That 1 Time I Too Was Hamas: aka Israel is RACIST

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I have had one personal encounter with the IDF, or the Israel Defense Forces, and I have concluded -without a doubt- that Israel is racist. Loudly, unabashedly, and diabolically racist. Point blank simple. Let me explain.

You see, it all started when I decided to visit Jordan. Y’all know how I love planning trips with my friends, so I was chatting with a gal pal and she suggested Jordan for a group trip. We had met up before, but had never traveled together, so immediately I was in.

I also had a former roommate who was Jordanian and mentioned wanting to visit, so I pinged her and asked if she would like to join. She was also in. We coordinated on a date that worked for all of us – late November 2019 – and I got to work figuring out a travel plan.

Personally, I don’t like flying long hours just to stay for a week. Since I’m not a full time traveler and I don’t work remotely, I like to take at least two weeks off for longer flights to really take advantage of my time off if I’m going halfway across the globe anyway.

For this trip, I decided to take three weeks off, budgeting two weeks for China (one week for Beijing, one week for Chengdu) and the third week would be Jordan where my partner and I would then meet up with the girls. Don’t you love when things just work out?

Spoiler: it didn’t work out. my two friends ended up backing out of the trip after I bought my tickets. Still love them though and…well, now that the idea of Jordan was planted in my head, heck I might as well go!

The First Clue Israel is Racist

Long story short, I had an amazing (albeit…confusing) time during my two weeks in China, though the highlight was definitely when I volunteered at a Panda Sanctuary. Jordan was also a great (albeit…sandy) time, and one of the highlights there was staying at Captain’s Camp where the owner still sends me virtual holiday cards. Seriously y’all, Jordanians are so welcoming. The other highlight, and the one that inevitably led me to my first personal Israel is racist experience, was when I visited the Baptism Site of Jesus Christ.

At the site, we walked along a covered awning that provided *some* shade. The path followed a small creek, and on the other side, we could see the tops of what looked like mosques in the distance. “What’s that,” someone in our group asked, pointing at the mosque in the distance.

“Oh, those are mosques in the distance,” our guide answered jokingly. “But yes, right across the river is Palestine, where Jesus was born.” Cue the ooo’s and ahhh’s from the group. The guide smiled, ushering us on. “Just don’t jump in the river, they’ll shoot you.”

PAUSE.

When we didn’t immediately start laughing at his joke-not-joke, he elaborated. “Israel,” he clarified the they in his statement. “Israel watches the border at all times. If they sense someone, anyone, to be a threat. They will shoot first.” We nodded, as if we even had the slightest inkling the gravity of that reality, and continued with the tour.

“What’s considered a threat?” Someone asked.

“What isn’t?”

With just the quickest of thoughts, I wondered if some of us in the group would be shot faster than others. Probably, I concluded. If a large portion of the world’s current social economy was founded on anti-Blackness, there was a good chance that Israel is racist too – that was my best informed guess. So in this instance, it would probably be me first.

I should’ve bought a lottery ticket that day.

The Second Clue Israel is Racist

The tour continued on and eventually we reached the actual factual baptism site of Mr J Christ. “Jesus was baptized right here,” our guide began, pointing down to the baptism grounds below us. The structure included a set of stairs that lead down to a shallow bath in the ground. The water for the baptism was supplied naturally by the Jordan River – it’s the whole point of why the baptism site was built where it was built.

“And as you can see,” the guide continued, “It is dry.”

He waited for the inevitable question.

Why?

“Well, why do you think?” he countered? As a hint, the guide mentioned it was the same reason the Dead Sea was also drying up.

Because we definitely knew that.

The group mumbled off a few theories, from simple evaporation to climate change. We were all wrong. “Well, a bit of it could be attributed to climate change I suppose, but the main root of the prob-” the guide chose another word, “issue, is that Israel unilaterally diverted most of the Jordan River.”

A major consequence of Israel diverting the Jordan River has resulted in low-income and refugee communities in Jordan being subjected to water rationing. In Palestine, specifically in the West Back for this scenario, many villages have had their taps run dry and animals die of thirst. “They’re wringing out Palestinian farmers and their potential for agriculture,” the guide explained. Even with the (US-backed) water negotiations to course-correct the water crisis, Jordan continuously gets the short end of the deal – and Palestine is barred from even approaching the table.

It is very apparent which communities of people are not permitted (by the colonial powers that be) to water. And water, after all, is life.

The Third Clue Israel is Racist

Historical sites are fun on their own (amateur anthropologist over here), but BIBLICAL birthplaces have a whole extra layer on top.

