Opinion Editorials, July 2007
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Is this Ben Gurion Airport or Hell?
By Remi Kanazi
ccun.org, July 20, 2007
Anyone
who has traveled through Ben Gurion airport in
As
I write from Ramallah, I recall my and my brother's experience in Ben Gurion
just one week ago. After a sleepless 15 hour trip from
When
we arrived at the first detainment room, several young female security
agents asked us where we were going, about our ethnic background and family
history, whether we had family in Israel or the occupied territories (and if
we would be staying with them), and if "there was anything they should
know." We were then taken to another detainment room, where a few other
detainees were being held. Over the next three hours, several female
security officers came into the detainment room we were being held in to
question us, while at other times we were called into other detainment rooms
for questioning. One African detainee, an elderly black woman, was not
allowed into the country with her husband despite a seemingly innocent
decision to visit her family.
After about four hours, pure exhaustion set in. At this time, we were taken to a large room with metal detectors, an x-ray machine and a coffee machine that looked like it wasn't in use. Still, in a token attempt at friendliness, the security agent offered us a cup of coffee. But the offer was rescinded once he noted the machine was out of service.
About every ten minutes another member of airport security entered the room. After about 30 minutes we were taken into a back room, patted down, and scanned with a hand held metal detector. After being held for an hour, Sami, who claimed to be a higher up in the IDF and airport security, entered the room. He had apparently been called in by regular airport security because of certain "red flags" we had raised.
Sami didn't look particularly happy to see us. He started to go through our bags, which had been checked by every member of airport security that previously entered the room. He had a determined look on his face as he sifted through my brother's book on corporate law and became more agitated when he didn't find the holy grail of information.
After
about 15 minutes Sami looked up at us and told us that "something was
missing;" we were "leaving out part of the story," and he was
going to find out just exactly what that "part" was. He was
looking for what he called the "truth." So I repeated what we had
told the previous soldiers: we were staying our first two nights in East
Jerusalem, we would be traveling to the holy sites (to see where baby Jesus
was born),
Sami
put it bluntly, as of the moment we were called in we were considered
"terrorists" or people intending to "engage in terrorists
activities" because we "lied" to airport security about the
intention of our travels. Sami defined terrorism and terrorist
activities as meeting up with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM),
working in "terrorist" branches of the
Sami
started to go through our phones, writing down numbers and asking questions
about anyone with an Arab, Persian or Jewish name. He was particularly
angered when he saw the name of a well known Jewish activist who had done
extensive work in the occupied territories in my brother's phone.
Ironically, the number in my brother's phone was the number of a paralegal
in
After
about 90 minutes of intense bullying, Sami concluded we weren't terrorists.
At this point, good old Sami started to warm up, but not without first
telling us what we explicitly weren't supposed to do: no ISM, stay away from
AIC activity, and do not engage in anything that we would categorize as
non-violent activism.
By
the end of stay at Ben Gurion, Sami informed us that we were lucky to catch
him on a good day. He became extremely open and candid in the last 30
minutes. He said that he may not agree with everything that he does and he
may not agree with the political situation, but he's a soldier of the state,
and serving its interest is his job. While I appreciated his honesty, this
type of rationalization has been used throughout history, justifying war
crimes and human rights violations ad infinitum.
As our seven hour journey came to an end, Sami began telling us personal stories. I'm not sure if it was an attempt clear his conscience, but he told us about his diverse group of friends, which included Arabs, and how his life had been saved five times, all by Arabs. It was amazing to see how human and forthcoming some of the "toughest" people in Israel have become, while at the same time keeping up their walls of discrimination and oppression, walls that have ultimately been encompassed by a greater wall of rationalization. For us, it was seven hours of hell in Ben Gurion. For a Palestinian here, occupation is a reality every day of the year.
Remi
Kanazi is a Palestinian-American poet and writer based in
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