Image from Chris Marker's apocalyptic film masterpiece "The Pier"

My friend H is arriving from Sweden for a conference in Jerusalem. Though Palestinian by roots and Arab by name, H is a Swedish national and a proud subject to the three crowns. The conference deals with world history and its effects on the region. It features a three day seminar at the Yad Vashem Holocaust history institute. H chose to arrive a few days earlier and enjoy our mild winter. I’ve known her for years through Swedish friends and offered to put her up.

Last night, before going to sleep, Itka and I made a bed for her on the couch and stocked the kitchen with breakfast ingridiants including whole wheat crackers (Swedes love crackers), and coffee with cardemum (No Arab making a homecoming to the middle East can pass on some of that). H was due to land last night at 2:30. At 3:00 she texted to let us know that she has arrived and is kept at the “Arab room in Ben-Gurion”.

It is now 10:00 in the morning, and nothing has changed since. H’s bed remained unslept-in. The Security staff let her keep her mobile phone and I get occasional updates:

Questioned for 1 hour. Now back to Arab room, brought out my counter attack: hula hooping.

That was sent at 5:16 AM.

two hours later she got tired of hula hooping and lost some of her good faith:

Ok. Questioning nr 2 over. Another 20 minutes. Should I be freaked?

I told her not to freak, but to try and keep her hula hoop spirit, tried to calm her down with talk of the breakfast and bath awaiting her (not to mention sleep). I even used the best of my awful sense of humor to invent jokes: How many Ben-Gurion airport security people does it take to change a light bulb? Two, one to withhold your passport and the other to keep you there till the sun’s out and there’s no longer need for a light bulb.

The sun may have come out, but this day is darker than the one before. They’re growing gradually darker and darker. H had visited this country several times in the past. She never had to go through such hell. She’s carrying a letter from the head of Yad Vashem affirming her identity and intentions. It does her no good, not with a name like hers and a grandfather who was expelled from Safed in 1948.

In one of H’s text messages described the interrogation concerning her grandfather:

“When did your grandfather move from here?”

“He didn’t move, he was expelled, in 1948”

“Why?”

“Eeeeh, There was a war. I don’t know how much time you have, but I could tell you about it if you want.”

H’s interrogators had plenty of time, though it isn’t clear what they spent it on. They haven’t, for example, called me to find out whether her Israeli friend was real and what he could tell about her. This isn’t even the overly cautious Israel we’ve learned to know and understand. This is Israel 2010, the nation that refused entry to Professor Noam Chomsky and to Spain’s most famous circus clown.

Everyone is suspect, and not neccesarily of terrorism (the clown and Chomsky are certainly no terrorists) but of dissent. Is it any wonder then that as the hours stretch our humor is becoming darker? I suggested to H that the hours she spends at the airport’s windowless section should be deducted from the time her group spends at Yad Vashem. “Punitive measures” I wrote.

Yes, this is how Israel’s regime loses its sympathy, among Israelis and visitors alike. By losing its mind, Israel is losing its friends. I for one, am losing my guest. She just texted:

Yuval, would you be terribly offended if I came to t.a. tomorrow instead? Does not feel right being in Israel right after this. My heart is aching for familiarity.

What can I do? I sigh and write her that I completely understand, then surf to some news pages and read the morning healines: “Shin Bet demands of cellphone providers to create infrastructure for spying on users”. “Galilee town publishes criteria for new residents that excludes Arabs.” I’m not quite sure what the future holds in store, but I wouldn’t make a bed for it in advance.

( Update: H was freed at 10:32 AM, following 8 hours in airport custody.)