Pre-boarding to Tel Aviv: a lesson in nonviolence

“There is no real security except for whatever you build inside yourself.”

– Gilda Radner –

“You’re not going to change the world from the airport,” my friend wryly counseled me at the Metta office, just a few weeks before we left for Israel-Palestine. “Focus on getting into the country–keep your answers short and to the point. Don’t offer information. You’re a tourist and you are going to go to the Holy Sites.” I didn’t want to fully agree with her–I was traveling for other reasons, too.

My friend, like most Israelis, completed her military service after high school, so she knew the drill. Not to mention, even as an Israeli traveling to the United States on a regular basis, she also at times is subject to intense questioning from airport security. So I decided to trust her.

And I am glad that I did because the moment that we entered the highly armed ticket counter at the Rome airport (there were soldiers standing with rifles ready on the second floor), Michael and I were separated and subjected to a two-hour line of questioning about our intentions in traveling and our personal lives, each one of us required to produce emails–and in my case, photos, attesting to what we told them. Neither of us told them that we run a nonviolence education organization; that we were planning to attend the Bet’lahem Live Festival, hosted by the Holy Land Trust; that we were going to present nonviolence workshops at the festival; that we had intended to travel to At-Twani village, in the Occupied Territories in the West Bank. We stuck to one story: we were simply two friends, which is true, traveling together on what was a pilgrimage for myself, also true, and a last visit to his family in Israel, for Michael, true, true, true.

The question bothered me: Was it being nonviolent not to tell the security officers about the real reason behind our invitation to Israel-Palestine? On the one hand, nonviolence requires that we are transparent and truthful–and accept the consequences willingly of that act of truth. (It takes a lot of courage to do that…) On the other hand, there is always leeway to that principle when the other party is trapped in a false situation. For example, a German Catholic priest hid Jews during the War and never disclosed their whereabouts, arguing that at that time, “the whole society was a lie.”  Truth, in other words, is not always the same as facts. But as far as facts were concerned, we did tell part of the truth, or even the entire truth if you were to look at it from a certain angle: I was on pilgrimage–to see the living struggle, not simply the historical locations, to feel the experience in my own body. The main problem was that I might not have been admitted to the country if I did tell them up front that we would be meeting with Palestinian activists among other activities. . .

While many people might have found it tenuous or even angering to be held at security for two hours before being allowed to board a flight, I felt a strange sense of appreciation about it. The encounter gave me an opportunity to realize right away the deep level of paranoia, fear and anxiety in the minds of the Israeli security force. And right away, I was able to relax, breathe, repeat my mantram to draw upon the deeper kind of security we talk about so often in nonviolence. It gave me the opportunity to smile at the officers, and mean it, even if they weren’t allowed to smile back; to read a book, and concentrate on it, even while they were tearing my bags apart in another room; and to see the security members as human beings, who clearly didn’t like what they were doing (the more relaxed I was, the more I was able to see this).

Imagine being in a situation like this. Ask yourself, what would a response fueled with hatred or unharnessed anger, or simple self-righteousness look like? Do you think that I had it in me? I think I did. But I was able to channel it at the strategic advice of my friend. What effect do you think that it had?

We made it onto the plane. We were the last to board. It’s funny in a way, but the tagline of the airline we happened to take was “It’s not just an airline; It’s Israel.” Would that mean that paranoia and fear are as much a part of the experience of Israel as the music, food and traditions? And if so, what was its cause and what is my role in all of it? What could I offer personally?  (I will be blogging more about this later…)

And so our journey began. It was at a time of heightened insecurity due to the then alleged kidnapping of three Israeli youth in the Occupied Territories just a few days before we left, leading to an underreported yet massive, “collective punishment” directed toward the Palestinians including arrests, limits on movement, gun fire and even murders by the Israeli forces, as well as rockets launching between Gaza and Israel. .  .