The Dirty Word

Many instances on my past two trips brought a certain word into my mind:

• I am sitting on a bus.  On this bus, there are only Arabs.  If you are not an Arab, you are most likely the employee of an NGO or an aid organization.  I am stopped at a light.  Next to my bus there is a second bus.   This bus is a different type.  It has a different exterior design.  On this bus across from mine there are only Israelis and Jews visiting from abroad.  Arabs do not ride the Israeli buses.  Israelis do not ride the Palestinian buses.  Israeli buses do not stop in Palestinian areas.  Palestinian buses are often stopped by the Israeli police and searched - men are sometimes dragged off without explanation.  I gaze from my window at the other bus, with Orthodox women in their conservative clothes and little boys with their kippas.  Do they ever interact with the subjects of their country’s occupation?
• I am speaking to an Israeli professor at the Mt. Scopus Campus of Hebrew University.  She explains that 20-30% of students are Arab.  Hebrew is their second language.  Classes are taught in Hebrew.  There is no outreach to help Arab students handle the language barrier and the assigned reading in Hebrew.  For most Israelis and Palestinians, university is their first chance to interact with the other side.
• I am in an Arab Israeli city.  Garbage is piled up on the streets.  Smoke rises from dumpsters where garbage is being burned.  There is no garbage collection here.  These are Israeli citizens.   They pay the same taxes as Jewish Israelis.  But in Jewish Israeli neighborhoods, no one is burning garbage.  Sanitation workers come and pick up their garbage.  The streets are clean.
• I am on a highway.  Right next to this highway, there is another running parallel.  I am told that one highway is for Israelis, and the other is for Palestinians.
• I am at a checkpoint.  I’m in a car with an Israeli license plate.  I drive straight through without being stopped, questioned, searched, or detained by the soldiers.  Palestinian vehicles around me are stopped.  Passengers exit, hand over ID cards.  Some are held as their vehicle leaves without them.  Some are kept waiting - an hour, two hours, a day.  My friend Basheer misses an exam.  He is waiting at the checkpoint.  Let go after a few hours, he turns around and goes back home.  His professors are used to this though.