Racism at the Ben Gurion Airport

As promised in my first blog post, this is Muki's much more detailed recounting of her detainment at the airport when we first arrived.  Other posts that I'm working on: "the words we choose: language, politics & perspective," "the Dead Sea: underneath the mud & feeling funny floating," and "things that are thrown & other musings: stones & teargas in Aida."

***

The sun has not come up yet when Jesse and I land at the Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv on Thursday.  It is four in the morning.  We know that passing airport security is the biggest hurdle in our two-day journey.  Once we make it out of the airport, getting to the West Bank should be a piece of cake. 

We wash up at the nearest bathroom, apply make-up, and I step into a skimpy dress that will hopefully help me blend into the crowd of culturally insensitive western tourists.  Then, Jesse and I make our way to the passport check area.  The left-most lines are reserved for those with Israeli passports, and the rest are for those with all ‘other’ passports.  Jesse and I approach a brunette and crumpled woman behind a glass shield.  Slip her our passports.  Mine is Belgian, Jesse’s is American.  I watch her eyes narrow on my document. 

     “This is the most beautiful airport I’ve ever been to!”  I say excited, playing the nonchalant, somewhat ditzy tourist.  “And I’ve been to a lot of airports.”

     “What’s your fathers name?”

    “Najaer.  That’s my last name.”  I pronounce it with a heavy American accent.  Can’t let her know I speak Arabic. 

     “Your grandfather’s name?” 

     “I never knew him.  He died long before I was born.”  I’m stalling.

     “What do you think it was?”

     “Mohamed.”  Pronounced Moe-Ham-Med. 

     “You can go ahead.”  She hands Jesse her American passport, with her Jewish middle name.  Rachel.  “You go sit in that room.”  She points behind me.  I’ve been expecting this. 

     “Is everything okay?”  I try to sound surprised and hold my voice between shaking palms, the way a mesmerized and terrified child might hold a dove, afraid it will escape her, afraid to fracture its delicate ribs. 

     “Security check, mam’.”  No eye contact.  Nothing.  Jesse follows me to the waiting area. 

     Several Israeli airport security personnel chat near the entrance.  The room is lined with chairs and brown bodies.  I pick a spot.  Jesse sits next to me.  I put my bag down and note the single white woman with baggy elephant print pants.  She looks more the activist type than a tourist.  Three young women chat in Arabic, and another language I can’t discern.  The rest are silent.  The television plays exercise videos.  I stare through the wall until a security guard comes in a half hour later. 

     “You,” he barks and points in the vicinity of the three Muslim women, two of them in headscarves, “come!”  One of the women follows him.   The white woman with the baggy pants has already been released.  A young man, dark skin and gelled hair, walks in and sits near us.  Two women in long robes, enter, and sit across from us.  A young white man comes in.  Waits several minutes.  Is released.  Another half hour passes.  I’m rehearsing my cover-up story in my head.  At this point, I’ve been rehearsing it for days. 

     “Mohamed.”  I hear my grandfather’s name.  I follow the man to a tiny interrogation room.  A brown-bodied security guard joins him.  Familiar face.  He’s from the Horn of Africa, like me. 

     “Is this your first time in Israel?”

     “Yes.”

     “What is the reason of your visit?”

     “I’m just here to visit friends, tour around, see the country, go to a concert, spend time at the beach.”

     “How long will you stay?” 

     “I’m leaving on September 15th.”  I lie.

     “So one month?” 

     “No, more like two.”  I’m afraid he’ll only give me a one-month visa. 

     “So why you come to Israel?” 

     “I know many people who’ve come, and they say it’s beautiful.”

     “Who are you staying with?”

     “Tonight we’ll be at the Momo hostel.  After that we hope to stay with friends and family members.”

     “What are the names of these people?”  I pull out my journal and give him their names and phone numbers. 

     “What is your grandfather’s name?”

     “I think it was Moe-Ham-Med,” I say, then “I’ve never been asked so many questions at an airport, what’s going on?” 

