Border diplomacy -- with a guitar

Husein Mashni

Having an American passport makes me one of the few people who can

actually go in and out of the Gaza Strip these days.

But it’s not easy. I live in Khan Younis, south of the Abu Holie

checkpoint, which means I have to go through that checkpoint, which

is in the middle of the Gaza Strip, to get to the Erez checkpoint in

the north, where the national border between Israel and the Gaza

Strip is.

Even if you’re the president, when you come to Abu Holie, you sit

and wait with the rest. Usually, hundreds of cars, trucks and buses

wait for hours for the checkpoint to open, so they can pass through

to Gaza City or one of the refugee camps of the north.

Having been blessed recently to go to Spain, I found it actually

takes less time to go from Tel Aviv in Israel to Malaga in Spain

(five hours) than it takes me to go from Khan Younis to Gaza City

(four days).

In terms of distance, the trip between Gaza and Khan Younis takes

only 15 minutes.

Anyway, I was recently stuck at Abu Holie in one of the many

rusting, yellow Mercedes-Benz limousines trying to get to Gaza.

The taxi driver, noticing my guitar case, demanded a song. I

relented after he insisted as only Arabs know how.

I took the guitar and played a humorous rendition of a popular

Arabic song, which I had plagiarized and localized.

It is called “So Ya So Habibi Habaso,” which means “So Ya So, they

put my friend in prison.”

The song was a hit with the stranded group.

Then I did another song, which I plagiarized from church and

localized.

It’s called, “Salaam,” which is Arabic for “Peace,” a word which

is very similar to its Hebrew cousin, shalom.

It, too, was received well. Both songs have been played on local

radio stations here in Gaza.

When I finally got through Abu Holie, I hurried toward the Erez

checkpoint, so I could get into Israel and see my father in his West

Bank village, near Jerusalem.

When I got to Erez, the Palestinian soldiers on the Gaza side, saw

the guitar and demanded a song.

I played “So Ya So,” and they laughed, clapped. One even invited

me to play at his brother’s wedding.

Then, about 100 meters away, the Israeli interrogation process

began. First you wait until the revolving metal doors open. A camera

watches you the whole time. The Israeli soldiers here are all young.

They joke and laugh like 18- and 19-year-olds do. There are guns

pointed at me throughout the interrogations.

I’ve been through it enough times not to flinch. It lasts between

one and two hours. In all the times I’ve been through it, I only had

one panic attack.

When I finally got through the metal detectors and questions, one

of the young Israeli soldiers noticed the guitar and demanded a song.

They all know “Hotel California,” but thankfully, I don’t know how

to play it.

They all know that I’m a Palestinian American and that doesn’t

seem to matter either.

But it may have mattered when I took the guitar out of the case,

and started strumming a popular Israeli love song, “Bano Likha Min

Takhet La Shamayyim,” which means, “We’ve come to this place

underneath the heavens.”

I learned the song from an Israeli ice cream commercial on

television, but it is a very popular song, as well.

The soldiers laughed. “Is good,” they tell me. Since I only know

the first five words, they usually continue it for me.

It doesn’t shorten the interrogation process, but it does lighten

spirits a little.

Recently, during the massive incursion in the northern Gaza Strip,

some American ministers came to help with the church in Gaza. When

they were ready to leave, I went with them from Gaza City to the Erez

checkpoint.

At the time, due to the incursion, you had to make special

arrangements so that the tanks stationed along the roads wouldn’t

shoot at your car.

We made the arrangements, but there was still some shooting around

us when we got to the hill where the tanks were stationed.

Thankfully, no one was hurt.

But as part of the process of getting through, we had to stop the

car in front of one of the tanks for an inspection.

Two young Israeli soldiers popped their heads out of the

state-of-the-art Merkava tank.

The soldier who was manning the machine gun did most of the

talking. In broken English, he asked our names and passports numbers

and such.

I told them I had coordinated with the top Israeli administrator

at Erez to get through.

I even told them his Hebrew name.

“Who is he?” they asked.

“He’s your boss,” I told them.

They laughed.

When they laughed, I felt an opening to tell them, “I play guitar

too.”

They laughed again.

“I know a Hebrew song,” and I sang the five words I know for them:

“Bano likha min takhet la shamayyim.”

The machine gun man kept laughing and the other soldier said, “Is

good. Is good.”

I told them I’d bring them one of my records after I became famous

-- no time soon, I’m sure.

I don’t think it shortened the inspection any but at least we were

all laughing.

They eventually let us through to the dusty, desolate road that

leads to Erez, so my American friends could go home.

As I looked around the dusty road that led from the tank to Erez,

I couldn’t get those words out of my head: “Bano likha min takhet la

shamayyim.”

* HUSEIN MASHNI is a former Daily Pilot education reporter who

became a Christian missionary in the Middle East. His articles appear

in Forum on occasion.