Pology Magazine  -  Adventures in Travel and World Culture.
Travel and World Culture   
Palestine
  Photo: Philip Kreniske
Palestine
  Photo: Philip Kreniske

Palestine: Crossing The Border
By Philip Kreniske

It is only a 30-shekel cab ride from where we are staying in the old city to the border crossing. The wall is wide and grey and topped with curls of razor wire. An equally grey path leads up to a small rectangular building. Inside, people line up to be questioned at two bulletproof glass booths similar to those stationed in New York subways.  Inside each booth is a young woman with a large gun, a computer and a baseball style cap of military color pulled down low. Above, a more senior officer paces along a network of elevated catwalks, a large automatic rifle slung over his shoulder, his baldhead glistening in the artificial light, his gaze calculating. About ten men and women wait in line, a few of them with young children.  My girlfriend, Sandy, and I are the only tourists. Everyone else is wearing long pants and sleeves that cover their extremities. My curly light brown hair, scruffy beard and olivine skin have helped me blend in during the last couple weeks as we traveled around Israel.  Up until now I have enjoyed being mistaken for an Israeli. All of a sudden I feel uneasy.

I glance at Sandy’s shorts, long by American standards, resting just above her knees, but daringly short from a conservative Muslim’s perspective. I look up and our eyes meet with an understanding trepidation.

“I think it will be fine,” I say, not sure if the comment is meant to reassure Sandy or myself. Our guidebook had suggested that when visiting Palestine it is appropriate to dress like a tourist. In our shorts and t-shirts we certainly fit the bill. When the people ahead of us reach the booths they show identification papers and are asked a brief series of questions in a language I can’t hear or understand, maybe Arabic, maybe Hebrew. Then they put their hands on a machine that scans their fingerprints. All of a sudden this seems very different from entering a subway station.

It’s our turn. My sweaty palms fumble through my travel belt. I feel eyes burning a hole in my back. “Just show them your passport,” someone grunts in a surprisingly fluent American accent. I look back but can’t tell which one of the long shirted, dark haired men had spoken. Finally I produce our blue passports, embossed with golden letters, United States of America. We are quickly waved by and pass through gunmetal gray turnstiles, and again I am reminded of the New York subway, but these ones seem more official, stern, and despite the warm weather outside, colder to the touch.  We snake through a short corridor and are spit outside into a bright open area. The wall is again before us, ahead there is a turret and an opening for cars, a huge cloth draped down along the wall that pictures pink girls and blue boys holding hands and reads, Peace Be With You. We make a sharp right heading down a hundred yard corridor of steel fence to our left and gray wall to our right. I’ve never felt so much like a cow being filed into a corral. But then we are out, and a number of young cabbies holler at us. One in taut jeans with black shiny hair slicked back is particularly persistent, “Twenty five shekels to the church! O.K. twenty! We don’t bite. Fifteen!” but we are not here for the church; in fact as we look at each other neither of us is really sure why we have come here.

We stroll down the main street that leads away from the border, and I begin to get the uneasy feeling that maybe we shouldn’t be wandering around. It’s desolate; in the distance there is a small restaurant that appears closed, and the street is empty, save an occasional car rolling by. An older cabby with endearing wrinkles and rounded gold cheeks pulls up and offers ten shekels to the center, and we gratefully agree. He tells us his name is Elarj. When he finds out we are teachers from America, he becomes animated.

“I like America,” he says. “But that George Bush, he crazy!” We smile in agreement, and I let him know we support Obama.  “Yes, yes Obama,” he nods, though I’m not sure he knows whom I’m talking about.

When Elarj notices I’m snapping photos of passing street art, he becomes not just a cab driver but also an adamant tour guide. He insists on taking us around to all the city's most famous murals free of charge. We stop by a mural featuring two enormous asses, one white and one black, their tails tied together; and as I look closer, I spot cities sprouting from their backs. A man rests casually against one of the donkey’s legs. Elarj motions to the man to get out of my shot.  I tell him not to worry about it, but he smiles warmly, and the man is already on his way. In front of the donkey is rubble left over from the last conflict with the Israeli military. Elarj explains to us that the Palestinian authorities must get permission from Israel to build on this land, and so far it hasn’t been granted.

Moments later Elarj slams on the brakes in the middle of a busy intersection and points to a picture of a large white dove with an olive branch clutched in its beak painted on a wall. The cars behind us honk impatiently, but Elarj doesn’t seem to care. I hurriedly focus my camera and notice, as I peer through the zoom lens, that the dove is wearing a grey bulletproof vest and a red sniper sight lies on its chest. I shiver noticing my camera is aimed at the same spot.

Page 1 of 2 Next Page

  


All contents copyright ©2008 Pology Magazine. Unauthorized use of any content is strictly prohibited.