I climb onto the bus and check myself. I’m not in danger. Sure there was a minor problem but the remnants of my racist upbringing have amplified my justifiable concern into outright paranoia. As I choose a seat I believe that the other travellers want me dead.
I was having a great time. Flitting around Ramallah market responding to the wild gestures made by people who desperately wanted to be photographed. I couldn’t eat another thing. My stomach too full from the cakes and fruit given to me by shopkeepers.
On the way to the bus I stopped at the Mosque. As I took off my shoes, two teenagers sparked up a conversation with the minimal English that they possessed. One introduced the other as Mah’med, I repeated his name. Their attitude changed, they noticed that I had pronounced the word with a Hebrew “chet” rather than an English “h”. They asked a few questions in Hebrew. I said that I didn’t understand. They switched to English and asked if I spoke the language of the Jews. I said no.
Was I being followed to the bus station? Probably not. But after lifetime’s exposure to propaganda, it certainly felt like I was.
I was interrogated at the checkpoint. Treated like a Palestinian. I was happy for that. Happy to feel first hand the humiliation I had seen subjected on others. Today I wasn’t a Jew. I had left my Israeli ID at home. I held my British passport against the bullet-proof window while a child with a gun barked instructions at me. Today I’m not a member of the master race and these boys are more dangerous than the guys in the mosque.
The average Israeli would tell me that to go to Ramallah is to face certain death. This fear fuels the conflict and absolves us from guilt every time a young mother gets shot in the face. Few have travelled 10km from Jerusalem to test the theory. If they did, they would know that it is fiction. That’s not to say that there aren’t dangerous people here, it’s just a matter of perspective. In all the visits I have made to Palestine this is the only time I have felt remotely threatened.
In hindsight it wasn’t a good idea to go into the Mosque. Religion is the root of this evil and the one place I might find the Jew killers everyone warns me about. It’s no coincidence that Baruch Goldshtien and Igal Amir both wore a skullcap.
Walking between bus stations in Jerusalem I cross the racial border and see a gang of religious-zionist youth with M16’s and grenade launchers slung across their backs. I recognise them. They belong to a group known as “Benei Akiva”. My parents encouraged me to attend their meetings when I was a child.