So after a week road-tripping through Jordan, we planned to pop over to Palestine to visit another biblical site – Bethlehem! I only had a day to spare, but I thought it would be incredible to visit in person, especially since my mom (who was unable to fly herself) was so hype about me visiting the baptism site.

I booked a stay with a very friendly Palestinian woman who, after hearing about our attraction visits in Jordan, also offered to show us around Bethlehem when we arrived. The only thing standing between me and Bethlehem was the Israeli border patrol.

This is when I discovered first hand that Israel is racist.

Before I crossed the border, I messaged one of my good friends who had spent YEARS traveling through Jordan, Palestine, and the territories Israel occupies. “Thanks for all the Jordan tips!” I texted, sending her a peace sign selfie as I boarded the bus that would take us over the border.

She immediately texted back, “Hopefully it goes smoothly. It’s probably for the best your hair is blonde.” And well, uncombed. Frankly, I looked a mess. I HAD A ROUGH THREE WEEKS OKAY.

But yeah, I was blonde. I had been mildly questioned at borders before – I immediately knew what she meant.

On the bus we learned that we needed to pay to cross the border, cash (JD or ILS) only. I don’t typically carry cash at all, and in Jordan we didn’t need to. Also, since we were ON A BUS, so there was no ATM. Thankfully a young couple spotted me a few bills, so that was truly a lifesaver.

Well, for the moment.

We lugged our numerous suitcases (two of us, with two large suitcases and a backpack each) into the building. It had all the usual immigration checks, except…with a lot more armed guards. If you’ve ever been to a US embassy abroad (don’t recommend), it was VERY reminiscent of that. If I hadn’t been trying to get a wifi signal (in vain), then maybe I would have realized more than one guard was staring at me.

Our four suitcases (plus backpacks) were pulled out and sent to secondary screening, so an officer called me over to go through my bags with me. After it went through the machine a second time, my bags were laid out on a table and fully opened. “That’s my laundry bag,” I started when they started pulling each item out one by one. “I haven’t got a chance to wash it yet,” I continued, as they opened my laundry bag and dug through my two-week dirty clothes.

The guard looked at me, for the quickest of seconds, then went back to rummaging through my dirty clothes as two others tackled my remaining suitcase and backpack. I didn’t bother explaining anything else.

Unlike what I experienced any other time my bag had gotten held up, like if I had forgotten a filled water bottle in a pocket or a container of hair grease, it didn’t seem like these guys had spotted anything specific that they were looking for. They were just LOOKING TO LOOK.

I noticed they weren’t just LOOKING TO LOOK at anyone else’s bags from our bus, a mix of mostly Americans, Brits, and two Australians – all white. Another check point that Israel is racist.

But still, I had experienced that before as well. So while I was mildly annoyed, I wasn’t surprised.

They went on searching my bags. Deeply. Mind you, I had just come back from China. These guys were opening up our souvenir teapots from their fancy boxes, taking the tape off the lid, removing the inner stuffing, and holding the teapots upside down. That’s how thorough they were being. For four large suitcases (and two backpacks). THOROUGHLY. They found compartments I didn’t even know my suitcases had.

The Fourth Clue Israel is Racist

After a good ten minutes or so, they messily tossed everything back in our suitcases and allowed us to take them to the passport check – no explanation. But honestly, at that point, I wasn’t thinking too into it. I mean…maybe it WAS suspicious to have four teapots in a suitcase. Idk.

The next pitstop as with any immigration line was the passport check. We were split up and sent to different agents. I slid the man my passport with a friendly hello, to which he didn’t respond. I didn’t take any offense though, my expectations for pleasantries were low considering they were all armed.

“Where are you coming from?” he asked mechanically, as if I didn’t just step off the bus arriving from Jordan.

“Jordan,” I responded with a smile, then answered his follow-up question, “I was there for seven days.”

“Where were you before that?” He asked, flipping through my passport and landing on my entrance and exit stamps from China.

“China,” I responded, still with a smile, “for fourteen days.”

He looked back up to me, with an unneutral neutral expression, then he flipped back to the first page of my passport. “Where are you from?” He asked.

“America–” I politically corrected myself, “The United States of America.”

He waited just long enough so I felt embarrassed of myself. “Where were you born?” He asked, staring at the answer.

“California. In…the United States of America.”

His eyes cut to me. “Where were your parents born?”

If my eyebrows drew in, it was because I was genuinely caught off guard. “Also America.”

“Both of them?”

