Stuck in Amman: Stateless Travel

It’s been four days I’ve been in Amman and will be two or three more before I can travel to the West Bank. I hadn’t planned to be here this long, but I’m waiting for a DHL delivery from Washington with some travel papers I got from Israel on my last visit two years ago and left behind.

Any person of Palestinian descent living abroad, no matter if he or she has American or any other citizenship, will inevitably think twice about the decision to try and enter the land of his or her ancestors and relatives — the homeland, Palestine — because crossing the border is troublesome.

For me, even as an American-born, shiny blue passport holding American citizen, any trip to the West Bank takes several more steps of planning and worry because the Israelis who control the border look up my name and research my identity thoroughly. They know I’m Palestinian. They know who my grandmother is and what town she’s from, where my family lives now, where I went to school, and my history of visits to Israel and the West Bank. So although I am American, they disregard the passport and treat me as a Palestinian. I’ve heard it spat at me from many an Israeli military border police: “Khere you are not American anymore”

And if I am not-American, that means I am a stateless Palestinian.

Palestinians on US elections – questions and speculation

With just a week left until possibly the most highly anticipated US elections in history, I’ve arrived in Amman, Jordan on my way to the West Bank excited to feel out the reaction there to Senators Obama and McCain and this heated race.

The Palestinian-Israeli issue is always a big one in a US government. But to what degree are people in Palestine paying attention to the transition in the US administration? With the difficulties of daily life – from putting food on the table to Israeli travel restrictions – do Palestinians have any room for concern about elections half a world away? Surely the American government has significant impact on the daily lives of Palestinians and on Israeli policy, and my experience visiting Ramallah over my lifetime leads me to believe that people realize this.