Home Safe! ( aka my mother can now sleep soundly)

I'm home safe and sound, writing from the computer in my parent's basement, probably the site of the most anxious blog-checks anywhere : )
Let's see... I guess I'll start by talking a little bit about my last week in Palestine and then the story of the return trip. Last weekend I went to Yad Vashem, the holocaust museum in Jerusalem. Architecturally, the site is beautiful and well-designed, the main exhibition hall is a series of rooms connected to a main corridor that ends on a terrace that looks out over the hillsides around Jerusalem. I've been to the holocaust museum in Washington, DC, a couple of times so I was trying to mentally prepare myself for what I was about to see, but of course nothing can really help. It is so hard to imagine the terror and horror of those times, and the scale of the holocaust, the millions of people affected... I have the hardest time understanding how so many people collaborated, consented, or turned away from the plight of the Jewish people and the other targeted populations. So many people were compliant, so many soldiers at the camps and people living around the camps and the ghettos.. And in places like Denmark, so few people working together made an enormous difference and saved thousands of lives. Being reminded of the holocaust while living in Palestine was important, I think, because I have been searching for reasons for the Israeli government's actions and fear and security are the two biggest motivators.
It is so forbidden to compare anything to the holocaust, and certainly nothing has happened since on any remotely similar scale, but the creation of the "other," the de-humanization of a population, the mass grouping of ethnic and religious groups, the exploitation of fear, the building of walls and creating of ghettos, population control, restrictions on movement, identity cards with religious categories, all of these are present in every day Palestinian life. The last story I shared, about the old woman who lays awake at night fearing the sound of boot steps on her stairs, reminded me the books I read about the holocaust, the stories from the survivors. I'm not really expressing myself well right now and that is a bad thing; like I said, it is an untouchable subject, but some of the actions by the Israeli government and military absolutely parallel tactics used not only in the holocaust, but in other cases of apartheid and ethnic violence. For example, I learned that in official Israeli government documents, the roads built by Israel inside the West Bank for the settlers to use are referred to as "sterile roads."
I walked away from the museum upset and disheartened, but with even more faith that the one way to change anything in this world is to start by changing yourself... Maybe I'll talk about that more at the end.
Last weekend I went into Tel Aviv again for a day and finally got to eat at the "Taste of Life" restaurant where nothing but vegan food is served. So good. Then the rest of the week was a total blur of organizing and saying goodbye and worrying about security checks at the airport. Before I left for Jerusalem on Saturday night I said goodbye to my host mom and it was so sad, she started crying right away and so did I, and all I could say was that I hoped that I would come back soon.. of course, she told me I was always welcome. I think I could show up on her doorstep any day and she'd welcome me and have food in my stomach in under ten minutes.
My biggest worry about leaving was that I would somehow get blacklisted, which means no entry into Israel for up to seven years, because I would be seen as a Palestinian sympathizer and threat to Israel. I don't feel like a threat, but who knows? Other people in my group who had left already had experienced hours of questioning and had their bags totally unpacked and searched. There are different "tactics" to use at the airport, one of which is playing the tourist and saying that you've been traveling the country for two months, and the other is to tell the truth but not give the names of anyone you talked to, worked with, lived with, etc. in the West Bank, because if the security knows that you've been there, they'll want to know who you talked to. My friend J and I were on the same flight so we decided to say we had been traveling together. We stayed at a hostel in Jerusalem the night before so that the shuttle would pick us up there and take us to the airport. In the hostel, instead of sleeping, we got out our guidebook and brushed up on the places we had visited. J was planning to tell them that he had volunteered in Bethlehem but that we spent most of our weekends traveling in Israel. By the time we left for the airport (our shuttle picked us up at 3:45 a.m.), I was too tired to be anxious anymore, and just wanted to get on the plane and be done with it. We were first approached while we were standing in line and asked how long we'd been in the country, what we had done while we were here, where we had stayed, etc. At first J didn't say that he had volunteered, because they didn't ask, but then they did and he told them the truth. The woman took our passports and we went to screen our bags. We were asked the same questions again while they x-rayed our bags, and then they sent us to another place where they opened and partially un-packed my bags while asking us both more questions, including, "I'm sorry to ask a personal question, but what is the relationship between you two?" and, "While you were in Bethlehem, did anyone invite you in for coffee, tea, dinner, conversation? Were you in any private homes?" We said no, which is so laughable because every single person we talked to invited us for tea, dinner, everything. After they checked out our bags and I managed to stuff everything back in my backpack, we went to the ticketing line, got our boarding passes, and then got some food. The final security check was before entering our terminal, and was just a metal detector and a hand check of our carry ons. I was so relieved that we got through with little hassle, I'm curious to see how the other woman did who was also on our flight, because I'm pretty sure she was one of the last people onto the plane.
