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Palestinian Kids Move to the Back of the Bus

By Katie Miranda, August 2007

This was no easy task.

West Bank Palestinian residents over the age of 16 are not allowed into Israel, but those under 16 are allowed. In fact, there is no legal way to prevent them from entering because they do not have ID cards yet. But most of these kids will never get to visit Jerusalem or go to the sea because their parents are not allowed to take them.

Having checked with Israel’s Association for Civil Rights, we knew it was permitted to take these kids through the checkpoints into Israel, but we decided to check in with the District Coordination Office (DCO) of the Israeli military just to let them know that we would be doing this and we didn't want any problems. They told us we needed a permit (this is not true). We asked for a permit and were refused. So of course we decided to do it anyway.

We bought food and water for the 45 kids in the first group, arranged for their lunch at a restaurant in Jerusalem, got copies of their birth certificates (proof of their age and proof they are allowed to be in Israel), and reserved a bus. We met the kids at 7am in downtown Hebron.

We knew that if soldiers at any of the checkpoints knew there were West Bank Palestinian kids on the bus, they would stop us and very likely refuse us entry. Earlier in the summer, two busloads of our kids had been forced to wait in the hot sun without water for two hours while the army came up with phony delays. Not wanting a repeat of that nightmare, we chose to use Israeli checkpoint racism to our advantage.

In my experience, if soldiers at a checkpoint see white or Jewish-looking people in the front seat, they will not stop the car to check IDs. This has happened to me countless times. In contrast, people who look Palestinian are automatically stopped, although they may be dark-skinned Jews.
Settler cars zoom through checkpoints with no delays; Palestinians are always stopped and searched.

Now I will prove to you how the apartheid wall is completely useless for keeping suicide bombers out of Israel.

We stuck four white people in the front seat of that bus and drove through the checkpoint without a second glance from the soldiers. All the kids cheered.

See how easy it is to sneak Palestinians into Israel?

The kids were elated to go to the mosque and to play in the water. Most of them had never seen the sea before.

I didn’t see any of them playing with Israeli kids at the beach, but it was good for them to at least be around Israeli kids who weren’t
hostile or violent towards them. The Palestinian adults who ran the Tel Rumeida summer camp made a point of explaining to the
kids the difference between Israelis living in Hebron and Israelis living in Tel Aviv. Fortunately, many Israeli activists came to volunteer in Tel Rumeida, so the kids had already begun learning the difference.

For a longer version of this article, see http://moomin13.livejournal.com/77388.html

Katie Miranda is an ISM-Bay Area volunteer who has been living and working in Palestine for the past year.