     “Just security measures.” 

    “Are these security measures for everybody?”  I look him dead in the eye.  His gaze drops.  Lays dead, on the tiled ground by my shoelaces.  He takes a breath.

     “So you have a Belgian passport.  Any others?”

     “No.  Just the Belgian one.”  I lie.  The man from the horn of Africa paces back and forth.  I hope he won’t say anything.  

     “So no other passports?”

     “That’s correct.” 

     “What are you studying?”  It goes on like this for another ten minutes.  Then, “Okay, you can wait outside again.” 

     “Wait for what?”

     “We will continue the security screening and put your information in the system.” 

Jesse welcomes me.

     “What did they ask you?”  The young man with dark skin and gelled hair speaks in a British accent. 

     “Everything.”  I’m exhausted.  Been traveling for forty-some hours.  Turns out his name is Raffi.  He’s visiting the country for six days, hoping to meet cute men at Forever Tel Aviv.  His parents are Indian and Muslim.  I tell him he’ll get shit for having a Muslim name.  He recounts his experience leaving Britain.  A guard followed him around for three hours.  He wasn’t allowed anything but his flight itinerary.  The guard escorted him to the bathroom.  Once it was time to board, he was the last one allowed on the airplane.  A guard walked him to the seat.  The other passengers stared.  He was reseated three times.

     “It was, like, humiliating and weird.”  I am quiet.

     “This shit is so fucking racist,” I muster.

     “Well I guess I understand, it’s just that they want to be sure everything is safe.”  Raffi is unconvinced.  He’s thirsty and goes to buy a coke.  The vending machine is as temperamental as the Israeli airport security.  On the sixth try it spits up peach flavored iced tea.  He takes a few swigs and hands me the rest. 

     The woman with the headscarf comes back.  Another is called in. I get talking to the women.  They are Palestinian and grew up in Europe but they try to come home every year to visit their families.  One tells me she’s been held at the airport for six hours.  Another says eleven hours is her highest score.  It’s all part of the Israeli scheme to keep Palestinians from connecting with their homeland and heritage, she explains.  Or to keep foreigners from witnessing the apartheid Israel inflicts on Palestinians.  I check the time.  It is almost seven in the morning.  Sounds like it could be a long morning.  I take off my shoes and bend into downward dog.  Deep breaths. 

     Raffi is still talking.  He’s asking where we are staying.  Jesse tells him we’re just planning on hanging out.  He invites us to Forever Tel Aviv.  I remind him the party will be attended primarily by men.  He gets called in for interrogation.  I walk to the interrogation area.  Two-dozen airport security are sitting around.  Several are on computers.  The rest are sitting on the desks doing nothing.  I wonder how much they get paid to dangle their legs and occasionally harass anyone with brown skin or a Muslim name.    

     “Hi.  I got questioned two hours ago, and I’m still here.  And I’m hungry and thirsty.  I’ve been traveling for two days.  I need to sleep.  When can I leave?”  I’m playing the angry traveler.     

     “We’re processing your information.”

     “How much longer will it take?”

     “We can’t know.” 

     “Well I’m hungry.  Could you get me some food?”  I walk out without listening for a response.  A few minutes later Jesse and I are called into a larger interrogation room.  They hand me a sandwich.  I take a bite.           

    “Feel free to eat in here.”  The woman interrogating us says sarcastically.  I continue eating anyway.  This woman appears much more alert than the first guy.  She asks the same questions. 

     “Is this your first time in Israel?  How long will you stay?  What will you do?  Where are you staying?  Why Israel?”  And she asks an array of more difficult questions.  “What is the reservation number at your motel?” We don’t have a reservation. I stammer. 

     “When I called they told me a reservation would not be necessary.  They said to just come in.” 

     “What is your religion.”  I tell her I don’t have one. 

     “The religion of your parents?”  I tell her we’re not religious.  She squints at me. I make sure to have food in my mouth whenever she asks a question to buy myself extra time. 

     “Who are you staying with?”

