, “Did you feel safe?” Or, “isn’t it dangerous there?” Or there is a look of disbelief that I would go visit.

Here’s how I answer:

The only times I felt in danger and uncomfortable were by the policies of the State of Israel including:

1. Landing at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv and being questioned by Israeli security professionals (20-somethings) and and sent to a room and questioned and sent to a room and questioned and sent to a room over two hours. All the time without my U.S. Passport.  People have stories that are 10 times worse, but it didn’t make me feel good at all.

Separation Barrier and Military Tower

2. On my way to Jerusalem with my mom on a bus (since most who live in Palestine can’t get permission to visit Jerusalem) we were stopped at a main checkpoint to go on the other side of the “separation barrier.” Two 20-something Israeli guards with machine guns looked at our U.S. Passports and made us get off the bus to walk through a security station. We then got our bags searched and had to flash our passports to another guard behind a glass window.

3. Driving around, hiking and walking around the beautiful West Bank only to realize slowly day-by-day that where we were was like an open-air prison with checkpoints, Israeli-only roads throughout, and Israeli military installations (“settlements”) all around us. “They are either trying to cut us off from society, or trying to get us to leave our land,” said one of my fellow hikers.

4. Peering across the abandoned old city of Al-Khalil (Hebron) from atop a building on the Arab side only to realize that an Israeli soldier in a watch tower 200 feet above me was looking at me and pointing his machine gun our way. He is there because there is a huge Israeli military installation (“settlement”) there that is so out of place it is almost humorous but more pathetic as you absorb the absurdness of the “settlement movement.”

5. Driving back to the airport to leave we were stopped at a checkpoint 2 miles from the airport. When I said I was in Ramallah we were asked to pull over, get out of the car and give up our mobile phones and my passport. Then our bags were checked and we were questioned.

6. In the airport, my bags were unpacked and checked and I was questioned and led away by a soldier with a machine gun and put in a room with a privacy curtain. I thought I was going to be strip searched!  I was searched and scanned pretty thoroughly then led back to my still unpacked luggage then was given my passport back.

Those were the only times I did not feel safe in Palestine – they all had to do with Israeli policies and procedures against Palestinians living the West Bank, and visitors of any nationality and citizenship who want to travel to Palestine.