In Jerusalem, we lived in an apartment overlooking the Old City. On a clear day, the view stretched from the Dome of the Rock to windswept desert. Eerie in its brilliance, it was the sort of view that justified an occasional tip of whiskey into your coffee in the morning.
To the backdrop of the Muezzin’s call, I’d walk our dog, Sunny, on the Haas Promenade, which sits squarely between Palestinian and Israeli neighborhoods. In a city without a single uncontested stone, the Haas Promenade is one place that—despite the name—neither side can completely claim.
A park where Sunny and I were just as likely to encounter a Palestinian family picnicking as an Israeli youth group hosting a field day. Either way, we were big hits. Sunny lapped up attention from the kids with her Labrador’s disposition and Rottweiler’s build, while I earned grins with my butchered, but enthusiastic greetings in Hebrew and Arabic. Our expatriate bubble shielded us from the Israeli-Palestinian tension, but didn’t obscure it; the same faces that smiled in our direction scorned each other as if national injuries had been inflicted yesterday.
At my most sanguine, I liked to think of us a human-canine version of hummus—equally loved by both Palestinians and Israelis. But, honestly, the relationships I formed on the promenade were shorn of all but the barest of social pleasantries—most aspects of these people’s personalities were completely rooted in my imagination. For all I knew the rapid-fire Arabic and Hebrew they exchanged in Sunny and my wake could have been, “Well, there goes that goofy black American and his slobbering mutt again.”
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I discovered that while I might not know these performers, I did know all the parts in their dance..
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It is in this way that I knew—but didn’t really know—the Palestinian boys that I watched a group of Israeli Border Police line up against the pavilion one autumn evening. Sure, I’d created narratives in my head for the teenage crew that greeted Sunny and me by name between puffs of their shi-sha water pipe. The same as I’d done for the Border Police, with whom I was on nodding terms. But the truth is I didn’t really know either group. But watching the interaction play out through my expatriate bubble, I discovered that while I might not know these performers, I did know all the parts in their dance.
As a Marine non-commissioned officer—an armed representative of my government—I’d frisked prisoners at brigs and ‘walk-ins’ at embassies. And as a black man who grew up in the United States, I’d submitted to this indignity more than a few times myself. I know what if feels like to be treated like a non-citizen, a ward of the state, a readily arrestable person.
With expressions carved from stone, the cops motioned with their weapons for the four boys to flatten their palms against the pavilion and spread their legs. Two of the olive garbed officers stepped back—automatic weapons at the low ready, fingers straight and off the triggers—to cover their colleague who would perform the frisk.
There’s a universality to this dance. You learn it over time.
The cops calibrate their gestures and facial expressions to remind the boys of their disposability. Meanwhile the boys affect demeanors that imply no sudden moves. Thus a fraught consensus is reached between the armed representatives of the state and the wards of it.
Patting someone down is an exercise of physical dominance, familiar to anyone who has practiced a martial art. The suspect’s legs should be spread a bit more than shoulder length apart, so that he’s slightly off balance. Even if his legs are spread wide enough initially, give his heels a nudge with your boots anyway—this helps set the tone. Place your ‘strong leg’ so that your knee is just below the suspect’s crotch. Grasp his shirt at the nape of the neck and stiffen your arm into a solid brace.
This reminds the suspect that this interaction is already physical, the question now is only one of degree. Release the suspect’s shirt and begin with the chest. Now on to the sleeves, working your way down the back (be sure to get the small of the back), around the belt loops, and finally down each leg. Depending on the suspect’s attitude to this point, a little flick to the testicles might also be warranted. There are few moments quite so enlightening in a young man’s life as a smack to the balls from a representative of state.
I use the word ‘suspect’ to describe a readily arrestable person.
In some countries this is everybody. In others, it’s certain ethnicities and classes. If it’s an inherited condition, parents prepare their children for it. My father’s advice to, “be tough, but not too tough,” was his way of reminding his sons that only one side truly has room to improvise in this dance.
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In places where social factors can alter one’s readily arrestable status, mistakes happen.
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Working for the UN Department of Safety and Security a big part of my job was liaison with host government security forces. From the North Caucasus to sub-Saharan Africa to the Middle East, I have never worked in a country in which the police are under any illusions about who is a readily arrestable and who is not. In places where social factors can alter one’s readily arrestable status, mistakes happen. These mistakes rarely disrupt the system itself.
So, yes, I understood both sides of the power equation that Sunny and I watched unfold that evening. It’s a delicate dance and, happily, in this instance no one missed a step.
With Trump’s Jerusalem announcement, I find myself being asked about the city quite a bit lately. Previously, I played it safe when responding to this question and simply described Jerusalem as ‘heavy.’ When feeling clever, I would call Jerusalem less a city and more an archaeological site that prompts horrible behavior.
I never mentioned how living in proximity to so much naked injustice wears on your soul.
Or how familiar it all felt—those lives of the dispossessed and dispensable. For a people whose existence is made up a series of indignities, Trump’s Jerusalem announcement makes talking peace feel like the crime. As James Baldwin put it: “The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose.” That guy’s a different dance partner.
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