     “After the motel we’ll stay with Hagit, he’s my dad’s friend.  He lives in Tel Aviv.”  Jesse answers this time. 
     “But Hagit is a woman’s name...”

     “Oh, well my dad didn’t tell me.”  Jesse and I exchange glances.  She got us. 

     “So could I call her and ask if you’ll be staying with her?”

     “Well, we haven’t asked her if we can stay yet.  But you can call David, my dad has talked to him.” 

     “Do you plan on visiting the West Bank?”

     “The West Bank...is that like the Gaza Strip?”  I love playing stupid.  The woman squints again. 

     “I heard that’s really dangerous.  Like terrorists and stuff, right?”  I continue.

    This woman is smart.  Quick eyes.  I don’t know if she buys our answer.  After a half hour, she asks for our e-mail addresses.  I give her mine with minor spelling mistakes.  Jesse does the same.  The woman lets us go. 

     We wait another two hours.  I go and complain again. Same story.  I’m hungry.  I’ve been sitting here for four and a half hours.  I’ve never been treated this badly at an airport before.”  The room full of airport security stares me down.  Nobody says anything. 
     “When can I leave?  And who is looking after my bags?” 

     “Your bags will be okay.”

     “So when can I leave?” 

     “I’ll talk to someone.” A young man answers me. 

     Ten minutes later I get called into another interrogation room.  “What is your reason for coming to Israel?  How long will you stay here?  When will you go back?”

     “Why are you asking me these questions?” 

     “Security measures.” 

     “No, I mean, I’ve already been interrogated twice.”

     “Oh.” 

     “Then why are you asking me this again?  I’ve been here for four and a half hours!”

     “We are sorry for the misunderstanding.  You can go back to the waiting area and I’ll bring you your papers.”   

     A few minutes later he brings me my visa and passport.  I look to see if they issued it for three months.   Three months.  Perfect.  I sigh and check the time. It is just past 9:30 AM.  The visa was issued at 4:33 AM.  Just two minutes after Jesse’s.  They were just playing games with me.  Harassed me for five hours.  Punishment me for the crime of my grandfather’s first name.  My mouth tastes like yellow gone chartreuse.

     Raffi is released at the same time as I.  The three of us go to retrieve our bags.  We find them on the ground beside a non-revolving baggage carousel.  They’ve been there for hours.  Jesse decides Raffi deserves to know our real story.  We’re not tourists.  We’re here for work and activism.  He looks shocked. 

     “So you guys were prepared for the interrogation?”

     “Yeah.  We’ve been preparing for a long time.  But lets get the hell outta here before they find another reason to stop us.”  Jesse and I catch the 21 bus to our new home in the West Bank. 

*All names and identifying details in this article have been changed to maintain the anonymity and safety of the individuals.

Eggplants, Photos and a Wedding

Since I haven't posted in quite a while and I want to work on my "real" next post a bit more before publishing it, here is a short update of the past few weeks.

Muki and I have recently acquired a life, as they say, which has been a nice development, but has come at the cost of time for reflection, writing, emails, etc. 

A few weeks ago we participated in a photography training put on by PNN. Two Germans came down and there was a 5 day workshop which will culminate in two exhibits- one here in Bethlehem and one in Germany.  We all ended up focusing on different projects/themes. Muki wanted to focus on taking portraits of children with their most prized toys.  I focused on hands. As we walked around taking photos, Muki quickly discovered that the kids she was talking to didn't really have toys in the US sense of the word. So her series became simply about children playing, and the objects that they play with.  It should be clear to tell the difference between Muki's pictures and mine, but just FYI, Muki's pictures are all in color and mine are all in b&w. 

 

During our photography adventures in Aida refugee camp we met a very lovely girl, around 3 or 4 who Muki wanted to photograph. Well, fast forward ten minutes, full of laughs and introductions and her family invited us in for coffee. Then fast forward another half an hour and one of the daughters of the family, a little older than us, is telling us how she does weddings. She does the set up- brings the lights, white and gold cloths, the fancy loveseat for the bride and groom, the candle holders, the fake flowers, and she's the DJ to boot. She was showing us pictures of her past wedding sets- and suddenly she invited us to a wedding that Saturday. 

