Encountering Ignorance

Today I was stopped while walking home in Kafar Qara by Israeli police. A van full of officers, I think six in all, pulled over and stopped me, asking for my passport. When they found I didn't speak Hebrew, out crawled an officer who cheerfully jumped out on the curb and pronounced he was American, too. As they all looked on, he asked me for my ID, examined my Minnesota driver's license, and started to ask me questions. Why am I around these Arabs? Why would I want to live in a place like this? Don't I want to live somewhere nice instead of here? Did someone make you come here - are you sure you're okay? Aren't you afraid to live around Arabs? A series of insulting questions. Ending with almost flirtatious last words and a provocative smile on his face: "we were surprised to see someone like you in a place like this."

And with that, they drove away. As I continued my walk home, I was surprised to feel heat rising in my face and the sting of tears in my eyes. And I find myself wondering why these incidents pinch me with a sharp pain, and leave me feeling so alone.

I guess my humiliation, or despair, is both personal and political. Politically, encountering the attitudes of ignorant assholes always leaves me angry and depressed. I see how their attitudes make the racism and oppression of Arabs possible in this country, and how it fuels the policies of the Israeli government. It also fills me with indignation and makes me feel protective of my Arab friends, my family here in Kafar Qara.... knowing that the humiliations and discrimination that they face is far worse than anything I've ever experienced.

Personally, nothing makes me feel more alone than these encounters. When I meet a fellow American, the first in weeks, and a van full of other supposed 'white' Israelis with European heritage, with whom I'm supposed to share a common culture. And yet with a few questions they deride my decisions, my life. They insult my choices with smiles on their faces, and share knowing grins as they insult all the friends that I have here. They assume that because I'm a white American, I'm in on the joke. I 'get' it - and I'll understand their insulting manners and their stupid humor. It makes me ashamed of my country sometimes. And I wish I could apologize, or change, all the pain that American policies and ignorance have brought to the Middle East.

When I am back in America, it's not as though all Americans are the same. But I encounter different levels of the same ignorance and stupidity, and I'm exhausted by the feeling of displacement that it brings me. I am not Arab, I am American. But I find myself choosing sides, and feeling alienated from the culture that I was born into. And as I am forced to think about returning to the States in a couple months, I am already tired thinking of all the stupid questions and attitudes that I will encounter.

I like to hope that my country is changing - I have to believe that with new leadership, and better education, people will finally be able to recognize injustice in Palestine and other places in the world. And I have to figure out how I can take part in this change; I guess that's the other lesson of the day, to take these emotions and fuel them into action. And not let the bastards get you down.