About 20yrs ago, I had a very different experience. While trying to leave Israel my traveling companion and I were detained and repeatedly questioned for 24 hours. The crossing by bus from Jordan into Israel was uneventful, however.
While detained, my journal was photocopied (including the contact information of a friend in Egypt who had only recently been released from prison (he was sent to prison because of his poetry), my 35mm camera was destroyed and the film exposed (but I didn't get it back to find this out until nearly a year later), some of our belongings were never returned, and they did not release our luggage to our next destination (Italy)-- we spent days in the airport in Rome before we finally found out that Israeli security had held our bags. When we finally got our backpacks, the Israelis had poured all the liquids-- shampoo, contact lens solution, etc. over everything inside).
I spoke with a Palestinian businessman while being detained who told me this treatment is the norm for him when he travels, "They are trying to humiliate you. Don't let them see that it is bothering you. It will only make it worse." (they were metal detecting my underwear at the time of this conversation).
The thing the Israelis obsessed the most about during the interrogations (so, I assume it was what made us suspicious after the initial cursory search of our things) was that we had US passports, but our guidebooks for the Middle East and North Africa were all in French (we left on this trip from Paris).
The rest of the middle east was truly amazing! Beautiful people!
While detained, my journal was photocopied (including the contact information of a friend in Egypt who had only recently been released from prison (he was sent to prison because of his poetry), my 35mm camera was destroyed and the film exposed (but I didn't get it back to find this out until nearly a year later), some of our belongings were never returned, and they did not release our luggage to our next destination (Italy)-- we spent days in the airport in Rome before we finally found out that Israeli security had held our bags. When we finally got our backpacks, the Israelis had poured all the liquids-- shampoo, contact lens solution, etc. over everything inside).
I spoke with a Palestinian businessman while being detained who told me this treatment is the norm for him when he travels, "They are trying to humiliate you. Don't let them see that it is bothering you. It will only make it worse." (they were metal detecting my underwear at the time of this conversation).
The thing the Israelis obsessed the most about during the interrogations (so, I assume it was what made us suspicious after the initial cursory search of our things) was that we had US passports, but our guidebooks for the Middle East and North Africa were all in French (we left on this trip from Paris).
The rest of the middle east was truly amazing! Beautiful people!