April 29, 2010

Qalandia and Al Quds (Jerusalem)

Posted in Uncategorized at 3:44 pm by Keren

Last Sunday I set off for Al Quds – had been wanting to visit the office of PCATI (Public Committee Against Torture in Israel), as well as to go to the OCHA office to pick up current maps of the West Bank, spend some time with my good friend Roni, purchase Arabic language books (Jerusalem dialect), and post some things home. As some of you know, taking anything that connects one to Palestine through the airport in Tel Aviv is basically asking for problems.

The Israelis are notorious for pulling people over for grilling and strip searching at the airport (as happened with my good friend Hedy Epstein, who is Jewish and a Holocaust survivor. She was 80 when she had her first experience with the Israeli airport security. She was attempting to return to the US – they pulled her from the line, said she was a terrorist and not only strip searched her, but cavity searched her as well). Read the rest of this entry »