10 tips for crossing Israeli borders
1. Be white. In America we at least attempt to be discreet when it comes to racial profiling. In Israel, it is overt and unapologetic. If at all possible, be or at least look Caucasian.
2. Don’t have anything Araby-sounding in your name or your family. You may look white as a lily, but if your last name is Rashid, be prepared for a long wait (hopefully not more than an hour, especially if you have an American accent and don’t claim to be visiting the West Bank or Gaza). Even I often get asked, “What is your father’s name?” “Robert,” I answer. “What is your grandfather’s name?” “Melvin.” So far they haven’t asked me for my great-grandfather’s name, but if they ever do, I will reply, “Ibrahim Yusif Mohammad Abdul Aziz bin Laden… D’oh!”
3. Have a clean passport. Any evidence in your passport of travel to Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran… you get the idea. If you’ve been to a country that’s not friendly to Israel, they will not be friendly to you. They’ll probably let you through, but rarely in under an hour or four.
4. Dress nicely. Even if you’re white, have nothing Arab-ish in your name, and haven’t visited any Axis of Evil countries, if you look like a raggedy activist, you may get pulled aside.
5. Act confident. Don’t say “Shalom!” with a big friendly smile or look nervous. They respect people more if they are respectful but confident — if they treat the guards as equals (with guns). They’re less likely to pounce on you if you don’t look like a scared, grinning bunny rabbit. Remember, at the end of the day, they’re just kids, and you are an adult.
6. Act clueless. You don’t know any Arabs, you don’t know any Arabic, you don’t know if it’s Ramadan, you don’t know how to dress in Arabic countries, you’re not sure what the West Bank is (if they ask), and there’s certainly no such thing as ‘East’ Jerusalem! Needless to say, don’t have any keffiyas or Hezbollah flags, or even a Ramallah Bravo Supermarket card, in your luggage.
7. Keep the internet clean. If you have a Facebook page with lots of Palestine links, change your privacy settings to maximum and change your picture to someone who’s clearly not you. If you have a website with Palestine stuff on it that can easily be changed, change it. Put someone else’s picture on it. Make the front page all about wildflowers. If you’ve written or published things in several places that can’t be easily changed — well, just hope they don’t Google you, as they have Googled several other people and rejected or questioned them based on what they found. (If you follow all the other steps, they probably won’t Google you.)
8. Lie like a bad rug. Especially if they have no easy way to verify what you’re saying. Sometimes honesty is the best policy, but this is usually not the case at Israeli borders. If you believe it is your right to be in Palestine, don’t make a stand at the border and demand your rights. There are times and places for this; the Israeli border is not one of them. They have all the power, they don’t understand or care about your opinions at all, and there’s no media. Just quietly slip in and go about your life. Otherwise you’re giving eighteen-year-old Russian girls a lot more power than they deserve or know how to handle
I always lie, and I advise other people to lie, but most people haven’t been through as many Israeli borders as I have and aren’t used to lying to authority figures. People tend to believe the Israelis have more knowledge and power than they actually do, which de facto allows them to have more knowledge and power than they actually do. Don’t fall for it.
