This description by Nai
Barghouti, an Israeli Palestinian, of her ordeal at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport
is a familiar one. Racism begins at Israel’s
borders if you are an Arab or Black person. In 2011 Israel’s High Court issued an Order Nisi forbidding the practice
of categorising Israel’s Arab population as a ‘security threat’ but Israel’s
state is a law unto itself and so the practice has continued to this day.
However it is not only
Arabs who now suffer this kind of harassment.
Suspicion of being a supporter of BDS or even a liberal Zionist supporter
of human rights, such as Peter
Beinart of Forward will qualify
you for being stopped and questioned.
Even Jennifer Gorovitz, a
Vice President of the highly respectable liberal New Israel Fund was also
stopped and questioned. Support for human rights is now an offence in the eyes
of Israel’s security state.
But to people like
Luciana Berger and Tom Watson, it isn’t this state racism and terror that is
the problem, it is ‘anti-Semitism’.
Tony Greenstein
Defying Racism: A Palestinian musician’s ordeal at Ben Gurion Airport
Nai Barghouti on January 14, 2019
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| Nai Barghouti (Photo courtesy of the author) |
I left our family home on Monday January 7, 2019, at 9:30 am to be at
Ben Gurion Airport, near Tel Aviv, at 10:30 am to catch my 12:45 pm flight to
Amsterdam, where I am currently pursuing my bachelor’s degree in music.
Before packing my suitcase the night before, I made a packing list to
make sure I didn’t forget anything. I managed to cross everything off the list
and be at the airport on time. But there was one thing I forgot to write down…
one very important detail that I simply forgot to think about… I am Palestinian!
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| On the rare occasion that Israeli courts challenge the state, they are simply ignored |
Like all Palestinians carrying Israeli citizenship and living under
Israel’s regime of apartheid, I always have a bad feeling about going to the
airport, and this time was no exception. The flu I caught a night before did
not help either. My mother, who drove me to the airport, was really worried
about a military checkpoint on the way that could make me miss my flight, but
we got “lucky” this time.
A colonial military occupation, brutalizing you for so many years, can
really mess up your expectations. Crossing a military roadblock starts giving
you this strange feeling of achievement. Your basic human rights become a
privilege rather than the norm, and that becomes the new norm.
One of the most dangerous aspects about regimes of colonial oppression
is that they strive to occupy the mind of the oppressed, not just their land.
We arrived at the airport, and I was trying to convince my mother not to
wait for me to finish the dehumanizing “security” check like she always does.
While I always love to see her face at a distance, behind the thick glass,
waiving her reassuring hand, I really hate to see her angrily but helplessly
observe the racist Israeli security officials trying to humiliate me just
because of who I am—a Palestinian. I begged her to leave, but she insisted: “I
can’t just leave you in this horrible place. You never know what happens.” She
was right!
My Arabic name on my passport immediately gave away my identity,
inviting their “royal” treatment. When the security officer asked me whether I
spoke Hebrew and I said no, her anger was visible. When she asked me what I was
doing in Amsterdam and I answered that I was studying jazz, she could no longer
contain her racist vibes. How could I so bluntly destroy her bigoted stereotype
of “Arab women”? She told me I had to undergo an intrusive “body search.”
I immediately accused her of racism, of racial profiling and of being
vengeful against me because of who I am and what I do. She shouted back that
she was doing her job. I reminded her that many unspeakable crimes in history
have been perpetrated under that immoral excuse.
She took her revenge by claiming that my laptop did not pass her
security check and therefore cannot go with me on the plane. This is despite
the fact that she asked me to open it and turn it on, which I did successfully.
She said they would send it by mail to my address in Amsterdam. I laughed at
her audacity and objected strongly. I know from my own experience, and from
other Palestinians’ experiences, that leaving your laptop with Ben Gurion
airport security invariably means it will be hacked, damaged or “lost.”
I told her that I cannot travel without my laptop as all my music and
lecture notes are on it and without that I cannot go to any of my classes.
Her supervisor supported her vindictive decision, so I was forced to
miss my flight. I took my laptop and walked out to where my mother was
anxiously waiting. She greeted me with the warmest of hugs and a few tears and
said, “Don’t worry about a thing, we’ll find a solution. I am so proud of you!”
The next day, she drove me to the land crossing with Jordan. After
spending a lovely night with family in Amman, enjoying my great-aunt’s famous
white cheese and spinach pies, I travelled through the welcoming Amman airport
and arrived in Amsterdam safe, with my laptop and with my dignity intact.
As furious as I am at the Israeli security officer’s ugly racism and
vengefulness, I felt slightly bad for her. Despite her best efforts to
humiliate me, I shall go on resisting her state’s racism and apartheid with my
music, and one day I may actually make a difference in my people’s struggle for
liberation. She, however, will continue to search Palestinians’ underwear, to
lie about our laptops not passing security checks, and to be an insignificant
tool of a system of racist oppression.
As I was about to get out of the airport, I raised my voice to make sure
my finale reaches as many people in the airport as possible. “You know what is
very close to Amsterdam? The Hague. One day, you and your leaders will be
prosecuted for crimes at the International Criminal Court there.”
She remained silent and looked down, and I walked out with a smile, my
head held up high, and saw mama’s hand still waiving.
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