“Yes.”

He looked back down at the passport photo, then up to me. Was I smiling too much? I wasn’t smiling in my passport photo. I dropped my smile, but the agent wasn’t looking at me anymore. He was studying the outside of my passport, going as far as to rub his finger over the US emblem on the front. Wait, did he think my passport was fake? If I was going to fake a passport, it wouldn’t be the US. Suddenly, and without another word to me, he stood up and left.

With my passport.

I stood at the booth, watching him disappear. Because what else was I supposed to do? He came back a few minutes later, but my passport wasn’t with him. He questioned me again.

“Where were you born? What city? What HOSPITAL? What are your parents’ names? Where were your parents born? What are your grandparents’ names? Where were your grandparents born?” I answered them all truthfully, to the best of my knowledge anyway, and without missing a beat.

But with each answer his eyes just narrowed further. When he exhausted his list of internet security questions, he would start again at the beginning. “Where are you from?” He asked for the millionth time.

“California, the United States of America. I was born at [censored] hospital in [censored] at [censored]. I live in Portland, Oregon now. My home address is [censored].” It was exhausting answering the same questions over and over and over and over and over. It went on for a least twenty or thirty minutes. “Where are your great grandparents from? Great great grandparents?” Finally, he asked the question that would ultimately ruin my day.

“What about your great great great grandparents?”

I paused, but only for a beat. “I don’t know, there was the whole Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.”

…

He didn’t laugh. He simply stood up again and left. A minute later, a larger man with a larger gun took his place. “Follow me,” he grunted in my direction.

The Fifth Clue Israel is Racist

In my defense…it was funny.

But that didn’t stop them from leading me into an isolated room. There was nothing else in the room, just a chair against the wall, though the room was well-lit. On the door, there was a small sliver of a window. No clock. Once I was in the room, the man left and I sat down on the sole chair. I checked my phone.

Still no cell service.

A little over two hours had passed since we had arrived at immigration. Which…wasn’t completely unusual, but considering I was now in essentially a holding room, I figured I was not getting to Palestine in any sort of timely manner. I was annoyed, and slightly disappointed my joke didn’t land. Was it a bad joke? No, no, it was good. It was funny. Right? I waited about forty minutes before someone else entered the room.

It was a third man I had not yet interacted with. He had an assault rifle.

I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to stand when he entered, but ultimately decided against it. If the constant fear of living in America as a Black person taught me anything, it was to try not to make any sudden movements around law enforcement. I looked up to him when he spoke to me. “Where are you from?” He asked, and so we proceeded when the previous script ALL OVER AGAIN.

When I had successfully, or unsuccessfully(?), answered the questions, he left and I was locked in the room by myself until the next officer entered to repeat the process.

Well, okay, I didn’t confirm if the door was actually locked. To be honest, I was too nervous to check.

Looking back, I wasn’t scared. Annoyed that I had to repeat myself for hours, yes. Worried that we were keeping our lovely Airbnb host waiting for us with no answer to her (potential) messages on the app, yes. Nervous that if I made a wrong move we’d be kept here even longer, potentially overnight, or even longer and we’d miss our flight home and I would be late to work and my coworkers would roll their eyes at me, yes.

But not scared.

I’ve had someone point a gun at me before (police). I’ve been in the line of gunfire before (civilian). I’ve been a target of unprompted racial profiling and interrogated in a different language (Carrefour *shakes fist in French*). And also…I was an American citizen. I wasn’t white, sure, but my passport privilege did come with a smidge of political security. Right? So without context, I just assumed Israel is racist and this situation didn’t scare me.

Maybe it should have.

Especially considering Israel regularly detains “suspicious” (brown) visitors without explanations, brown Americans included. In fact, the US State Department even KNOWS that Israel is racist and that Israel has a systemic problem of detention, discrimination, harassment, and intimidation that targets American citizens of Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim backgrounds. The US government warns American citizens of these backgrounds to expect “significant difficulties and unequal and occasionally hostile treatment at Israel’s borders and checkpoints.”

Except, I’m not from any of those backgrounds.

However, I was ambiguous enough.

In total, I was detained for over four hours. Every time a new officer entered, the interrogations continued. All men. All armed with assault rifles. Thankfully, once we reached the third hour, they were at least honest with their line of questioning.

“Are you Palestinian?”

“No,” I answered again.

“Do you have family in Palestine? Do you have friends in Palestine? Do you know anyone in Palestine?”

“No.”

One of the officers asked to see my hotel reservation. They already saw my flight back home to the states, so they knew I’d be staying at least one night in the area.