So... we went to a wedding...  

Well, we went to one very small part of a wedding. It was just the part where the bride and groom dance in front of all the female guests. (The guys were somewhere else... we never found out where.) Only the groom and the young kid-boys were allowed in the dancing area. 

It was a time for the bride and groom to dance, then for the bride to dance, then the sisters of the bride, then the bride again, then the sisters of the groom, then the bride and groom, etc. There were also lots of props that the bride had to dance with- an umbrella, a basket full of sweets, a bird cage (which was apparently supposed to have a dove in it that the bride was supposed to release, but there was no dove), another basket full of lipstick tubes, a baton, another basket full of bags of peanuts (all of the things in the baskets were passed out by the bride to whoever was lucky).  

The bride wore a white wedding gown. As in, a very "American" style white wedding gown. Which gave pause to reflect on the export of US culture around the world. And the symbolism of the white wedding dress indicating chastity, purity, good... and how that feeds sexist and racist narratives....

We also went to an eggplant festival in the small village of Battir, which is an incredibly beautiful area that has an irrigation system that is thousands of years old. (I may have already mentioned Battir in another post, so please forgive the repetition.) The gardens and orchards are terraced, the water comes directly from a few springs in the middle of town, and there is an enormous walnut tree in on one of the terraces. Battir is an interesting place for a few reasons. It lies within the Green Line (the line which was established in the 1967 war that demarcates between Israel and the occupied West Bank), so technically Israel could decide to build the apartheid wall right next to Battir, cutting it off from the West Bank. There was a lot of activism that went on to prevent that from happening, and in one of the rare happy stories for Palestinians, the village won, after proving the vital necessity of the water system. I don't know all of the details (like how the water system would have been effected by the wall) but for now Battir is a beautiful, wall-less village. There is also a train that runs down below Battir. Apparently it was built during the Ottoman Empire days, and has since come under Israeli control.  Unfortunately Israel decided to destroy the Battir train station, so Battiris can not longer enjoy the tracks that run through their view at the bottom of the valley.  (We actually went on an agricultural tour of Battir a few weeks ago, and you can watch an English video of it here.) 

So, that's a little update of the past few weeks. I'm working on posts about our trip to the Dead Sea, and one about our experience witnessing clashes between the Israeli soldiers and young men and boys from the refugee camp, which included our first encounter with teargas.  

Seen in Aida Camp, during clashes between Israeli soldiers and young men from the camp. 

Lecture by Palestinian Refugee and Activist

“The desire [is that] we want to go back… and we are happy to live under any jurisdiction, Israeli, Palestinian, but the “just solution” for us is that we go back.”



A Palestinian Refugee and activist from Azza Camp in Bethlehem, talks about the history of internally displaced refugees, their aspirations, current activism and issues in the community. The talk was put on by the Alternative Information Center, a joint Palestinian and Israeli anti-Zionist organization based in Beit Sehour. The speaker requested to remain anonymous.

A few quotes from the talk:

“If you want to speak about ‘just resolution’ then you have to see and interact with the people on the ground. The grass root people are the ones who will decide in the end. Not the intellectual, not the elite, not the people who live in luxury in Palestine, but the people who live on the ground. The people who have been used for the past 65 years. The people who [have been marketed by other people], and they are not gaining anything, because millions of dollars were taken on behalf of the Palestinian refugees, and if you go visit any Palestinian refugee, it is almost the same situation.”

