Thread by @_waleedshahid

During a study abroad program, I took a bus from Jordan to Jerusalem alongside 7 (white American) students. When we got to the Israeli border, Israeli border agents told me I was in the wrong line (which was all white people) and pointed to a separate line that had only Arabs.

I told the Israeli border agents that I was with an American study abroad group and that I was an American citizen -- and that I wasn't Arab. My friends affirmed this. The border agents shouted "Wrong line!" and pointed to the Arab line.

The separate line took forever. Once I got there, the Israeli border agent asked me a bunch of questions: Why did I pack so light? What was my grandfather's first and last name? How often do I call relatives in Pakistan? Why didn't I speak Arabic even though my name is Arabic?

Then I was detained for 5 hours in a separate room of Arab/Palestinians (many were carrying giant water containers). Every hour a new border agent would take me aside and ask me the same questions in a hostile manner. They opened my backpack and kept asking why I packed so light.

At every point, it felt like the border agents were trying to get me to doubt my own story of why I was visiting Jerusalem -- like they were trying to get me to break and start to believe in their line of questioning. It was horrible. I was so mad but all I wanted to do was cry.

Eventually, I was called back up to the front and allowed to cross the border. My friends were waiting on the other side extremely worried and angry.

We got to a hostel and walked to the Western Wall. One of my friends on the trip was Jewish and went to pray. He came back and said an Israeli handed him a kippah and said "Welcome home."

"I felt so ashamed when he said that after what happened to you at the border," he told me.

This all routinely happens to Palestinians + Palestinian Americans as we saw with @RashidaTlaib when she wanted to visit her grandmother in the West Bank. No matter how many times I pressed that I was born in the United States -- it did not matter. Two entirely different systems.