Palestinians on the Plane?

by Mahdi Sabbagh

As I enter the gate area in order to board, I am welcomed by the El Al Airlines’ lady standing in front of the entrance. She looks at my boarding pass and Israeli passport and tells me to go towards another lady standing in front of a different line. “It’s for standard security check” she says politely. “I already went through airport security” I respond.

She laughs and says: “This is Israeli security, it’s much better!”. I laugh along and proceed to hand the other lady my papers. The lady smiles and asks: “Where did you fly from?” I reply: “New York. It’s written on the plane ticket you’re holding” “And your final destination is Tel Aviv” “Yes.” She pauses, smiles again, and asks: “Where do you live in Israel?” “I live in Jerusalem”. She pauses again, continues “Where in Jerusalem?” I respond “Beit Hanina, in East Jerusalem”. She flips through my passport, asks me to wait on the side, takes my papers and walks to an area sealed off from the main sitting lounge with movable dividers.

The gate area fills up as more and more people check in and sit around in the waiting area. The lady comes back with my passport and asks me to follow her into the small room. She tells me that they are going to quickly scan my bags. I sit on a chair awkwardly positioned between a table and one of the dividing walls, start reading the wallpaper* magazine I had just bought, waiting for them to finish up. Three El Al staff come towards me and state that they will take my bags and jacket for a security check while one of them will give me a body search. No one had mentioned a body search when I was first told to proceed to the backroom but I play along regardless, and move into a tiny cubicle. The security man starts searching me, my arms, back, legs. He then asks me to take my shirt, shoes and belt off. He runs the cold plastic beeper around my waste and pants. The fake metallic buttons on my jeans make his machine beep. The security man gives it another try but the beeping persists. He tells me to wait, goes outside and comes back with his supervisor: “His trousers are causing a beeping, I think it’s ok”. The supervisor’s dark piercing eyes glare at me and says:

“Well, if it’s beeping, make him take his jeans off!”

The supervisor exits. The security man hesitates, but says: “I am sorry but I’m going to have to ask you to take your pants off.”

I recall friends going through similar experiences in the Tel Aviv airport but I never imagined myself in such a situation and not even in Israel or the Occupied Territories… I was still in Heathrow Airport, London! I stood still not really knowing how to respond to such a command. Should I accept the situation and comply? Is ‘please, take your pants off’ equivalent to ‘can I have your boarding pass please’ in the context of an airport security check? I start unbuttoning my pants and stop at the first button. Tense, light headed and realizing the absurdness of the situation, I look at the security man and say “This is unbelievable, are you seriously asking me to pull my pants down?” He responds very calmly: “This is just my job.” I reply: “But of course this is your job, I don’t see you asking every passenger to do the same.” He doesn’t respond. I bring myself together and think of the flight I have to catch in 30 minutes now. I focus on the systematic physical movement of unbuttoning my jeans; pulling them down for a few seconds and then pulling them back up. The operation goes by in no time. I collect my cloths and proceed into the room where my bags were being scanned. First glimpse towards my bags I realize that they had also gone through a similar experience. When I was told ‘a quick scan’ I expected someone to put my bags through an x-ray machine but instead, a lady was going through every compartment of my bag, taking out clothes, books, drawing pencils, electronics, and what have you, and dumping them into a large container. She had emptied my bag completely while I was being strip-searched.

As I approach to ask what the purpose of this procedure was, I notice the other security lady playing with my Ipod. She sees me and quickly places it down on the pile of things. The supervisor appears again with my coat and informs me that I cannot carry it with me on the plane. He says I have to leave it in my suitcase that I check in New York when I first departed. Curious about why one was not allowed to take a jacket onto an airplane I ask for an explanation. He stares at me, turns around and leaves. After a minute he comes back with my laptop stating that I also have to leave my laptop, camera and cellphone in the checked-in suitcase. I fly internationally very often and am usually aware of the typical procedures, but for a moment I wondered if there was a new law preventing me from taking anything but my clothes? Surely not. There was no way I was going to leave my laptop behind!

“I am sorry but I will not leave my laptop here. My suitecase isn’t even in the terminal yet because of the delay.”

“I’m sorry that’s how it works.”

I try to stay patient knowing that nothing I say will change the stubborn Israeli security supervisor.

“I don’t see you asking any other passenger to leave their electronics or coats behind. I don’t understand why I am going through this procedure and why I can’t keep my computer with me.”

“These are the laws, either you leave it with us and we put it in your suitcase when it arrives or you don’t get on the plane.”Several arguments later, (with the supervisor, the person who turned my bag upside down, and the person who stripped me) we do not reach an argument and the lady sitting at the entrance to the gate calls on the last passengers to board.

My flight leaves in 2 minutes. Do I do what feels right, which is to question the legality of their actions, whether this is just or ethical? Do I confront them individually? Do I ask to see a higher supervisor? Do I leave my belongings in Heathrow airport and board the plane?

I decide to end the humiliation and tell them that I would rather stay behind and catch a later flight with another airline than accept their unjust conditions and leave my belongings with them. With this decision, the questioning ends, they grab my belongings, dump them into my bag, hand it to me and send me off to the terminal. As the supervisor walks me to the exit I decide to give him a piece of my mind: “This system is unbelievably unjust. I am an Israeli citizen going back home! Out of all the Israelis going on that plane, you pick the only Arab one and make him miss his flight!” He doesn’t reply and escorts me to the exit.

I find myself walking away from the gate, towards the terminal, the ‘Departures’ screens with “Tel Aviv Flight Closing” shinning in bright red.

I walk slowly but steadily, no destination in mind. Walking as far away from the El Al staff as possible was the only thing on my mind. As I approach the main terminal, a bitter taste in my mouth, I try to assess what had just happened and realize that I put myself off that plane; that out of basic principle I had decided to end the nightmare and walk away. I had succeeded in that I was able to make a decision for my own and there was nothing they could do about it. Why did they pick me out of the line of people? Are the three staff seeing sense in what they had done? Do they truly think that pulling down my pants, checking the songs on my Ipod and asking me to leave my coat behind contribute to the ‘security’ of the airplane? I decide to keep the thinking for later and to try to catch the next flight.The British Airways staff tell me the ‘misunderstanding with El Al Airways’ was not their fault but mine because I had chosen not to depart and that there’s not much they can do but put me on stand-by for the next British Airways flight to Tel Aviv, in 12 hours!

I felt humiliated and terribly alone. There was no one I could turn to and nothing I could do in order to deal with the situation. What was I supposed to tell the British lady sitting at the counter: “I decided to get off the plane because I’d rather keep the little dignity that was left in me” “I can’t afford to leave half of my belonging behind”. “They wouldn’t let me on the plane because I am Palestinian?”