“I don’t have wifi,” I held up my phone, now at 18%.

“What’s the name of the hotel, we can call them.”

Dramatic, but I resisted rolling my eyes. “I don’t know?” I shrugged, which…wasn’t technically a lie. I didn’t know the name of the Airbnb host, nor would I ever give it to them. Not after this experience. The longer I sat in that uncomfortable chair, the more confusion boiled in my stomach.

“Are you involved in any organization that could provoke violence in Israel?”

Who did they think I was??

The aim of this line of questioning, even to a completely innocent bystander (like myself!!!), is to trip the person up. In some cases, they keep going until it happens. Or they get bored. Unfortunately for me, they did not get bored.

Another guard entered the room, loudly. I was looking down at my hands, so I didn’t see how exactly he made such a loud entrance. Did he kick the door open? Did the door hit the wall? Or were his skull-stomping steel toe boots just that heavy? I flinched, and that was enough for him. He said something so fast, it sounded like one continuous cursive jumble. I stared at him, my eyebrows pulled together and my mouth open.

He waited a second, then switched from Arabic to English. “What is your name?” He asked again.

The officer kept a heavy Arabic accent, though now I was suspicious if it was just an act for him. Bait…in case I slipped up into my own “native” tongue. We went through the same round of questioning as the officers before him, but this time, he got creative. “What do you plan to do in Israel?” He asked, almost smiling.

Again, I shrugged. “I don’t know, I’ve never been here.”

“Then why did you come? There’s nothing you want to see? Not one thing? Otherwise…” he trailed off, looking me in the eye. “It’s unusual to just…go somewhere with no plans.” Clearly, he hadn’t met many travel bloggers. He continued, “You plan to do nothing until your flight? You’re saying you came here to walk around with a bunch of suitcases?”

Though his tone now was lighter, I understood the look he was giving me. I understood it, because it was a threat. “I mean, Jerusalem seems cool,” I conjured up an itinerary since I truly didn’t have one. Not one that wasn’t in the West Bank anyway. “Lots of history and…uh, buildings.”

He nodded along, “Yes, a must-visit. What else?”

Well shoot, that was all I had off the top of my head. “What do you recommend?” I smiled.

“Would you go to Bethlehem?” he asked.

Another crossroads. “Sure, I’m not opposed.”

“Bethlehem is in the West Bank.”

“Oh, is it?”

“It is.”

The Sixth Clue Israel is Racist

If I had slipped up, the officer made no indication. He just stared at me, for what felt like an eternity, but was probably only a few long seconds. I looked away first, to his hand, that was on the end of his rifle, then back to his face.

He was still staring.

“Well, again,” I started. My voice was hoarse. I hadn’t had water in hours and I’d been defending my identity nonstop. “I’m not opposed. Lots of history in the area.”

“If you’re still thinking of something to do, you can go to Bethlehem,” he offered, his body language relaxing. “It’s been a while since I’ve gone, but there’s a bus that’ll take you from Jerusalem. It’s a popular day trip.”

“Oh, okay, thanks.”

He almost-smiled again. “I’ll be right back. Enjoy your trip.”

I was in the room for another hour before a different guard opened the door and motioned for me to follow them. I was led back to the passport booth where my identification was verified (again) and finally my passport was handed back to me.

I felt in shock, like I wasn’t actually in my body that walked outside of the building. My partner jumped to his feet when he saw me, rushing over quickly – but not too quickly because he wasn’t white either. “What happened? What did they say? Where were you?”

I didn’t know.

Suddenly, a rush of notifications pinged on my phone. I finally was connected again. I quickly checked the bus schedule from Jerusalem to Bethlehem.

We had just missed the last shuttle to Jerusalem which made us miss the last bus leaving to Bethlehem for the night. By ten minutes.

Enjoy your trip.

I was too exhausted to be angry. I was too exhausted to think of a backup plan.

I opened up the Airbnb app to message my host in Palestine. She had sent me a few messages expressing her excitement for my visit. Then confirming my arrival time so she could meet me for check-in. Then hoping my journey over was smooth. Then gentle worry that she hadn’t heard from me and re-confirming my arrival time. The last was sent an hour ago.

I sighed.

“I am so sorry,” I started to text, though I wasn’t quite sure what I was sorry for. That I was ambiguously brown enough to be detained? That I felt…embarrassed about even being detained? That I didn’t have enough mental strength to rally and make it over for my overnight stay? That I would be missing my opportunity to visit and see and experience the beautiful history and culture of Palestine? That Israel is racist?? I didn’t beat around the bush. “I was detained at the border and I am unable to make it to Bethlehem tonight for my booking.”

