Idiot American Loses His Passport Abroad
A story of some human kindness in Israel/Palestine.
It was the kindest thing strangers ever did for me. In the divided and sometimes violent city of Jerusalem. It happened as a younger version of myself traveled around the ‘Holy Land’- taking a day trip across the concrete wall dividing Israeli controlled Jerusalem from Bethlehem under the Palestinian Authority. At the time locals of every ethnic or political affiliation would always approach me speaking in English. I did not have to say a word. The same holds for most American tourists. Something about the way we carry ourselves is very loud without speaking, and Israelis and Palestinians are experts at reading our demeanor, especially so in the cities flooded by tourists. Years later during graduate school in Haifa (near the border with Lebanon) I achieved a point of familiarity when citizens of the country would approach me in Hebrew. I finally looked like I mostly belonged there- so long as I did not open my mouth to speak broken phrases of beginner’s modern Hebrew.
I was a young dumbass American tourist who viewed everything in Israel/Palestine as ‘exotic’ in the benign ignorance of my personal orientalism. This was my second or third trip to Bethlehem. An American passport is a go-anywhere-passport. Most Americans will never realize the power of their little government issued document. Unlike Palestinians and Israelis- I can pass freely from Israel proper to Palestinian territories and back again with ease. Being braver or poorer than typical American tourists I decided to take a public bus to Bethlehem from Jerusalem for the day. Many tourists take a taxi across the border, which is very expensive. Israelis have yellow license plates that can only travel in Israeli territory and select Israeli controlled roads to settlements. Palestinians have green plates that only allow limited travel in Palestinian territories. Tour buses and a handful of Palestinian taxis have white plates that can travel across the border freely, but such plates do not come easily, and tourists who wish to cross the border without transferring vehicles will have to pay for the privilege. A few public buses also cross the border, but they are stopped for inspection at the checkpoints, and I traveled on this kind of bus. A one-way ticket from Jerusalem to Bethlehem is around 8 Shekels or roughly $2. Israel/Palestine has a segregated bus system, but I use the term ‘segregated’ carefully. As a native of the American South ‘segregation’ brings up all kinds of images of Jim Crow, which is not the kind of segregation I speak of here, nor will I go so far as some lefties and use the term ‘apartheid,’ though there are certainly areas where the term applies. I will not dive into the rabbit hole of de facto and de jure segregation in Israel/Palestine here, but I will mention that there are public buses in Israel that only travel in Israeli territory, and there are Palestinian buses that only travel in the West Bank except for two stations outside the Muslim Quarter in Jerusalem, which cross the border and carry Palestinians or tourists like myself with the proper permits. Many Palestinains have permits to cross the border for work or family, but the number of those permits diminishes with restrictions every year. Palestinians with permits in Israel can and do travel on Israeli buses in Israel. Such mixture is mostly normal though not without incidents of racism or tension after the string of bus bombings during the 2nd Intifada in the early 2000s, which is when Israel began the construction of the wall.
I inadvertently timed my trip from the Muslim Quarter in Jerusalem to Bethlehem immediately after late Friday prayer for Muslims at the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount. The buses were packed with Muslim Palestinians returning to the West Bank from Old City Jerusalem. I found a seat in the very back corner of the bus, but very soon the last passengers were sitting in the aisles. We were in the dry unrelenting heat of August, and the bus was excruciatingly hot and stuffy. Two Palestinian men stood up and unhinged the emergency hatch on the ceiling to let out some air. The driver did not care. I sat next to a Palestinian man a few years older than myself just returning from prayer, and as the only non-Arab on the bus he attempted to start a conversation with me through our language barrier. He was not trying to get anything out of me. Hospitality is simply a hallmark of the culture for both Israelis and Palestinians- as is a lack of filter. You always know exactly what they are thinking about anything no matter how much you do not care to hear it. As a native of genteel Georgia outside Atlanta I felt like I had a superpower in that country- I can be disingenuous. I can say things like “bless your heart” and not mean a damn word. There is something to be said for both forms of culturally constructed manners. My home region in Georgia could use a bit more realness. We are too reserved at times, but ideally we act this way to make the world a slightly more comfortable and polite place- everyone does not need to know your opinions and thoughts all the time. At the same time I respect the inherent honestly of Israel/Palestine. That country has seen and experienced some awful things, and each side has a group of neighbors and opinionated foreigners around the world who think that one or the other has no right to exist, and this harshness has burned some falsity out of them.