“We use nonviolent direct action… and our approach is non-violence as a way of life, so it is not just to say ‘down with the Israeli occupation’ but also we have campaigns to develop the situation within the Palestinian Authority. There is a main factor of violence [used by] the Israeli government. We call it 'structural violence.' This structural violence is very important. Why? because it is invisible. On my way to Bethlehem I will pass the checkpoint… if the soldiers are in a good mood... they will let me stay maybe just 45 seconds. But imagine there are 1000 Palestinians… each one has to wait 50 seconds. The last one will wait two hours. This thing creates stress… You will go to tired to your work, have a stressful day, go back to the checkpoint and have more stress then go to your house. Then you have the domestic violence… For example [the husband] will violate the wife, the wife will violate the children, the big brother will violate the smaller brother, so the last one will find no one and he will break a remote control or something. So this kind of structural violence is important for Palestinians to understand so that they can tackle it. Because if you notice, those checkpoints [usually] do nothing. It’s not out of security, they will not [even] check you. But their presence will give you the feeling, saying the Israeli occupation is here… and you are not even a human being... So we try to raise awareness to understand violence, and to understand the mentality of Israel because they do not do anything spontaneous, everything [is] deliberated. They want us to feel the Israeli occupation [in] every single aspect of our life.”

"If you loose hope, then you are dead and I will tell you one of the theories for the Israeli occupation. They try to equalize life and death in front of the Palestinian eyes. Once life and death [are] equal, then you don’t care if you live anymore… and if you perceive life and death in equal level, this will push people to die and to live the same. So the only way to get out of this trap is to be optimistic. Or, at least, to keep planting hope. To keep reviving yourself… Sometimes people ask, ‘what motivates you as a Palestinian to continue living in this hard situation’? Yes, it is true, sometimes, if I think logically, nothing would recharge my battery to be optimistic but the only thing is just the inner strength that you should have, otherwise you will be dead in your place. So the only option is to be full of hope. And the only option is to embrace your frustration and despair and have it, live with it. Next day try to change it. And be happy. And live your life. It is not enough to survive… No, you have to live. And since we are [not going anywhere] we need to find something to keep us here, to keep us alive. What will keep us alive? Life itself."

kids with guns

art on the separation barrier in Bethlehem

Driving down to Jericho a few weeks ago I couldn’t help but notice all the tables by the road with plastic guns for sale, and the young boys pointing little pistols at each other. 

Then, a few days later Muki and Brahim and I walked around Tibera, a touristy spot on the Sea of Galilee, where we saw a group of young Israelis in casual clothes who appeared to be shouldering large weapons.  We asked Brahim, “are they real?” He said yes.  But they are just teens, I though. We pulled aside two 19 year old girls with almost spotless English and curly hair.  They said the two of them are military commanders, and their group was on an ‘educational tour.' Being soldiers, they could not be caught unarmed. 

They asked where we were from and we asked in return.  One girl said she was from ‘just outside of Jerusalem.’ Brahim said, oh well I’m from Bethlehem, so where exactly are you from?  Somewhat uncomfortably, she named an illegal settlement that is close to Bethlehem (I think it was Gilo, but I don't quite remember). Without missing a beat Brahim said “oh yes, I know there. So we are almost like ‘neighbors.’”

His statement sank in the silence that followed, hitting a place that five strangers could not otherwise go in the short minutes of that conversation.  

The girls said they needed to catch up to the group.  Walking away, their weapons thu-bump-thu-bumped against narrow hips. And I thought of all the little plastic guns sold on the side of the road. 

art on the separation barrier in Bethlehem 

Military service is required of all young Israelis. Two years for females, three years for males.  And being a ‘contentious objector’ usually isn’t an option.  One Israeli man said he got out of the service by receiving proof of mental illness (which he may or may not have faked/exaggerated) from a psychiatrist.  Many others face years in prison for refusing to join the Israeli military.  I recently read a report about how a significant number of soldiers are forced to desert the army because their families need more financial support than they can provide.  The average Israeli soldier is paid less than minimum wage (I've found different numbers, so I don't want to give wrong information, but this report said it was like $100/month or $200 for combatants).  Of the 14,000 imprisoned soldiers, 70% were sentenced for desertion, the majority of which was motivated by economic reasons, the report said.

On June 9 of this year, tens of thousands of Orthodox Jews living in the US gathered in Manhattan to protest the Israeli regime.  Many of the speakers passionately spoke out against the military service requirement for young Orthodox Jews. Click here for additional information. 

