At the end of the day, though Gabriella was deported, she is safe and sound and she is going back home. She wasn’t tortured, she wasn’t physically hurt and she wasn’t abused. What is jarring is not the fact that she was denied entry, but why she was denied entry. We don’t know exactly why, but clearly because in this part of the world she was flagged as a person, as an academic, whose presence was a threat. Someone somewhere did not like either her opinions or involvements and she was flagged. Someone knew that she was in Palestine, that she was pro Palestine, and quite presumably reported her to security before we even got there. They don’t shoot down internationals like they shoot down Palestinians, they simply send them back home and tell them to never come back again.
I went through a full spectrum of emotions coming back yesterday. Egypt was a blast, and I certainly have to dedicate posts on just Egypt, but one crucial thing that I surprisingly did not anticipate feeling was feeling happy to be in a free country. I met up with a good friend from undergrad now studying abroad at AUC and when she asked me how I liked cairo so far, my instant response was “well it feels great to be in a free country!!”. What did I mean by that? I was taken back by my own response. Coming back yesterday, I understood my own answer.
My life here can be defined by movements along and across two kinds of lands : the occupied land and the occupier’s land, and I as a person am not free in any way to express myself freely in either of these spaces. It’s tiptoeing around boundaries and lines, quite literally, that defines every move I make and every truth and lie that spills out of my mouth. It’s an obsessive thing, because it has to be, and its engulfing. Unfortunately. Gabriella was the most careful out of all three of us, in terms of what she said in front of whom. But clearly not careful enough. Today in school after the principal of the school found out what happened, she told us as a reminder to be aware that there are spies in Ramallah and many of them are internationals themselves who come here, but with different agendas. Not everyone is here for the same thing. Some people do believe that Palestine as a land and Palestinians as a people should be wiped out, and internationals standing against that should be kicked out of here.
I was able to taxi hop in Cairo going from one corner of the city to the other, going from suburban wealthy areas to narrow alley ways leading up to old mosques to cafes to bazaars, and taking a day trip to Alexandria, a 3 hour ride from Cairo, and coming back in time for dinner and bed the same day. I did all that without ever obsessing obsessively about having my passport in hand for soldiers to check, or worrying about checkpoints. I go t to where I wanted to and needed to go, without having to worry about tear gases, shootings, demonstrations or clashes.
When the first set of settlements came to view sitting on the bus, I realized what I meant when I said, it feels great to be in a free country. These settlements. Settlers. Settlers don’t exist in free countries. Sitting behind us on the bus was an AMERICAN couple talking about going to different areas of Israel, but having to pass through Palestinian villages, and saying that when they hit the Palestinian territories they’ll need to buy guns. I have to admit how disgusted I was to be sitting in an Israeli bus for the 7 hour ride from Eilat to Jerusalem, feeling like I was trapped by ignorance and arrogance, thinking that that ignorance and arrogance is the reason why my friend was stuck back at the border, in the middle of the Sinai, by herself, confused and crushed by what to do next and where to go next.
I couldn’t pull out of a chain of cycling thoughts spiraling in and out of two repeating thoughts of ‘what the hell am I doing here, why am I here??” to “why in the world should I not be here??” i couldn’t make up my mind if I feel disempowered being here again or if I feel more empowered then before, being lucky enough to come back to work and having a job that I absolutely love. We came in through Qalandia. That’s another thing. Checkpoints certainly don’t exist in free countries.
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