Having just come from prayer, the Palestinian man and I spoke about God. Or at least we tried. I knew English, some very basic Hebrew, and a few words and phrases in Arabic. He knew Arabic, some very basic Hebrew, and a few words and phrases in English. Meeting in Hebrew and a few words from our native tongues we identified ourselves as Muslim and Christian respectively, and I acknowledged that he was coming from prayer, and we tried to talk about worship, but this quickly depleted our tenuous linguistic connection. So we resorted to hand gestures and pantomime. My arms opened up to the heavens explaining the greatness of God, and he smiled and did the same and put his hands in prayer, and he mimicked bowing in the limited space of our cramped seats. I think it was the most honest conversation about God I have ever had.
The Palestinian man got off at the first stop on the other side of the wall, and I stayed on for a few kilometers into Bethlehem. I spent the day by myself at the usual holy places, ate shawarma in the city, and got a cappuccino at the “Stars and Bucks” cafe. Not Starbucks. “Stars and Bucks” with a green circular logo clearly ripping off the original. International copyright law does not apply in the Palestinian territories.
In the late afternoon I got back on the Palestinian bus to Jerusalem. Usually the IDF security does not check the main buses going into the West Bank, but they do check them coming out- thoroughly. The bus stops at a checkpoint next to the wall, and all the Palestinians file out of the buses except the very elderly or disabled. A handful of bewildered tourists usually remain on the bus too. Two young Israeli soldiers get on the bus in full body armor with rifles that seem larger than they are and a bomb sniffing dog on a leash. They walk up and down the bus and check permits and papers of those remaining, but if you are clearly a white American like myself they hardly glance at you. Two more guards check the papers of the Palestinians who exited the bus, and they reenter it unless they are unfortunate enough to be detained at the checkpoint for whatever reason.
This time everyone got back on the bus, and the whole affair only took about five minutes. It was a time of relative political calm in Israel/Palestine, and the security forces acted with a sense of detached routine rather than severity and pointed scrutiny, which is overwhelmingly palpable during times of violence. The bus continued through the wall into Jerusalem. I had my passport, which the guards hardly glanced at as a tourist, and I set it down next to me with my bag on this much-less-crowded return trip to Jerusalem.
I exited the bus with a few other Palestinians just outside the Christian Quarter of the Old City. I watched the bus drive away, and suddenly my heart dropped to the bottom of my chest- I had left my passport on the bus. I ran after the bus for a few seconds like a dog chasing a truck, but I stopped after a couple yards. It was useless. I tried to regroup and think of what to do. Presumably the bus would return to the station outside the Muslim Quarter, so I ran there. It is not advisable to run in a panicked manner through Jerusalem. Somehow no police officers or soldiers stopped me. I assume I looked like an idiot American in whatever crappy situation idiot American tourists get themselves into. Out of breath I reached the Arab bus station.
I was too flustered to attempt to use the few words of Arabic I memorized as I spoke with the middle aged chain smoking Palestinian clerk in his unkempt little ticket kiosk at the station. He had a slightly humored grin as I frantically explained that I had just left my passport on a bus- trying to remember the bus number and the name of the stop where I got off.
On the other side of the glass he put his hands up in a calming gesture and said, “My friend, my friend, is okay- let me call the driver. One minute.” He picked up a walkie talkie and began to speak in Arabic.
“Thank you, thank you so much… shukran (thank you),” I said.
He spoke to two or three different people on the walkie talkie, and after about two minutes he said, “My friend, all be alright. The driver have your passport.”
“Oh my God that is great,” I replied. “So the bus is returning here later?”
