To Jerusalem

I was on my way from Amman, Jordan to Jerusalem in order to find two schools that would adopt a supplemental curriculum provided at no cost by an American philanthropist. I travelled by taxi to the border, only to find that I had to reroute north to another border crossing. I was a bit annoyed but I jumped into a taxi and made the hour trip. When I got to the border crossing, I had to wait for about an hour to catch the bus that travelled one mile across the Jordan river to the Israeli crossing. While waiting, I noticed a young, thin man sitting on a bench patiently waiting as well. He appeared to be very polite and modest, and I was wondering if he was an Arab or a Jew. When the bus finally came, we sat across the aisle from each other for the four-minute ride. We didn't talk, but he smiled a lot and I suspected he was a nice guy.

After passing though immigration and customs, I found that I faced an expense taxi ride to Jerusalem. I located a driver that would take me to a nearby town where I could catch a much cheaper bus for the 55 mile trip. As the van began to pull away, the man I had seen on the bus flagged us down and joined us. I said hello and introduced myself. He was very pleasant. I asked him if he knew which bus to catch once we got to town, and he told me he would help me, as he was going to Jerusalem as well. We got to town, transferred to the bus and settled in for the long ride.

Once again, we sat across the aisle from each other in a bus. I asked him why he had been in Jordan, and he smiled and told me that he really hadn't been. By this time, he had put his yamaka back on. He told me that he had been on his way to Amman to visit a factory his firm was working with. He was an engineer specializing in solar energy technology. When he got to the Jordanian immigration, they refused him entry into the country telling him he looked too Jewish, and that he might be in danger. He was wearing a suit and tie, but I didn't see the obvious tell-tale signs, at least until he donned the yamaka. I was taken by the fact that he hadn't been upset by the ordeal, he just took it in stride.

We talked about border politics in general, how hostile the Israelis could be, and how pedantic the Jordanians had been denying him entry for his own safety. But the most fascinating part of the conversation came when he began to talk about life in general in Palestine. He found that Israeli policy was often brutal and unethical, and he didn't understand the underlying animosity. He went on to say that he lamented the fact that no one wanted to talk about the issues. He knew others felt the same way, but the only dissent he ever heard was from outside the country. He told me he knew there must be Palestinians who were also critical of their own government, but he never had the chance to talk to any of them either. It was just the way things were, and it made me sad to think that an intelligent and sensitive human being like this had no peer group to share these thoughts with, no way to create a meaningful dialogue that could be the impetus of change. I have always heard people talk cynically about the hopelessness of the conflict, but this was the first time I felt it. And I felt sorry for him.

He got off a stop early to help me find a taxi to the old city, and we only had a few seconds to say goodbye, as there was a taxi waiting. We shook hands and I marvelled at his kind smile, regaining a bit of the hope I had lost in the last hour and a half.