Checkpoint... Check Mate

Friday, August 15, 2008

We are on our way to visit the Dead Sea with Khader (who will later turn out to be the husband of Rowan, who Kit lived with last year, but I won’t find this out until later in the evening, however I’m not surprised—everyone here seems to know each other somehow) driving us in a taxi. We are all anticipating the healing magic of the Dead Sea's clay, that beach-goers spread all over their bodies, expecting a dermitological miracles. I've been there before and I explain to my friends Dante and Nora how you can float in the water without even trying. Swimmers appear to be sitting in chaisse lounges when they are simply floating effortlessly in the uber-salty water. Khaled speaks very little English. A good chance for me to actually put my shaky Arabic to use. A situation in which my vocabulary actually comes in handy. I seem to have established “cab-driver useful Arabic”.

Ayye madina hatheehee?
Wen? Fowk? Naam. B’afham.
Fee checkpoint? La? Kwayyis.

He announces that there is “No checkpoint!” and we everyone relaxes. We’ve been told that there’s a good chance we might not be let through the checkpoint. We are on our way to one of the beaches of the Dead Sea. Supposedly we are OK to get in with our foreign passports, but we have a Palestinian taxi driver who might be denied access, and thus we would be denied access. We don’t fancy arriving back in Beit Sahour, our tails between our legs and our skin just as oily and unhealthy as before (the Dead Sea is purported to have skin-healing properties, with it’s extremely high salt and mineral content). However, our “luck” is short-lived. Not more than three minutes later, Khaled says “Oh! Checkpoint! It moves.” Apparently checkpoints are removed and reestablished in different locations without public notice. We approach and are waved over to the side of the road. Our green & white license plate gives us away as being a West Bank vehicle and not an Israeli vehicle. I wonder whether Gaza vehicles have yet a different color scheme or the same green and white.

We gather our passports together and Khader hands the Israeli solder this pile of documents we’d be doomed without. I look at the soldier, having trouble taking my eyes off his M-16. I notice he’s actually quite a cutie, and is likely no more than 19 years old. He friend joins him. They seem to speak only Hebrew. Khader tells them in Hebrew what I gather to be something like “I’m taking the Americans to the Dead Sea for three hours.” They inspect our passports closely and in no hurry. They match each one to our faces commenting “Canada… hmmm…. Ohio… hmmm”. They look at me and ask “Muslim? You?” I say “No.” They continue “Christian?” and I hesitate but answer yes. I suppose I am in the sense they mean in this part of the world, where birth religion is so much a part of identity. I determine this to be a poor time to begin discussing identity politics and my thoughts on organized religion. The continue to stare at me. “No Jewish?” I assure the that I am not. They question Dante and then they look at Nora, “You Jewish?” Again more hesitation, and Nora says “Yes” and trails off with something like “I mean” which I take to mean she’s hesitating to claim full Jewish-ness having a non-Jewish mother, and not really sure how she intends to identify. They stare longer and say some things in Hebrew that none of us understand. I’m simultaneously mesmerized by the soldiers weapons, unused to being in such close proximity to guns, and also hypersensitive, listening to every word uttered, paying such close attention to each facial movement, each body gesture, such close attention that time seems almost to stand still.

Finally they bring another officer, a woman who looks just as young, certainly much younger than any of us. I think of my cousins. She’s probably Meyer’s age. Meyer is my adorable 19 year old cousin, who seems to devote his time at Arizona State pretty evenly between partying, girls, and sports. This girl in army fatigues carries a giant gun and I wonder what she's been through so far in her army service. She keeps her finger in dangerously close to the trigger. I’m not suggesting that we’re in any really danger, but the air certainly feels tense. I can feel the adrenaline and “relaxed” can’t possibly be farther from the way I’m feeling.

Clearly the new officer has been summoned because she speaks English. She looks to me, “You are Jewish?” I answer "no" again. At this point, none of us is sure exactly what the right answers are, at least what are the answers that will expedite this process or at least not impede it. Again we affirm that Nora is the only Jewish one, and go through a bit of “What are you?” seemingly establishing to a satisfactory degree that I am Christian and that Dante is Catholic and that Nora is Jewish. The female soldier keeps her attention on Nora. “You think Jewish is bad?” She answers that no, it’s not bad. “You are not proud?... Jewish is the best, no?” Nora, unsure how to answer this, offers a shaky nod. “Why is not Jewish the best?... Jewish is better than Palestinian, no?” I sit there in silence, unable to help my friend who is clearly fighting off whole-heartedly what all of her morals are telling her to do, knowing that the only response would endorse would be no good for anyone involved, including our taxi driver who is the one likely risking the most in this situation. No need to be the hero, but here she is, forced to swallow, and give a stiff nod to phrases like “Jewish is better than Palestinian” and “Jewish is good because Jewish is power”. Finally one of the men (boys!) yells out “Jewish is Power Ranger!!” and we’re able to laugh at least superficially, breaking the tension.

Just when I think that maybe the situation is over, the officer continues on to engage me further. I can think of few situations were I’ve been less excited to speak with someone. “You speak Arabic?” Not wanting to launch into a probably lengthy conversation on why I speak some Arabic which I remember to be a bit of a doozy from my experience last year in leaving the country through Tel Aviv, I answer “Just a little”. She immediately prods, “Well, how do you talk to him?” indicating the driver. “My friend called him. He’s driving us.” Some questioning about when exactly we’ll be coming back ensues and she’s clearly trying to either catch me in a lie or else make me feel uncomfortable and scared enough to prove her power. Khaled tells her something I don’t catch and then she asks me how long we will stay at the Dead Sea. When I answer 3 or 4 hours”, she smiles what seems to be a mocking grin. “Three hours or four hours? Which is it?”, looking back to Khaled. I tell here “Well we’re leaving by 6 o’clock, I don’t know what time it is now. Not more than three hours”. She continues to stare at me grinning. The moment lasts for at least eternity. Finally, the officer says, “Ok, you can go.” And to Khaled, “Honk when you come back through”.

The whole experience may have taken five minute or twenty and I’d believe it. We’re all tense in the car past when we arrive at the Dead Sea. Nora apologizes to Khaled for the situation we’ve put him in. His body language seems to say “What? That? It’s nothing.”

I feel so frustrated, and saddened. Khaled is the only calm one. I feel like I’ve just been a white person in the 60’s watching a black person being turned away at a café and did nothing. We are all shaken. The only thing we can do is try to wash away our dark thoughts with medicinal dead sea clay, but I’m not sure even this place of miracles can heal this wound.