at Tel Aviv you're given a number from 2 to 6 denoting your suspect status. mine was 3 so very few questions and no luggage search. N, wearing hijab, was given 6, had her luggage thoroughly searched, was questioned in detail and given two body searches. this, like the checkpoint, is not about security. it's designed to humiliate and make you determined never to go there again. strangely enough it had the opposite effect! another friend who took the next day's flight had been given a 2 and thought he'd sail through. but when they discovered his case contained lots of books they pulled him over. obviously don't like readers...
Friday 30 October 2009
ps: paranoia and photos
we'd been advised not to take any West Bank material through Tel Aviv airport. Israeli authorities don't want foreigners going home with evidence of the way they treat Palestinians. so hastily packaged up literature, films and camera memory card for posting in Jerusalem. expect it to take about 10 days - fingers crossed my photos don't get lost in the mail. will let you know when they arrive and post some on this site.
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Hi Mags,your efforts are commendable and somebody is absolutely correct when commented that you deserved the Noble Peace Prize more than hypocrite International Leaders and Politicians. They are just getting these prestigious Noble things for granted only for their useless, unending and mass destructing Wars in the name of Democracy and Peace. They are using violent means for securing world peace in one place and waging wars and invading peace loving innocent people killing millions of them by their cluster bombs and missiles.
ReplyDeleteThe World can become once again peaceful if genuine peace lovers like you take on the world stage.
For this you can spread the word by spreading links from You Tube and other reality sites such as I have posted on my profile. See them and spread them if you realy want Peace in the whole world.
Although we are waiting for your Photos to arive soon safely with being stopped in between the way by Foes of the Genuine Peace. Do upload them as soon as possible.
May The Almighty, The Merciful and
The Beneficent, have his special Mercies and Blessings upon you in this World and in the Hereafter and upon your entire familyand friends who are helping you in your Noble Deeds.
Peace upon you and all peace loving humans irrespective of caste, colour, religion or nationality. We are all equal servants of the Only One Sustainer and The Lord of the Worlds.
Wassalaamu Alaa Manittaba'a Al-Hudaa.
Ady
Many thanks for your superb blog Maggie which (un?)fortunately coincided with an upsurge in repressive violence in Jerusalem. We look forward to your photos. I see a possible book in all this – expanded in the tranquillity of Exeter with a preface by a noted radical poet (know any?) put out by, say, the Anarchios Press (about time they got serious).
ReplyDeleteWe’ve felt your pain (as the cliché has it) and it’s been bad here too – short days, bad weather and the post strike (I’ve had two rental DVDs marooned on my desk for a fortnight)
Hello Maggie,
ReplyDeleteI've followed your wonderful blog with increasing anger. Hope that you are safely home now. I'll pass it on to my friends in the hope that some will find time to read it. I would like to think that, like throwing a pebble in a pond, the ripples would spread out and change things but I fear that that is just wishful thinking. The Balfour Declaration certainly reads as a sick joke now - except that only Israel is laughing. Much love Chris
No it hasn't really been bad here is Exeter as we don't tend to get stopped and searched at checkpoints when going about our work and daily business. We can quietly visit the Cathedral if we like and it is most unlikely in this day and age that there will be tear gas and rubber bullets flying around inside or out. Hope it stays that way, and that others less fortunate in Palestine and other places overseas (including those in which Britons have interfered in the past) will have their fortunes reversed so that similar calm and freedom is restored to them. It's good that people like you are aware of practical ways in which this might be encouraged to happen, and will actually go ahead and do something about it, risking some personal safety no doubt. I'm glad you are back! Well done Maggie
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