U1 Baruch Haba!

Well, I made it into Israel, in one piece, about 36 hours ago. The
flight from Newark airport to Israel takes a little over ten hours,
and the sky was dark for much of it, which helped to facilitate the
hour or two of sleep that I ended up getting. I was mostly curled up,
as much as one can in an airplane seat, reading books and things. The
flight was uneventful; when we landed a few faithful applauded, myself
among them.

Got off the plane, said the shechiyanu, and proceeded down to passport
control, lined up behind "foreign passports," behind just one other
person. I was feeling thankful that the line wasn't too long, coming
back into the United States sometimes it has taken me over an hour
just to get through the line to customs.

"L'eyfo-"
"Lo m'daber ivrit," I interrupt her. I don't speak Hebrew.
"What are you doing here?"
"I'm visiting friends and travelling."
"Just a moment."
A couple of women come out from the side of my view, and indicate that
I should follow them. "Please leave your things, we'll get them," they
offer, referring to my grey satchel and my guitar in it's case beside
me. "Do you have a cell phone on you?" No, not an Israeli one.

They bring me into a little waiting room, with standard airport
chairs. The only thing different about this place than a terminal is
that it's its own enclosed cubicle, and there seems to be someone
standing guard at the door. The rest of the people, without exception
are not Jewish, which doesn't seem to be a coincidince. I myself am
wearing a kippah, and am very tired, not having slept much on the
flight. I decide not to engage anyone else in conversation.

Perhaps in twenty minutes, they retrieve me, and bring my things as
well, to be checked (again) for security reasons. They scan my guitar
in its case, then take the guitar out of it's case and scan that, then
scan the case, then look inside the guitar, then inside the case. They
pull everything out of my bags, swabbing them with explosive-detection
tools. I felt special: I had about six security personnel just for me!
The woman in charge seemed quite kind, and I actually didn't mind this
part, it seemed very routine, and straightforward; they were just
doing their jobs.

They had me take my money out of my wallet, and then took my wallet
from me. They had me empty my pockets. They brought me to a room with
a couple of men to check me thoroughly: metal-detection, pat-down
search, then "Please bring you pants down to your knees." To make sure
I'm not keeping anything between my legs that shouldn't be there.
Fortunately they never asked me to remove my boxers; I'm glad I can
keep that experience isolated to American jail, for now.

After my belongings had been checked twice, a man named Sami came in,
starting going through my wallet, and asking me questions about
things: about the books I was carrying, about names in my wallet, and
email addresses. Why was I carrying a minidisc recorder? What kind of
recordings was I planning on making? Do I have an example of these
recordings that I could show him? No, I didn't. This CD that says
Stevie Wonder-- is it just music? What if I find some pictures on
there? I just laughed.
I was feeling fortunate that my luggage was 100% kosher-- I didn't
even bring Arabic language study materials that I was considering
bringing.

I felt a slow, tired impatience growing; they had kept me for over an
hour at this point. I had a twinge of empathy for Arabs who experience
this resentment regularly. Sami told me I was going to visit with him
in his office. I looked around, I wasn't sure if he was being
metaphorical; I didn't see any offices nearby. When all of the
security personnel had gone, we left too. Down the hall where the
bathrooms were, and through an unmarked door. We climbed a metal
staircase, chatting lightly. "You know what the Defense Ministry is?"
"Like the IDF?" I asked. "Not exactly," he clarified. "They're
standard military. I'm an intelligence officer. I work for
headquarters." At the top of the staircase, we entered another hall,
turned right and walked up a few steps to his office. He invited me to
sit down there. Besides the fact that I didn't have my stuff with me,
and I was ready to get going in Israel already, I was at least getting
to seem something at least slightly interesting.

He told me that he was going to ask me some simple questions, and that
if I was truthful with him, it would make my life easier. And that I
wasn't, well, you know. He could be a devil. He asked me where I had
been since the last time my passport was stamped for exit from Israel,
three years prior. He probed me for specific countries: Iraq, Iran,
Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt. I told him I'd like to go to
Egypt, but that I haven't been there. I told him the truth: Mexico.
"I TOLD YOU NOT TO LIE TO ME!" he screamed at me. It was true: he had
told me not to lie to him. Clearly he was emphatic on this point. My
mother would get along with him. She also liked to tell me not to lie
to her. I just looked back at him.
He went through everything in my wallet. I have a lot of things that
say "Olympia" on them in my wallet. Such as: Olympia Federal Savings.
The Olympia Film Society. The Olympia Food Co-op. He asked me about an
Olympia Film Society Volunteer Pass. I think he was confused by my
explanation of what OFS is (a nonprofit that runs a theater). There
was a business card in my wallet. Somebody "Khan" who worked for Arab
media, out of Dubai. I actually have no idea where I got that business
card, and told him so. "You are LYING TO ME!" he exclaimed. The long
and the short of it, he did a bit of yelling at me for various
reasons. Perhaps a half hour later, we hadn't gotten too far, and I
told him, "please, just ask me specific questions, and I'll answer
them."
And so he came to tell me that he had a file, and that really what he
wanted to know was, what had I done the last time I was in the area.
And I told him. "Yeah, I travelled to the Palestinian Territories. Is
that what you wanted to know?" And I dropped some names of
organizations that I knew he already knew about. I dropped some names
that I knew he already knew about. I didn't give him as much as he was
hoping though: I understated my travels. I said I had been to
Bethlehem, to Ramallah.
His assistant was bored, had nothing to do. So he set him to work
copying down every single phone number from my American cell phone.
That means that you, dear reader, most likely have your name and phone
number scrawled down on a piece of paper and tucking into a file,
filed under my name, in some military intelligence office near Tel
Aviv.