“No my friend,” he replied, “That was last trip for today, and they stay in Bethlehem.” My heart dropped a little again but not as much as before. “But!” He continued, “they have stopped on other side of Old City. Too much traffic to come here. You meet driver there. You know Lion’s Gate next to Old City?” I replied that I did. “You go quickly to meet driver on road there.”
“Thank you! I honestly cannot thank you enough! Shukran!” He smiled and nodded and I ran off. Again running across Jerusalem I took the slightly longer route outside the Crusader built wall of the Old City. At the time I did not trust myself to navigate the winding stone paved streets and alleys of the Muslim Quarter in the Old City. These days I would.
Out of breath again I reached the other side of the Old City next to the Lion’s Gate AKA St. Stephen’s Gate where the first Christian martyr after Christ Himself was stoned to death- one of eight gates into the old city along with the Dung Gate, the bullet riddled Zion Gate, the Jaffa Gate, the New Gate, the Damascus Gate, Herod’s Gate, the aforementioned Lion’s Gate, and the Golden Gate where Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey on Palm Sunday for Christians (sealed shut by the Ottomans centuries ago). I reached the road by the Lion’s Gate next to the Muslim cemetery on the western side of the Kidron valley across from the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives, which comprises the eastern side of the valley- the dead of two religions still staring each other down in hostility across a little valley for all eternity. What an exceedingly petty contest. Personally, like Diogenes the Cynic of ancient Athens, I could not care less what they do with my body when I die. When I am dead do not deny me the singular luxury of death, which is not caring anymore. Though I do like that a few Christian graves pepper the bottom of the Kidron Valley with the Muslim dead on the west and Jewish dead on the east. The Christian dead rest precariously between the two dominant faith traditions in the region much like Palestinian Christians today.
I ran up to the Palestinian bus parked on the curb on the small Old City perimeter road just below the Lion’s Gate. There were still about a dozen or so passengers on the bus. Let me rephrase that- a Palestinian bus driver and the passengers stopped and waited in place instead of going home to the West Bank simply to help my lost, dumb, American ass. They had zero obligation to help me. Also, consider the fact that a go-anywhere-American-passport is a very valuable document that could fetch a substantial amount of money on the black market. Especially in Palestinian communities where restriction of basic movement and travel are a daily reality for many. I realized all of that at once as I ran up to the driver’s side window of the bus, and the driver reached his hand out the window and handed me my passport. I felt like Adam reaching out to the hand of God on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. I have never bowed to another human being except in that one instant. It simply came out of me. My level of gratitude had to manifest itself physically somehow. I took my passport from his hand and bowed. Then I looked up and said, “Thank you! Thank you! Shukran! Thankyouthankyou!” The driver simply gave a small smile, nodded, and the bus drove away. As it passed a child of about 5-years-old in the window stared at me and waved.
In my home region of the American South we fancy ourselves defenders of the virtue of hospitality. Southern hospitality is supposed to be a thing, but a public bus in my home state of Georgia would never ever stop and wait or even look around the empty seats to find something that a stupid tourist left behind. Tough luck. We may be southern but this is the New South, which is to say the northeast. Or simply America. Tribal and more agrarian areas of the world have a stronger sense of community. I say ‘tribal’ in a neutral sense. The Middle East is tribal. Palestinian Arabs in all their factions are tribal- a fact which Israel has sometimes used to divide and conquer, as did the British during the Mandate period. Israelis in their own divisions and political parties are also tribal. The country has existed since 1948, and they are just another tribe in the region at this point.
My rudimentary sociological analysis aside, there is hospitality in that region, though so many westerners view the country as perpetually violent or hateful. If anything the love and charity there are stronger- because of or in spite of tension and occasional violence and war. Though I believe Israelis and Palestinians are on the whole even more hospitable than the people of Georgia where I was born, there is something to southern hospitality too, which may be why I appreciate it so much in the ‘Holy Land.’ I also see another common characteristic between the South that goes along with our hospitality- there is a dark side to it. We are completely and utterly unforgiving. We will bend over backwards to serve you and treat guests with dignity, but if you push us past a certain point you are dead to us forever. Whole families can carry this un-forgiveness down through the generations, which in some way makes it depressingly easy for me to understand the blood feuds of the Israeli Palestinian conflict. I have relatives who hate one another & have not spoken in decades. They do not even remember what started it or why they hate each other at this point.