Photographic Interlude

In Aida Refugee Camp, Bethlehem

Spring in Battir Village that has been used for thousands of years for agriculture

in Nativity Church, supposedly on the spot where Christ was born

in Aida Refugee Camp

There was a group of young men waiting to direct us into the house.  I waited for Jado to get a good b-roll of the street, and asked the taxi driver the name of the village we were in. He wrote it in Arabic on my paper—Asakrat. 

We headed down toward a low house with a proud Palestinian flag cemented into the corner of the roof.  A group of five men, a few in long robes a few in suit pants and button up shirts, greeted us, motioning us inside. We sat on the plastic chairs in an otherwise empty concrete room, and a man poured small plastic cups of dark, sugarless coffee.

Jado, the PNN film guy and an immediate friend to Muki & me, set up the camera and began interviewing a few of the men.  The taxi driver lounged and asked questions about the situation (in Arabic of course). I listened with every millimeter of my ears but felt absolutely useless.

We were there to speak to the bothers and sister of a man who was about to be released from an Israeli prison after 23 years.  He was one of the 26 men freed on Tuesday as part of the newly resumed peace talks- the first batch of 104 Palestinian prisoners who will go free over the 9 month period of negotiations.

Khaled Asqara was 18 when Israeli forces imprisoned him in 1991, and he is now 41. Like many of the prisoners being freed for the talks, Khaled was initially sentenced to life imprisonment.

One of Asakreh’s brothers, Nayef Asakreh told PNN that they felt overwhelmed with happiness because they have been dreaming of Khaled’s release for a long time, but he acknowledged that the situation is bittersweet. Nayef Asakreh said his brother’s happiness has a sour aftertaste because his colleagues and friends remain behind Israeli bars, and he won’t be content until all the prisoners are freed.

(The video is of the actual release of the prisoners- not the day when we visited the family.)

The siblings placed a picture of Khaled on the window bars, in front of a black and white kuffiya scarf as a background for the interviews. 

The release of the prisoners has caused controversy from many sides.  Many Palestinians are skeptical about how much attention is being put on the release of what is in reality a small fraction of the five to six thousand Palestinians still in Israeli prisons.  Addameer Prisoners Support and Human Rights Association said that the Israeli regime is using the prisoners’ release as trading material in the negotiations; thereby weakening the Palestinian officials’ ability to stick to the conditions they want (like boarders at the 1967 line, secession of settlement building, etc).  On the other hand, Israelis have been protesting the release of prisoners who they see as first intifada "terrorists."  

The thing about "terrorism" is that it a word has been racialized and reserved for a very specific type of body (Muslim, Arab, brown, young, and usually male), and most people have been taught to overlook the many forms of "terrorism" that occur on a daily basis: US drone strikes in Yemen and Pakistan, prisoners in the US kept in solitary confinement and enduring other forms of torture, Palestinians killed by Israeli soldiers.... the list, obviously, goes on (and please excuse the lack of statistics or references- I figured these things are well known. If you want statistics and references please comment and I will amend.)  It's also important to think critically about how labeling certain humans "terrorists" completely undermines their opinions, as people who are resisting something (oppression, colonization, homogenization, etc).

All of the prisoners have been incarcerated since before the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993. Some of them were due to be released in six months to two years. Many had life sentences. And I think it's safe to assume that all of them are passionate about their homeland and families, and the future generations of their families in their homeland. 

***

On my walk home that afternoon (Muki was sick & hadn’t gone to work… so it was the first time we’ve been apart for more than the length of a shower in about three weeks) I passed by a restaurant and looked in the window at the exact moment this small girl was taking a bite out of an oversized sandwich. We caught eyes just for that second, and I couldn’t help but smile the rest of the way home.