He stopped being mad at me. I appreciated this. I had a pretty strong
sense that he was fucking with me the whole time; that is it say, it
was a psychological game he was playing, to try to get me to play
along with what he wanted. I knew this. I wanted to get into Israel.
He told me that he didn't care if I took part in demonstrations, he
was here trying to make sure I wasn't caught up with any terrorists
that I didn't know about. My personal opinions, and what I liked to do
with them, were my business. He was trying to protect me. (I doubted
this privately, but appreciate the possibility that he was being
genuine) He told me that he had a file on me, and that he knew some of
the things I had done the last time I was here; some ISMer had talked
at their last "exit interview," and had apparently talked about me
rather extensively.
So I told him everything. Dropped several first names. Stopped just
short of saying that I had actually been in, and been "trained" by,
the ISM, because I know that the Israeli military considers them to be
next-to-terrorists. He asked me if I had ever been arrested, and I
hadn't. How about detained at a checkpoint... well, yes in fact I
have; I told him where. He told me he had a record of that too.

Funny enough, Sami recognized one of the names that I dropped. He
brought up her picture on the screen (very impressive!). She sitting
in the same place that I was sitting in that very moment. He told me
the story of putting her on a plane in handcuffs, that he said was
notorious within ISM. He told me about a Jewish ISMer who he had
helped to kick out of the country. Her father is Jewish. She is never
allowed in Israel again. He told me about beating up a very large man
who tried to fight him. Showed a picture of him hog-tied on the floor,
the broken glass, the broken corner of the wall.

He had his assistant buy me a sandwich, while I waited downstairs for
him to talk to HQ.

He apparently decided I was a good sort (or at least that's the role
he was playing in this psychological game), and said that he needed to
report to HQ, and they would decide what to do with me. He didn't
think I was a security threat.

Waiting, waiting, waiting... I started talking up the other people in
the security-cubicle. One guy was a UK Businessman who vowed never to
come to Israel again; he was here on business, for just two days. He
had been waiting two hours. I fell asleep for maybe a half hour.

Sami came and got me, brought me back up to the super-secret room. He
told me that HQ wasn't happy with me, didn't want me in the country.
And that, contrary to what he said earlier, it mattered to him that i
had been to demonstrations. That when I demonstrated against the
activities of Israel, I was demonstrating against him. He showed me a
piece of paper that had a typed out agreement on it, and told me to
look at it, not to do anything, just to look at it.

The paper said (among other things)

AGREEMENT

"I agree not to go into Judea/Samaria" (Israeli governmental language
for the West Bank)
"I agree not to go to demonstrations."

And it also said that if I break my agreement, it could have an effect
on my continued stay in Israel. He then asked me to sign it. So I did.

In the security-cubicle, I met some other nice young ladies from
Istanbul. A woman brought me my bags, and told me that I could leave.
It was after six pm. My flight landed at 9:15am. I chased her down and
asked her which way was out, then found a sherut to take me to
Jerusalem, then found Ari's apartment which was dark but open. The
cool thing about a sherut is that it will take you to right where you
are going in Israel.

Welcome to Israel, young Jew. Eretz HaKodesh. Land of Our Dreams.

Ari and his roommates have been great. It's mostly just confusing to
me how to talk about what happened; eight hours of interrogation
mostly just freaks everyone else out, which probably doesn't help me
out very much. I'm still pretty shaken up by the experience. It's the
experience of dealing with any military beaurocracy, whether Myanmar
or Israel, Indonesia or Columbia.

On further reflection, Sami is not a bad guy. He's doing a terrible
thing, though. He is an agent of oppression, and as a man, he's been
thoroughly hurt and conditioned into believing that he should scare
people into being separate from one another. This is very sad. He and
I talked wistfully about the time when any Israeli would happily walk
freely into Nablus to go shopping, no less. He said any family member
who cared enough to show their loved ones a good time, by necessity
would take them to the Territories! But that was ten years ago. Things
have changed, in the minds of so many.

Friends, I hope this will pass: I feel incredibly violated by the
State of Israel, which purports to support my Jewish values, my
experience of "ivri", my boundary-crossing. But this is exactly what I
was instructed not to do, by the State: cross any boundaries.

When, I ask. When will the intifada end in the minds of the Israeli
security forces? Who among Palestinians is even authorized to declare
an end to an intifada? The truth on the ground looks like people are
dragging their feet. The Palestinians are covered in mud; they have
enough internal problems not to be fighting Israel at the moment. I
don't see a resistance movement. I see discouragement, humiliation,
suicide. The IDF might do well to decide that the Second Intifada is
already over, and to attempt to normalize relations with West Bank
Palestine.

While my mother taught me not to lie, I only honor that with people,
people who are not representatives of systems of authority. Sami did
not want to forbid me from going into the Territories; while he
doesn't personally think it's a good idea, he has no reason to stop me
from doing it.

And I will keep crossing boundaries, while I have the ability.

And today I didn't yet feel up for skipping in Jerusalem, but soon I
will. Tomorrow I will start Ulpan (Hebrew study school), that goes
Sunday through Thursday 8:30 to 1pm. We'll see how that goes.

Thank you all so much for being there!
The phone number that you can reach me on while I'm here is
011-972-544-325102. I'm 10 hours ahead of the west coast, 7 hours
ahead of the east coast. Let me know if I can call you in the middle
of your night, because sometimes I might want to talk to a friend.

b'shalom v'salaam,
ya'akov m'oly-- jacob in Jerusalem