This was Sunday, April 10, 2005, the day a group of Zionist Jewish extremists had marked for their ceremonial entrance to the Temple Mount. The group behind this action was called Rehava, and its goal, as stated on its website, was to “restore dignity to the Jewish people.” They believed that if the settlers left Gaza then it would be a sign that the Jewish people were weak. The action of entering the Temple Mount was not just going to be a protest against Disengagement; it was to be the first step in building the Third Temple.
On their website (which existed at the time of the proposed mounting of the Temple Mount) the group specified that although their aim was to have 10,000 ritually pure Jews enter Temple Mount they would not talk to local Arabs or disobey Israeli police orders. However, the Israeli police ordered Rehava to cancel their demonstration saying that they will only let Muslims enter the Temple Mount, as has been the case since the beginning of the Al-Aqsa Intifada. However, Rehava asserted that the police was unjust in banning non-Muslims from the Temple Mount on grounds of discrimination.
The last time a Jew entering the Temple Mount made news was September 28, 2000. Ariel Sharon’s visit to the Mount with an entourage soldiers sparked the second Palestinian uprising, or intifada. It is known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada because of his visit.
The quickest way to Jerusalem was though Rachel’s Tomb Checkpoint and then to catch an Arab bus to Damascus Gate. The checkpoint was swarming with soldiers that morning but they were so involved in their conversation that I had to say, “Good morning!” loudly to get them to so much as glance at my passport and wave me through.
As I walked down the quarter of a kilometer brick path from the checkpoint to the road, I noticed four soldiers sitting on a wall several meters before my bus stop. One of them kicked the heels of this Army boots against the wall. The rest stared into the morning heat, hands resting on their M-16s. I was walking in the road as I usually do in Bethlehem and I decided to got onto the sidwalk and walk right past them to show them that I wasn’t afraid. Four armed strangers, who wouldn’t be scared? I remembered something an American friend of mine had told me. He said that he always flirted with the female soldiers because then they related to each other as human to human, not soldier to checkee.
So when they said, “Booker tov!” to me (good morning in Hebrew) I said, “Booker tov!” back and met their playful eyes. However, “Good morning” is about the extent of my Hebrew, so when they continued in Hebrew I said, “American. English,” and they were happy to oblige.
“Oh, we know English!” and they repeated what they had just said in Hebrew to me in English as I had walked right past them.
But then one of them got off his wall and was speaking to me, “Bo, bo,” he said in Hebrew. I pretended not to understand the checkpoint Hebrew for “come here” but he kept following me. “Bo, bo, bo,” he kept coming towards me. I glanced back at him. He was tall with dark hair and sunglasses. And an M-16. “I need your passport,” he explained.
“Really?” I turned around, keeping an eye on his M-16. This was one of the funniest pick-up lines I’d ever heard.
“Don’t be afraid,” the soldier said, “I just need to see your passport.”
“This is a checkpoint?” I laughed at the idea that four soldiers chilling out on a wall would call themselves a checkpoint. “Makhsom?” I said in Hebrew just to make sure that they wouldn’t crack at their own great joke.
“They check your passport there,” the soldier said, pointing to the established checkpoint, “Then we check it here.” I realized there wasn’t much I could do. How could I refuse to oblige when he had an M-16 and a uniform and I didn’t?
As I got my passport from my bag two other soldiers came up to me for, um, security reasons. The fourth remained on the wall. He was Ethiopian.
“Where are you from?” one of the newcomers asked.
“California.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Working in Bethlehem.”
“Where?”
“At the Arab Educational Institute.”
“It’s no fun, uh, over there,” one said, indicating the place across the checkpoint with a jerk of his head.
“Yes, it’s no fun in Bethlehem,” another agreed.
I shrugged. Ana Hurra, “I’m free,” I thought in Arabic.
“You should go to Elat; it’s fun there,” the one in the middle advised me. He looked Sephardic.
“Do you like it, uh, here?” said the one who had alluded to Bethlehem with a jerk of his head. He was blonde and, to put it nicely, homely.
“Of course I do,” I said, “Do you think I would stay here if I didn’t like it?”
The first soldier handed me back my passport.
“Where are you from in California?” This was the blonde one who had trouble with saying, “Bethlehem.”
“San Francisco.”
“Where exactly in San Francisco?” They wanted to know because the blonde one, they said, was from California.
“Noe Valley,” I lied.
“Ah, the Valley,” they passed knowing looks to each other.
“Where are you from in California?” I asked the blonde one.
“San Fernando Valley; the Valley, you know; I’m volunteering here,” meaning he was volunteering in the Israeli Army.
“And where are you from?” I asked the one in the middle. He was much nicer to look at; he had a fair complexion framed by raven hair and dancing black eyes.
“He’s from Lebanon,” the first one with sunglasses informed me, “No, Syria.” And they burst out laughing. It was a big inside joke. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that Syrian troops had just withdrawn from a portion of Lebanon. I wasn’t even sure if the homely Valleyboy volunteer was really American because his English wasn’t perfect. But I didn’t have time to contemplate these weighty matters because then came the killer question.
“Do you like boys here? Do you like Israeli boys?”
I didn’t feel like answering that question. Oh, no, you’re free not to answer if you like, they told me.
“How about this,” I told them, beginning to feel quite powerful surrounded by three boys with shining faces and M-16s. “I like Israeli boys just as much as you like American girls.”
They blushed at this but then the Lebanese-Syrian of uncertain origins explained himself, “You see, we were just thinking that because you were from San Francisco, and about 30% of the girls there don’t like boys . . .”
“Oh, you mean that there are a lot of gay people there!” They nodded, not wanting to say the word, “gay.” Was “gay” like the word, “Bethlehem”? “Yes,” I said, “San Francisco and New York City are the gay capitals of the US.
“But don’t worry,” I reassured them. “I like boys.”
“Bye!” I said and thank God my bus pulled up for me and I got in and the driver greeted me in Arabic, “Keefik, Habibti?” “How are you, sweetie?” I had caught his bus often. A nun and an old Palestinian man got in the bus and we were off. At least until a soldier stepped in our way stopping us with the palm of one hand and motioning us to pull over with the other four blocks later. We pulled over and he took our passports through the window. Then he gave them to a female soldier who was sitting underneath the shade of a tree. I thought she was just going to look at them, however, she seemed to read each one over and then take notes on a chart. After she finished each passport the male soldier gave each one back to the driver. The Palestinian ones came back fast. There was a problem with the Italian nun’s passport. She had an exchange with the soldier through the window. He held up the passport and pointed at things in it. I couldn’t understand a word they were saying.
Somewhere through the fifteen minutes at the side of the road, the thought occurred to me that those soldiers on the side of the road may have actually been a checkpoint. In the Occupied Palestinian Territories, the Israeli Army often sets up “flying checkpoints,” temporary checkpoints that can be just a few soldiers on the side of the street or several jeeps blocking and concrete blocks blocking off all but one lane.
Heck, since I was stopped at a flying checkpoint four blocks away from the real one, why couldn’t four soldiers on a wall be another flying checkpoint? I never found out because they weren’t there when I came back.
But I’ll never forget how little their guns seemed once I smiled at them. Or rather, once they smiled back.
A note about the picture: these aren't the real soldiers. They are just three soldiers. Not at the wall.
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