the labels in my passport had become an obsession. because it certainly mattered and dictated my moves, quite physically. one of the many reasons why i decided to move to palestine, is because to an extent i was fully conscious of the sheer value of my american passport and the privilege and mobility it provides, so much so that personally for myself it didn't seem any less than a moral obligation to do everything in my power to use it, to quite literally see the world with it (as much my broke teacher's pay allows me to). My so called American-ness is like 90 percent of my identity now. I can move in and out of cities in Palestine claiming to be a lost tourist from Israel just because I have an international passport, I can go into Israel and pretend that my life in Palestine doesn't exist, just because of my passport. And I can certainly leave Palestine largely because my passport is American.
I failed to realize how complicated this relatively small part of the world known as the Middle East really is, even though i considered myself an aware individual before coming. it's not a lie, you might think you know, but you really don't know the extent of how screwed up and beautiful this place is until you are here and things are staring blatantly at your face. Each border that you pass matters, and it asks you where else you have been, and the labels and stamps in your passport matter, a lot.
To live in Palestine, I have to prove that I live in Israel. To enter Palestine, there is no Palestinian stamp, since it's not a real country, you are dependent on the Israeli entrance and exit stamps, and the three month tourist visa (at most) that will allow you to essentially sneak into Palestine and illegally live/work there. There's only three countries in the Middle East that accepts an Israeli stamps in your passport : Turkey, Egypt and Jordan (as far as I know, correct me if I'm wrong). The following list of countries will not accept your passport if it has the Israeli stamp : Bangladesh (WHAAAAT!!!), Algeria, Pakistan, Iran, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, Syria, UAE, Malaysia, Libya, Lebanon, Kuwait. I don't know if I'd venture out to Somalia or Libya or Djibouti or something, but the fact that I CAN'T says something. Also let's look at this list : Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Gaza strip and a few others. These countries are "enemy countries" for Israel, and visiting these countries, WHETHER you have an Israeli passport or a Foreign one, as in even IF you are ISRAELI and you have visited these countries, if there is anything on you that indicates you have stepped foot into these places, subjects you to legal prosecution.
I guess because most of my life has been spent in North America, inside the United States, and since North America is not exactly known for boasting the most number of countries, to me another country is really far way (minus Canada and Mexico) and it really is a distant thing to traaavel. But here now that I'm in the Middle East, I feel squished. Everything is just so close and so small. And rules change and bounce around as soon as you cross borders. To my american friends, its like every state within the US being a bitch about every other state border that you might have crossed and making you wait at state borders because something seemed off and goofy about where you had been previously. and going through your State border history, and every state border leaving a permanent mark on your 'resident id' that you had been there.
I wanted to go to Syria to study Arabic this summer. If you look at the enemy list, there it is right there, Syria is on the enemy list. Going to Syria means deleting the part of my life that has known Israel/Palestine, and coming back to Israel/Palestine means deleting having anything to do wtih Syria. It's doable. Just stressful. Anytime there are rules, what's important to know is that there are ways to break them. And like a pothead friend of mine had told me once "everything is legal, until you're caught". I can't believe I actually use that motto now.
I got a second passport in lieu of my desire to go to Syria. and then I flew into Amman from Ben Guiron, the airport in Tel Aviv, solely because after careful calculation (by this i mean obsessing over routes for weeks) i realized flying in is the only way that would hide where I was coming in from (Israel). Ben Guiron was a tough one, but doable. I was on high security terrorist alert and went through their pretty intensive security measures before being "cleared". I can't get over this, among the many many thigns they checked, they went through my hair for a good 10 minutes with gloves on, like those sterile surgeon gloves. do people hide explosives in their hair? really? that's just a snipped of the Ben Guiron experience :)
After a couple of days in Jordan, I ventured out to the Syrian border and they took one quick look at my American passport and denied my American butt (a month ago, they'd give visas at the borders, but supposedly the rules for Americans changed where now you have to get permission to enter aka the visa from Washington DC)
So now I'm in Jordan, in Amman. for how long I have absolutely no idea. The plan is to go back to Palestine, but that is still up to chance and luck.
Last week, I met up with 2 Tarheels and went to Umm Qais with 2 other friends. We stopped to see the Sea of Galilee. From the mountain in Jordan, you can see this Sea, which belongs to Israel, but the source of the water is the Jordan river which obviously is in Jordan. It's a complicated area (even just this small piece of area : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_of_Galilee ) the point is, I wasn't too phased by the fact that I was standing physically in the country Jordan, but I was looking at Israel, and West Bank far in the distance, and to the other side of me was Syria, somewhere where I wasn't allowed to go in, and way in the distance I saw mountains that belongs to Lebanon. I guess I wasn't phased, because all I saw was really beautiful land, and in the natural order of things, the land didn't inherently come with borders.
No comments:
Post a Comment