The flight to London was long and boring and I slept for most of it, and then I only had an hour in London so I basically walked from one gate to another. The second flight was even longer, 8.5 hours, and hard because I was alone for the first time. I definitely cried thinking about everyone I had left behind, and I began to realize just how far away Palestine is, and just how far away my life there was about to become. When we landed in Detroit at 4:30 p.m. local time I had been traveling for 20 hours straight, and I was exhausted, stressed, and ready to see my parents. I went through customs with no problems at all, and felt like I was totally lucky because my bags were already on the carousel. I got a luggage cart, grabbed my bags, and prepared to greet my parents. Seconds before I went through the final gate, a man stopped me and asked to see my passport and customs sheet, which I showed him, told him where I had been, and he let me go. I was literally two steps away when a woman pulled me aside and asked for the same documents, and then began to ask even more questions about what I had been doing. It didn't take her long to decide that I needed more screening. She took me over to an inspection station, basically a computer in front of a long conveyor belt. Besides the usual questions, she wanted to know who I had traveled with, and when I only gave his first name, she wanted to know his last, and when I asked her why, she asked me why I wouldn't tell her, so I said that I didn't want him to get in trouble. Bad move, in hindsight, but I meant that I didn't want him to have to get pulled aside and questioned as well. Too late, she took his last name and then made me put my bags on the conveyor belt. I'm happy to say that I started crying immediately at the thought of having to re-pack those damn bags again, and I told her so, but she really didn't care. She went through my carry-on first, and pulled out my journal. We'd been told in Palestine that the Israeli security guards don't have the right to read journals, so I felt safe carrying mine through. Homeland Security does not share that view, clearly. She thumbed through it looking at the papers I had tucked in it (travel insurance and a copy of my passport), and then started looking at the pages. I immediately told her that it was my journal and asked if she really have to read it? She responded that yes, she had to read it, because she needed to know if I was telling the truth or not. I honestly felt sick to my stomach, not because there was anything "bad" or "illegal" in the journal, but because I write things in my journal that even I wouldn't want to re-read, it is a totally safe and private space that was being invaded in front of my eyes, for no apparent reason. She called her supervisor over and told me to ask him any questions, but I didn't really have any questions, I just wanted to know why she was reading my journal. He told me that they have the right to inspect any documents or items that anyone carries in the United States, period. I don't find fault with this, I just don't understand why I seemed like enough of a threat or a liar to warrant having my journal read. She finally set it aside and unpacked the rest of my bags, examining every piece of paper she found. After she unpacked my two checked bags and camera bag, she told me that I could re-pack them. I asked if I could re-pack my carry-on and she said, "No, I need to read your journal a little more closely. You seem to refer to the military and soldiers frequently." There are soldiers on every street corner in Israel, and to go anywhere outside of Bethlehem, I have to deal with the military... I told her that, but again, she didn't care. She sat down, in front of me, and read my entire journal, beginning to end. She laughed at parts, made faces, and made me explain one part where I had written "Italia! Italia! Italy won the W.C. tonight." Do you get it? It was when Italy won the World Cup, and everyone at the bar was chanting. Why she wanted that explained, of anything, stumps me. She also asked me to explain relationships I talked about, and asked why I wrote "I love Palestine" in some of my entries. It was really terrible, it makes me feel sick thinking about it, and right now I can't imagine re-reading that journal without getting queasy at the thought of someone else reading it. It definitely reminded me that the right to privacy is so important. I mean, we all close the door when we use the bathroom but that doesn't mean we have anything to hide. She told me, "it's ok, I'm not your mom. Two seconds after you leave here, I'm going to forget about you." I was getting more and more anxious as time went by, I felt totally invaded. Finally, another supervisor came over and asked me if I was okay. I responded by telling her that I was very uncomfortable with someone reading my personal journal and couldn't understand what threat I posed as an American who had traveled as a tourist to Israel. At that point, the first lady finally put down my journal, mostly because her supervisor had come over, and gave me my passport. I re-packed my bag for the last time, and went to greet my parents crying, upset, and angry. What a welcome home.