After a few seconds, she replied. “Ok I understand. I am so sorry.” Sorry that, yes, Israel is racist? That we couldn’t share coffee and stories together? That I wouldn’t be able to hear the tales of the old city, visiting mosques and churches and synagogues and sites holy to all three faiths. That instead of remembering the smell of olive trees, I would remember a holding room and assault rifles.

Sorry that I experienced even the tiniest lightest inkling of a fraction of the daily terror Israel inflicts on Palestinians?

That Palestine is occupied at all?

The Seventh Clue Israel is Racist

We needed to find new lodging for the night. The only available option (that was in our price range at the time) was an Airbnb in Tel Aviv. I would later learn that there were a few other options that might have gotten me to Bethlehem later at night…but honestly I was just so tired at that point that I didn’t have the willpower to keep going.

Instead, we used the rest of our 12-ish hours before our plane back to the USA to learn more about Palestine and the events (and players) that led to Israeli occupation of the land. I might save all of my personal learnings for another time (a summarized “Occupied Palestine 101”), but here’s the historical gist:

The UK gained occupation of Palestine through secret backdoor deals and purposely destabilized the region in order to more easily implement control.

Britain promised Zionists land in Palestine…land that was not Britain’s to give in the first place. The UK and other western European powers facilitated mass immigration of Zionists, even after Palestine warned they did not have the resources. Even after Britain destabilized Palestine so they wouldn’t have the resources. Even after Britain (and others who had more capacity to aid) closed their doors to Jewish refugees, Zionist or otherwise.

When Britain had to lay in the messy bed they violently made in the Middle East, Britain couldn’t take the heat and promptly got out of the kitchen they just set on fire.

Many of the Zionists who immigrated to Palestine at that time were not fleeing war or seeking refuge, but just wanted to enact their Zionist agenda. Zionist occupation proceeded to violently displace Palestinians since the start of the 1900s, nearly 700,000 of which were displaced almost overnight in 1948 (referred to as the Nakba or “the catastrophe” in English). To date, Palestinians are one of the world’s largest refugee populations with more than 5.2 million registered refugees.

It was hard to find an exact number of how many Palestinians were murdered by the IDF since 1948, though estimates START at over 67,000. AT LEAST. Of that, it is confirmed that the IDF has killed more than 23,000 Palestinian civilians in Gaza since October 7th, 2023, though more accurate estimates place the death toll over 33,000. More than half of those deaths were children. More than a third were women. At least 319 Palestinians have been martyred in the Israeli-occupied West Bank since October 7th, 2023.

Dozens of thousands more have been injured and/or permanently disabled. There is currently no way of accounting for the mental trauma, both collective and individual, that will result from Israel’s war on Gaza though a 2020 study found that 53.5% of children in Gaza have PTSD, and a longitudinal study from 2006 to 2021 found that 86.5% of participants suffered from PTSD.

But, those numbers are just estimates. Dr Samah Jabr, chair of the mental health unit at the Palestinian Ministry of Health and one of just 32 psychiatrists in ALL of the Palestinian territories (4.8 million people), does not believe “PTSD” is an accurate measurement. “What is sick, the context or the person? In Palestine, we see many people whose symptoms—unusual emotional reaction or a behaviors—are a normal reaction to a pathogenic context,” she explains. “There is no ‘post’ because the trauma is repetitive and ongoing and continuous.”

Conclusion

Israel is racist and backed by greedy colonial powers who are only selfishly interested in a non-Arab entry into the natural resources of the Middle East. Since October 7th, 2023, over 65,000 housing units have been destroyed completely and 290,000 have been partially destroyed. In that same time, at least 126 Palestinian media workers (including 87 Palestinian journalists) were killed by IDF operations.

Journalists working in conflict areas are protected under international humanitarian law.

The IDF also targeted hospitals and killed more than 400 doctors, nurses, and other medical staff and health care workers.

Health establishments and units, including hospitals, should not be attacked under international humanitarian law. This protection extends to the wounded and sick as well as to medical staff and means of transport.

The unjust state of Israel is racist, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Israel is committing ethnic cleansing and genocide against the Palestinian people. There are very distinct stages of genocide, noted and studied throughout history’s multiple occurrences. The second to last step is massive forced displacement. Then extermination.

It is very clear which stage Israel is currently enacting.

We must stop it.

Free Palestine.

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