A boy, not much older than sixteen swept up and down the aisle of the bus, checking passports and eying everyone suspiciously, trying desperately to not look as nervous as he did. When he reached the last third of the bus and came across three American girls, his eyes flashed briefly with panic and it made me ridiculously nervous. The situation in Bethlehem had just begun to escalate to the point of protests and gunfire as we left the town only twenty minutes prior. To say the air was fraught with tension would be putting things very mildly. And when I saw the checkpoint patrol kid's gun, my insides went all ping pong ball-ish and agitated, but I tried with my might to retain my cool, to not become the problem.
You see, the gun he cradled tensely in his arms wasn't quite up-to-snuff. Every soldier we'd seen in Israel up to that point had been polished, precise, professional and beautifully put together. But THIS particular boy, who I must assume was not an Israeli soldier, but rather a Palestinian soldier/representative of the West Bank at the West Bank/Israeli checkpoint outside of Jerusalem, near Bethlehem, was carrying a gun patched together haphazardly with silver duct tape. He wore no uniform. He looked as though he hadn't had a day of training in his life Nothing felt official about this supposed official, except the fact that he had a gun, and I didn't. And in this particular situation, that felt like a very dangerous thing.
If you were carrying a machine gun patched together with duct tape, wouldn't you be nervous as well? Wouldn't you be praying, with every bit of every part of your body that nothing would happen on that bus, that no one would make you need to raise that questionably functional gun and defend your border/self?
What exactly was he defending? I'm not certain. There is a set of rules for who can enter Jerusalem that is seemingly ridiculous, but actually specifically targets the greatest threats to the city: Israeli/Palestinian men between adolescence and the age of forty. The boy was in the West Bank, not Israel proper. So, what exactly was the point of that checkpoint? Was the boy defending Israeli territory from Palestinian insurgents? I would be lying if I said I understand the complexities of Israel. All I can tell you is that in that moment my life lay in the hands of a nervous teenager with a janky gun.
Normally I have photos to accompany my posts. But normally I don't have a nervous teenager with a patched-up gun making life and death decisions about me and my companions hovering over me.
It was one of those moments when you first say a silent prayer, and then take stock of your life and perhaps re-evaluate your decision-making paradigm; the same paradigm that had led me to that point, of being in Israel during a war. Of hearing rockets being fired at Jerusalem, toward ME as I lay in bed in a convent in the Old City. Of flying into the city where bombs were falling and actively killing people.
Two minutes later the boy climbed out of the bus and we drove off, back into Israeli territory, leaving behind Bethlehem and the West Bank. And we FELT safe again, whatever that feels like. Because it's only a feeling, safety. It's only an IDEA, like lanes of traffic on the freeway.
But that feeling is pretty important.
You see, the gun he cradled tensely in his arms wasn't quite up-to-snuff. Every soldier we'd seen in Israel up to that point had been polished, precise, professional and beautifully put together. But THIS particular boy, who I must assume was not an Israeli soldier, but rather a Palestinian soldier/representative of the West Bank at the West Bank/Israeli checkpoint outside of Jerusalem, near Bethlehem, was carrying a gun patched together haphazardly with silver duct tape. He wore no uniform. He looked as though he hadn't had a day of training in his life Nothing felt official about this supposed official, except the fact that he had a gun, and I didn't. And in this particular situation, that felt like a very dangerous thing.
If you were carrying a machine gun patched together with duct tape, wouldn't you be nervous as well? Wouldn't you be praying, with every bit of every part of your body that nothing would happen on that bus, that no one would make you need to raise that questionably functional gun and defend your border/self?
What exactly was he defending? I'm not certain. There is a set of rules for who can enter Jerusalem that is seemingly ridiculous, but actually specifically targets the greatest threats to the city: Israeli/Palestinian men between adolescence and the age of forty. The boy was in the West Bank, not Israel proper. So, what exactly was the point of that checkpoint? Was the boy defending Israeli territory from Palestinian insurgents? I would be lying if I said I understand the complexities of Israel. All I can tell you is that in that moment my life lay in the hands of a nervous teenager with a janky gun.
Normally I have photos to accompany my posts. But normally I don't have a nervous teenager with a patched-up gun making life and death decisions about me and my companions hovering over me.
It was one of those moments when you first say a silent prayer, and then take stock of your life and perhaps re-evaluate your decision-making paradigm; the same paradigm that had led me to that point, of being in Israel during a war. Of hearing rockets being fired at Jerusalem, toward ME as I lay in bed in a convent in the Old City. Of flying into the city where bombs were falling and actively killing people.
Two minutes later the boy climbed out of the bus and we drove off, back into Israeli territory, leaving behind Bethlehem and the West Bank. And we FELT safe again, whatever that feels like. Because it's only a feeling, safety. It's only an IDEA, like lanes of traffic on the freeway.
But that feeling is pretty important.
The Bethlehem/Jerusalem security checkpoint
photo from: http://nzconservative.blogspot.com/2011/01/trip-to-bethlehem.html
