Last Friday morning started out just fine. Excited about our upcoming weekend trip to Tiberias and Nazareth, my roommates and I woke up full of excitement and expectations of the weekend to come. Selfishly, I was excited for the sense of escape the weekend would bring...I love Palestine and it is wonderful to be here, but I also wanted a weekend where I would not have to constantly be aware of so much pain and suffering. So we headed out at 9:15 and made our way to the Gilo walking checkpoint in Bethlehem. Usually this checkpoint is not very busy, but on this day, there were people lined up outside, waiting to get through security. Some people were shoving and shouting and pushing their way through the line, but the majority of people were just laughing it off nonchalantly, like this was something to be expected. We waited in this line for 30 minutes, listening to soldiers shouting, "One by one!" in Arabic. Once we made it through this line, we thought we were in the clear, only to find crowds of people waiting in the next line to pass through security and the metal detector. It was chaotic and there were soldiers parading the catwalks above, shouting and pointing their guns at the people below. A fellow foreigner came up to us and asked if we would like to share a taxi to go through a different checkpoint. She had lived here for 3 years before as a tour guide, so we followed her, only to find out that the soldiers were not too keen about letting us through that checkpoint, meaning we would have to travel unnecessarily to a checkpoint in a different city. So we went back to see if the lines had died down at all. Unfortunately, they had not.
The 3 of us stood there in disbelief, watching the Palestinians being herded, pushed, and shoved. The soldiers had shut down 2 of the gates, leaving only 2 open for hundreds of people. When I asked one of the Palestinians why it was so busy, he explained that most of the people waiting were going to pray at the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Friday is the holy day for Muslims, and many Muslims are onlyallowed into Jerusalem on Fridays to pray. It made me furious that the soldiers were making people wait hours upon hours in the first place, and even more furious that they were preventing them from praying. Someone had once described the process of the checkpoints as similar to herding cattle. This image is strikingly accurate. Standing to the side and watching the Palestinians contained in such a small place, fighting to move forward, brought tears to my eyes. I felt almost guilty crying, especially since I am a tourist and am given so many privileges compared to them. They are the ones who have to experience all of this, while I merely stand to the side, carrying my American passport. A few people asked why we didn't just leave and go to the other checkpoint. The answer we gave them was essentially if they couldn't pass through the checkpoint, why should we be able to? I think they were shocked by this answer, because none of them said a word after that. This was an experience of true accompaniment. It was a peaceful way for us to publicly announce our solidarity with the Palestinians and to "walk a mile in their shoes," as much as we could.
I think one of the most memorable experiences of the morning for me was a conversation I had with a Palestinian woman. As I was standing off to the side, fighting back tears, she came over to me and greeted me. We spoke in Arabic, and I exhausted pretty much all of the vocabulary I had. When I asked her how she was doing, she said, "Ilhamdullalah." "Thank God." I am still amazed at the use of this phrase...even when it seems like there is nothing to thank God for in a situation, people still emphatically use this phrase...and they mean it too. There is nothing fake or sarcastic about it, it is genuine. We saw eachother again in the line to get through security, and everyone time our gaze met, we both smiled. From then on it was an unspoken bond.
3 hours later, we boarded the bus to our destination, feeling drained, frustrated, and helpless. Having hoped to escape the situation for the weekend, I realized that my desire was impossible. I can't escape from this...from this point on in my life, I will never be able to forget Palestine or put it on the back burner in my mind. Nor do I want to. It is my responsibility to remember these people and this country, and it is my privilege to be able to tell their stories.