Now, here I am, and I'm over the journal-reading thing for the time being. I just don't know what to think of it, really. I'm a little anxious about my friend and hope that he didn't get any extra-questioning, but as I keep reminding myself, all of this is nothing compared to what Palestinians go through on a daily basis. (He just called and thanked me profusely for selling him out before telling me that he had no problems whatsoever at US customs...)
So they told us that we might experience some culture shock when we get back. The term, to me, is literal. Last night especially and today I feel like I am a walking zombie. The grass is so green! It's so quiet! The air is so nice! The lake! Good pasta for dinner! Filter coffee! On the other hand, no amazing Palestinian breakfast, no crazy taxi guys to drive me to work, no beauitful breeze all day long. Hopefully my ten days down time in Canada will be nice, and then back to DC, which will undoubtedly be crazy.
I'm all over the place, sorry... it was nice to get home and have some political conversation with my parents. I think that my father is a one-man awareness raising campaign. He alone has drawn more people to this website and talked to more people about what I am doing than anyone else I know, myself included. It is also really cool that my parents have become such activists in the sense that they are totally up on the current events and engage others in conversation about Palestine all the time. My friend and her boyfriend came over last night as well, and he immediately started asking me questions about my time in Palestine, which was really cool because I was afraid that I'd get here and people just... wouldn't care. Maybe that will be my experience in the future, but for now, people are definitely interested. Even my friend, who is not political at all, had a ton of questions and was genuinely intrigued and wanted to know more about what I want to do with my life. Which is a good question.
So that's all for now, and then more next week. I don't think that any of the world's biggest problems can be solved by one person acting alone, but I don't think that any of the world's problems are too big to be solved either. I think the solution lies within all of us. I think that if every person decided to be more conscious, every day, of the shared humanity of life, we could end oppression and foster justice. We are all humans, we are stuck here together on this earth, and we are all stewards of life. If we all reached out and tried to humanize the senseless deaths in Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, everywhere, and we all tried to imagine what it would be like to live oppressed, or poor, or hungry, and we all opened our hearts a little bit more, I think that there would be enough of us who refuse to stand by and let our fellow human beings live in such conditions. We wouldn't stand for it if it was our daughter, or our grandmother, so we have to accept that everyone is someone's daughter, everyone has a grandmother. My friend's boyfriend asked me if I was optimistic about the Wall, about Palestine, and I said yes and no. No because the Wall is being built, it is a physical barrier that is surrounding the West Bank and strangling the people and for it to come down and life to return to normal is pretty far out right now. But yes, I am optimistic, because I truly believe that even if I act alone, I can make a difference in Palestine. I think that by raising awareness and having conversations like that and by keeping this blog, I can do something. The power of the individual shouldn't be under-estimated, and I can do anything.
Thank you so much, to all of you, for reading this and keeping up with my summer and taking the time to care. Some days, just the thought of being able to write here and process my thoughts here was all I had to keep me going. Some of you I may not know at all, so a special thanks to you for reading the story of a complete stranger. Thanks to my friends who spread the word, and my family who also spread the word. And again, the biggest thanks to my dad, who supported this blog more than anybody. The hit counter is over one thousand now, and nine hundred of them can be attributed to him and his tireless networking skills. So thanks again, and check back next week for pictures (I promise! I finally have room to upload all of them!) and more postings.
Peace and love,
Cassie