Israel: between security and beauty

"What are you doing here? What flight are you taking, and where are you going?"

"I was told to come here at least three hours before my flight. I will be flying Turkish Airlines, first to Istanbul, then to Amsterdam."

"Why were you in Israel?"

" To travel. As a tourist."

"Where have you been?"

"Jerusalem, the Dead Sea, Tel Aviv, and Nahariya," I recounted, but deliberately leaving aside a single detail so as to avoid another barrage of questions. Jericho, I was in Jericho. But the security officer did not have to know I was in the Palestinian Territories. It was not lying. Just withholding information. For my sake.



"How long did you stay?"

"Four, five days in total."

"Where did you stay?"

"With a friend, who is Israeli. He lives in Tel Aviv."

"How do you know him, and how long have you known him."

" I met him in the Netherlands, and we know each other a few months."

"Did you pack your bags yourself? Did anyone give you anything to take with you," the lady asked, this time with a smile, " We ask this because before a tourist was given something to carry, and it turned out to be a bomb."

"I packed my bags myself, and I did not take anything from anyone. I only have clothes, and some souvenirs," I said, and as if to make sure she understood and believed me, I shook my head. My luggage was stickered as the lady scribbled a number of things on the security tag, before it was hauled onto the biggest X-Ray machine I have ever seen at any airport. I smiled politely, and went my way, but unaware that this was one of only five security checks before I could board my flight out of Israel.

It was half past two in the morning when I arrived at Ben Gurion Airport. Even before entering the new and modern Terminal 3 building, a plain clothed security guard stopped me and asked me a series of questions about my reason for being at the airport. My luggage was opened, and two ladies took around 10 minutes to sweep my bag with a piece of cloth, which they then put through a scanner used to detect ion particles and explosives. I was cleared, but my smelly clothes, socks and underwear, Birkenstocks, Lonely Planet, and camera recharger had been exposed to the public. Embarrassed, I quickly packed my luggage again, and proceeded to the check-in.

The lady at the passport control sipped her warm drink before browsing through my passport and stamping hard in the pages. Another security check fondled through my carry-on luggage, and again took me aside to check every single item for potential explosives. Perhaps I was lucky, as the man before me had be taken aside and told to take off his shoes and shirt. I could see the tempers rise, but security takes priority over the privacy of passengers, and rightly so, especially flying out of a country under an almost constant state of alertness.


This was the country that I had visited for the past number of days. A country of contrasts, of overlapping cultures, histories, religions, and overlapping peoples that in places share the same crowded spaces, but in other places are segregated in scenes and ways that to some appear to be the equivalent of despicable and unjustifiable Apartheid.

But this was a country that had left a deep impression on me, even before my visit. So imagine what impression it has had on me during and thereafter.

One hears much about Israel in the news... about the suicide bomb explosions, the unrests in Gaza, the bulldozing of (illegal) settlements, about the scuffles between feisty journalists with Israeli soldiers, and about the difficulties experienced by Palestinians in gaining access to the most basic medical care and food sources. But one does not much see or hear about the reasons and causes behind all this negative press... nor does one often realise the wild, raw beauty and legends and history that is shrouded in the dust of the desert.



Without being an apologist or tacitly endorsing the policies and actions of the Israeli government within the country and in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, without downplaying the sufferings and man-made and man-maintained humanitarian disaster in the enclaves carved by the internationally condemned Wall, which the International Court of Justice has pronounced as illegal, the following will be a recount of my experiences and memories of Israel.

It is my hope that my account will bring a little (personal) insight to a place often disputed, and perhaps more often misunderstood. The politics, religions and policies of this, perhaps most, volatile piece of land on Earth, has been recounted again and again and occupies the fascination, disgust or reverence of whoever receives it.

And here is my own.