Still, I firmly believe that the hated and un-forgiveness of that region and my own are the exception rather than the rule. No matter what you read in the headlines. In both places you will mostly only encounter good and decent people with a strong capacity for charity and hospitality.
As I walked back to the mostly-Jewish area of New City Jerusalem where I was staying I began a habit of checking my pocket for my passport every 15–30 minutes or so. Now I do it involuntarily whenever I am traveling anywhere that requires I carry my passport. As I went up Jaffa Street from the edge of the Old City into the New City a homeless man with some documents in his hands approached me and started asking me questions in Hebrew. It was the first time anyone ever approached me in Hebrew first. Perhaps he was under the influence or maybe he simply was not as perceptive to tourists as most Israelis and Palestinians I had encountered so far. I gathered that he wanted me to help him with the documents in some way- either to read them because he was illiterate or simply to help him understand their legal nuances or some government agency therein. In my broken modern Hebrew I explain that I was a tourist, and I do not really speak much Hebrew at all. He gave an apologetic nod and walked away. A few feet away he flagged down a middle-aged Israeli businessman. From his very fine suit and lack of kippah/yarmulke on his head I assumed he was a business man and not one of the suited Haredi Orthodox Jews, but I could be wrong.
The businessman with his very expensive looking wristwatch led the homeless man to a bench, and they sat down, and the business man began to read or explain the documents to the homeless man. I was glad the homeless man found help, and I continued up Jaffa Street. After responding to a few e-mails in my hostel I realized that I needed a few groceries, so I went back down Jaffa Street to a store. Evening was just beginning, and the street lights would turn on soon. Thinking mostly of my trip to the West Bank and the incident with my passport I had already forgotten about the homeless man & the kindly expensive suit. Then I saw both of them on the bench where I had last seen them almost an hour ago. I stood at a distance so as not to be seen creepily watching him. I watched from less than a block away for about a minute and saw both figures stand up- the homeless man clearly thanking the other and the man in the suit using body language and expressions that clearly indicated he needed no thanks, and both men went on their separate ways.
It was all so simple and necessary. People helping one another under no obligation simply because they were there in that moment and they could. It went against every sensationalized narrative that keeps fearful westerners from traveling to the region. It also went against the narratives that keep so many Israelis and Palestinians from interacting with one another- even less so in the current generation because of the wall. At this point after collectively spending nearly three years of my life in that region I have interacted with more normal Israelis than many Palestinians will in their entire lives and certainly more Israelis than most Palestinians will ever encounter in a normal setting face to face- all thanks to my American passport. It is a sad but important honor that I reluctantly appreciate.
I never lost my passport again. I have since seen many more acts of love and charity in the region as well as toxic hatred and the rumblings of war and rockets overhead, but that day was burned into my memory. I have to believe that the acts of love and charity I have seen will win out in the end, but even if they do not we have to try anyway. I realize too as an outsider that I have no solutions for Israelis and Palestinians- this is their home, and their conflict, and neither are leaving. If you view the region and its politics in a purely macro sense you will become hopeless, and you will burn out. I have seen it happen to many. So as an outsider and designated “expat” (& I understand the colonialist heritage of that term) all I can offer is an on-the-ground-perspective, which is where hopefulness hides. My American passport gives me the privilege of easy access to every side, but I know courageous Israelis and Palestinians who have crossed physical and social borders for the sake of knowing the other side and seeing their humanity- sometimes crossing these borders illegally or at some risk to their own safety. Again, I have to believe those people win in the end, and even if they do not I want to be on their side. You do not need a passport to cross the border into the community of good and decent people.
