Flying to Israel has to be different than flying anywhere else in the world. People who travel a bit learn to put up with the tiny invasions of our privacy and the nonsense which seemingly has no logic on the surface which we tolerate on a daily basis. Unless you live in a cave, the average person understands these precautions and we gradually learn to accept them as normal, even though they should not be necessary in a perfect world.

This is why the sign on the left did not surprise me when i saw it at Newark International. Passengers on flights to Israel have to go through a second screening process before entering the gate area. The entire departure gate is cordoned off and all carry-ons are searched for a second time. Obviously, this is redundant since you've already been through one security screening, but I assume that either the airport, the airline, the Israeli government, or all three deem this as a necessary intrusion into the passengers' lives.

This brings up the very real subject of security which the Israeli's (for obvious reasons) are incredibly interested in. The lines at the passport control are quite long and it takes some time to be screened. Noone smiles. My passport and a piece of paper in Hebrew were stamped by the clerk before I proceeded to baggage claim which is 10 feet away. This is where I immediately surrendered the stamped paper I had just received a few second earlier. Next, I have to get my bags and go through customs. I was bringing some parts with me for my customer's machine which were immediately confiscated. I was given another piece of paper (again in Hebrew) with a telephone number my customer had to call to retrieve the parts. Ostensibly, this was done for a security check to ensure that the machine parts could not be used to make a bomb or anything similar. Now, to be fair, what I was carrying was a heavy, metal wheel which we use in our equipment. If I were to throw it like a frisbee and it were to hit someone in the head, I imagine it would probably do them some injury. Otherwise, I'm not 100% certain of the security risk involved. Unless you were to melt down the steel to make an explosive shell, I don't see any way these parts could be misconstrued as a weapon.

According to my customers who are Palestinians, they believe the Israeli's are lying and that it will take over a month to get these parts out of customs. They will not be shipped to the address in the West Bank. Someone has to go and retrieve them from the airport. Of course, some of the workers here are allowed to travel inside Israel and some may not. This poses obvious difficulties. At any rate, I was assured that the parts I brought with me would not be available for me to use which is very disconcerting. It takes away half of the reason I came here in the first place.

Traveling through Israel on the highway is equally interesting. My Palestinian hosts are very eager that foreigners understand their point of view and are quick to bring up the subject of politics. As I try to do in this blog, I make every attempt at being polite and neutral which seems to be appreciated. I get the feeling that they're not trying to convince me of anything so much as they just appreciate having someone give them a sympathetic ear. And to be fair, many of their grievances are understood and legitimate. The Israeli checkpoints seem to be everywhere and they open and close at random times. This made it impossible for our driver to determine how long the trip from the airport would take since he had no idea where he would be able to cross the border to the West Bank. (Alas, we found success on our third checkpoint) I would love to have photographed one of these checkpoints and post it here, but I'm not sure how the guards would have reacted. The better angels of my nature advised me not to and I have followed their counsel. According to my hosts, the 30 mile trip from Ramallah to Nablus can take over 3 hours since there is an Israeli checkpoint which bisect the highway, even though both cities are located well within the West Bank. I genuinely don't see how human beings can live like this.

I'm not passing judgement here. I do not doubt the Israeli's security concerns for a minute and I'm sure that someone much wiser than myself on these matters sees the need for these measures. I'm simply saying that I am capable of feeling the frustration that both sides must feel since I have now experienced a bit of it myself. From my short stay, I have already concluded that it must be very difficult to do business in this environment. In short, you have a group of people sacrificing their freedoms in order to secure their freedoms. To a degree, the Catch-22 of it all is more pitiful than ironic. When you see the short distances between Palestinian and Israeli settlements, you quickly realize how very real this conflict is and why there are barbed wire fences between them. I simply don't see how this system can continue in perpetuity without one or both sides eventually blowing a gasket. Israel/Palestine is truly a beautiful country and it looks like it would be a wonderful place to live and raise a family; if and only if these people can learn to live together. And, to be blunt, from what I've seen so far it doesn't look like they have much of an alternative outside of getting along with each other.