Water Politics, Swimming, and Sleeping on the Roof in Auja

We were greeted by a bony dog pissing its excitement on the stairs. The air was dryer and hotter than Beit Sehour, the landscape expansive and sandy.  A mountain range lay to the east, which I later learned was Jordan.  Muki and I followed Brahim and his German friend Hans into the Auja Eco Center where we met our host for the day, Hanna, a jovial fellow who was easy to like.

Brahim is related to our “host” family. We had met him when we arrived, and on Wednesday night he invited us to join him and Hans on a trip to Al Auja.  Thursday was the beginning of the 3-4 day celebration of Eid, at the end of Ramadan, so we had work off and decided to accept. 

Auja is just north of Jericho, in the Jordan Valley. It’s a small town that used to have an economy of bananas, watermelons and dates.  The Auja spring used to provide enough water for some 90% of the inhabitants to rely on agriculture as a source of income. That number has recently dropped to less than 5%.  The issue is water.  Well actually water is not really the issue—control of the wells and springs is the issue, as well as climate change.  Below the dry expanse, the Jordan valley is one of the water-richestplaces in the West Bank. This water belongs to the Palestinians, according to international law, with a small portion reserved for Israelis. However, when Israeli settlements began popping up all throughout the area, so did Israeli wells, pumps, and infrastructure to control the water flow. Now, Palestinians cannot get enough water to support their own agriculture, which has created an economic crisis leading many young Palestinians to work on Israeli settlers’ farms- where they have no insurance, benefits, labor rights, or protection.  (Another recent article) Palestinians cannot make wells without permits from the Israeli government, which, Hanna said, “of course they never get,” and they are dependent on buying water from the Israeli company Mekorot, at a high price.

Hanna works for the Auja Environmental Education Center (Eco Center), an NGO that provides workshops and trainings for students from all over the West Bank (and internationals) around water conservation, management, regular ol’ recycling, permaculture, etc.

That afternoon Hanna took us to the Auja spring. He said it dries and flows on and off throughout the year since the wells suck up the aquifer, and we were lucky it still had water. As we drove there, the valley opened before us to acres and acres of date palms- all owned by Israeli settlers.  At the spring we set up the hookah and sat in the fresh cold water.  Small fish nibbled on our feet. A group of local boys swam in a pool just downstream. Hans and I climbed the cliff. Looking down there was the spring, the boys, the rocky hills and a green trail of bamboo leading out of the valley. And a fenced-off area with blue pipes and Hebrew signs. A well or pump? Hanna said even though Palestinians appear to have many wells throughout the West Bank, most of them are very shallow or lead to salty water, whereas Israeli wells are fewer but deeper. He showed us short movie (below) about the water issues in Al Auja, and it had images of a lush Israeli settlement with swimming pools and greenhouses while the French reporter said, “for those that live [in the settlements] water is obviously not a problem.” (Read more, and more and more about water issues in the Jordan Valley.)

We sat in a bloated silence.  Just the heat, the view, the rocks on our skin, and the slope of the valley. A goat bleated a few hundred meters away.  The sand shifted beneath its hooves, perhaps a stone rolled loose.  Three boys walked down a road on the other side of the valley, like they were on a direct route from the empty blue.  Empty snail shells became dust beneath our feet. Little purple flowers climbed out from beneath the crumbling soil, defying the odds again.  The broken bones of a mammal lay sun bleached and forgotten outside a charcoal blackened cave.   A hot wind carried the sound of a clumsy bird scrambling into takeoff.  

That night we slept on Hanna’s roof, overlooking Auja and the twinkling outline of the Jordan mountains. The stars were bright, the smell of shisha was sweet and the temperature lulled us into dreams. 

Driving home the next day we passed one of the largest Israeli settlements in the West Bank. It sat unapologetically on the top of a hill, California suburban type houses overlooking the hazy horizon. I was reminded of a section of Eyal Weizman's Hollow Land: Israel's Architecture of Occupation, in which the architecture of Israeli settlements were compared to a Foucault's Panopticon theories (Foucault didn't develop the Panopticon, but he used it extensively in Discipline and Punish)... but I suppose that's another blog post. Stay tuned.