Reflections on crossing the Jordan-Israel border

"Every border implies the violence of its maintenance" -Ayesha A. Siddiqi

Credit: Against the Compass

The last time I crossed the Jordan-Israel border via Allenby Bridge was in June 2023, just a few months before the start of Israel’s war on Gaza. That crossing was largely uneventful, or at least as uneventful as crossing a highly militarized and contested border can be.

Once at the edge of the “Jordanian side” of the border, officials divide people into two groups: “tourists” and “Palestinians.” While I was traveling to the West Bank to work as a journalist, I was placed in the “tourist” group. It means anything except Palestinian. Apartheid starts even before one enters Israel.

The bus to the “Israeli side” was largely filled with European pilgrims making their journey to the Holy Land, most either willfully ignorant or apathetic to the plight of Palestinians and Israel’s ongoing occupation of their land.

Once on the other side, one goes through a series of checkpoints and luggage scans before a border official asks for the purpose of your visit. That time, I simply said I was going to visit friends in Tel Aviv, which was technically true. I did not state that I had any intention of going to the West Bank, because why would a white twenty-year-old Yale student?

This time was completely different.

I was one of two people on the “tourist” bus. I asked the driver if that was typical after the start of the war, and he said that I was the few Americans he had driven this month. He joked that I was getting the VIP service across the border, as there was one driver for each passenger.

Here’s what it looks like to drive through “no man’s land” on your way to the West Bank.

The other busses, he said, are always full of Palestinians returning to their homes and relatives in the West Bank. After the US granted visa-free entry to Israeli travelers on October 19, 2023, Israel was told it had to change its treatment of Palestinian Americans traveling to the West Bank. This follows thousands of reports of unlawful detention and travelers being denied entry altogether, simply because they are Palestinian in origin.

This time, however, I couldn’t deny that I was a journalist. I was carrying body armor, trauma kits, cameras, etc. into Israel during a time of war. I also received a press pass from Israel last year, so my name was registered in their system. After I told the initial security official I was both traveling to the West Bank and working as a journalist, his tone shifted immediately. He took my passport and handed it to who I assumed was his supervisor.

He looked at a group of chairs off to the side and said, “Sit.” I was the only person waiting who wasn’t of Palestinian origin. The other travelers looked surprised to see me there. What cause, after all, could Israel have to harass me too? After waiting for about thirty minutes, I was called across the hall, “Theia, come here,” the border guard said. He looked me up and down (rather intimidatingly I will add), and said, “You are free to enter.”

After this, I entered another zone to pick up my baggage from the security scanners but was told I would have to wait again, as my bag was being inspected. I waited for another forty-five minutes and was finally called over and asked a series of questions by the guard:

“Why are you traveling to the West Bank?”

“Who do you write for?”

“What are you writing about?”

“Why do you need body armor?”

The questions went on and on.

Any country that fears the entry of journalists is a country that has something to hide. I am thankful that I was ultimately permitted entry to Israel, and thus to Palestine, as many are not. However, my difficulty in entering Israel is a reminder of how Israel attempts to make life unbearable in Palestine to encourage the “voluntary” relocation of Palestinians to other countries.

Checkpoints, ID checks, etc. are barriers to the way of life. They are headaches that compound to trauma, and finally to dispossession, a continuation of the Nakba. They are intentional, not accidental, and with the stated purpose of “making their life hell.” After all, the violence Israel is putting on display in Gaza was first tested in the West Bank.