Going home
Dear Friends,
With mixed emotions, I am back home in the US. My heart remains in Palestine, and I hope to return again soon. The kindness, warmth, and steadfastness of the Palestinian people I met reminds me what it is to be human - to care for others, to find joy, to seek freedom.
I have more stories to share, so I’ll continue to send Postcards, and I hope you’ll still want to read them. For today, I’ll tell you about my experience leaving the West Bank, and I will also include links to all the Postcards that I’ve written so far.
I was advised to depart from the West Bank via the King Hussein/Allenby/Dignity Bridge, back to Jordan. (The first Postcard was an account of my arrival through that bridge.) To make my trip home as easy as possible, I arranged for a taxi with Jerusalem license plates. You can read about segregated roads in the second Postcard.
My driver, Amir, was a poised 22-year-old from Jerusalem, the younger brother of someone I met there two years ago. Amir is trilingual (Arabic, English, and Hebrew). He arrived early in a sparkling white Hyundai Tuscon; he helped me with my bags, drove smoothly, and in flawless English he thoughtfully answered my endless questions along the way.
We passed through three different checkpoints in a one-hour drive. It was nothing compared to what Palestinians endure - every single day, in so many different ways. But it was my first-hand experience, so I’m sharing it with you. I have no photos.
At the first checkpoint, a young Israeli soldier collected both of our IDs, and examined them carefully. She opened all four car doors, and the trunk. After she’d completed her inspections, she frowned at Amir and told him to pass.
At the second checkpoint, the car in front of ours was held behind the gate for some time. Finally the arm lifted, and the car passed through. Amir moved forward slowly, expecting to stop at the gate also. But the arm stayed up, so he cautiously inched forward, looking around for permission. The Israeli soldier at the gate, a young woman with long blond hair, screamed at him. I felt afraid - I’ve seen videos of Palestinians killed at checkpoints for less. She shook her head, like she was dealing with a stupid and unruly child, and spoke harshly to Amir in Hebrew. He pretended not to understand, so she switched to English. She asked him why he didn’t stop. He politely apologized. She asked for our IDs, and as she inspected them, she asked where we were going. Another soldier came to the car, and they both examined our IDs. Together they again opened all the doors of the car, and the trunk. They went inside, and told us to wait. We sat at the gate for a few minutes. We had no idea how long we’d be sitting there, or what would happen next. Finally the arm was raised, and we were instructed to pass. It seems that there was no reason to hold us, other than to show that they can - absolutely anytime they wish.
At the third checkpoint, the soldier asked for our IDs, looked them over, and waved us through.
We arrived at the bridge. I paid $200 for VIP service, and - very much unlike my crossing in the other direction - it was easy, and took no more than an hour. Soon I was in Jordan, and I took a taxi to my hotel in Amman, another one hour drive.
Along the way, I was thinking about Palestinians who must cross that bridge to fly anywhere; as I noted before, Israel does not permit Palestinians in the West Bank to use Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport. (That would be about a one-hour drive.) The bridge requires a lot of time and additional money. My trip was about three hours, and that was not only with expensive VIP service, but also with Jerusalem plates and the protection of an American passport. I had to cross the bridge the day before my flight and spend a night in Jordan, because there is no way to predict how long the crossing will take - adding significantly to the time and expense of any flight.
I flew home on a direct flight with Royal Jordanian Airlines, and was asked no questions when I arrived at JFK. I’ve returned to a country that is quite different from the one I left.
More Postcards to come, inshallah. But here are links and brief descriptions of each Postcard so far, below.
Please reach out to me anytime - with questions, concerns, suggestions, or anything else. You can reply to any Postcard, or send an email to stern.nancy@gmail.com. I’ll be happy to hear from you.
Salaam,
Nancy