Checkpoint Travel 101 in Israel

Travel Blog  •  Julia Ross  •  05.20.08 | 2:33 PM ET

imageI’ve had an eye-opening tutorial in travel through military checkpoints in the West Bank this month, getting turned away at one for not having the proper documentation, then getting barked at by Israeli soldiers at various others. I came across this surreal sign posted by Israel’s Ministry of Tourism at the checkpoint near Bethlehem. The checkpoint is covered with barbed wire and feels like an armed camp.

Inside, I got lost momentarily in the maze of turnstiles. An Israeli soldier had to direct me to the exit over an intercom. 

At another checkpoint near Ramallah, I sailed through by car with a Palestinian driver and colleague. When I asked if the international NGO logo slapped on the SUV door allowed them to pass through unhassled, my driver just smiled. “They stop us every day. That’s why we asked you to sit up front.”

Photo by Julia Ross.

Tags: Middle East, Israel

Julia Ross is a Washington, DC-based writer and frequent contributor to World Hum. She has lived in China and Taiwan, where she was a Fulbright scholar and Mandarin student. Her writing has appeared in the Washington Post, Time, Christian Science Monitor, Plenty and other publications. Her essay, Six Degrees of Vietnam, was shortlisted for "The Best American Travel Writing 2009."


1 Comment for Checkpoint Travel 101 in Israel

John M. Edwards 05.21.08 | 12:05 AM ET

Hi Julia:

I’ve never been to Israel, but here in New York I keep meeting athletically shaped woman, straight out of a fashion catalog, speaking a strange tongue who look like they could kick my ass.

They are probably saying things like “That goy’s jeans were washed three days ago.”

They treat my card either with arrogant indifference or regard it as if it were a direct invitation to go steeple jumping in the countryside.

With all the coverage in The New York Times, I’m usually careful about what I say about a place I’ve never been, but which is mentioned in the Bible (but, alas, as an unreachable idea probably not of this earth). If Christ really was born there, it seems unlikely we would have heard about the Virgin birth in the wilderness. I think Christ was born in Europe and came down to pacify a riot, with the Romans’ permission.

This might seem, if not blasphemous, at least contrary to what we’ve learned in school. But in my worldwide travels I’ve been introduced to “secret” pagan Christian art with depictions of Christ older than when he was supposedly born. It’s possible that he even arrived by Viking ship.

His miracles were so impressive that 8 years after the end of the millenium we still say Anno Domino, cross ourselves when something goes wrong, and prepare ourselves someday either for the Pearly Gates or the Dungeon Door.

In an Eastern European country which speaks the mirror-image alphabet of the Bulgarian monks Cyril and Methodius I saw an ancient mosaic of a Christ Pantocrator thast seemed impossibly old, as well as a depiction of the devil who looked remarkably similar, except his face was blacked out with charcoal.

Anyway, the ruins at Bethlehem bear closer investigation. Despite what Arthur Ochs Sulzberger forces us to see everyday amid a cloud of bombs and buses, I hear Eilat is a nice beach resort, well worth visiting.

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