Q and the Man with the 'Doodlys'

While walking down the stairs of the University building, Q. stops to listen to the girls' conversation and then decided, even before he is out of earshot, 'I hate her.'
'Why? What did she say?'

He tells me the last sentence he heard: "The Israelis have more honor than the Palestinian Authority."

'Why do you think she said that', comes the thought out response to an extremely delicate situation.

OK, imagine this, he says. You have a stolen car: The Israeli soldier could care less and will let you keep it and do as you wish. The PA will take it and confiscate it to crush it into trash. Of course that girl hates the PA, he continues, because she is seeing this in a way that is harmful to her and is only seeing the small picture.

Q. walks into the café and confidently grabs a menu to translate. After deciding on a pair of white cheese toasts, he settles into his constant one-sided conversation again.

'You know, I'm not allowed into Jerusalem (Sidenote: Not surprising. Most inhabitants of the Occupied Territories are not allowed into Israel without permits, and even then, it is difficult) because I can't get a permit.

The one time he is allowed a permit, it comes via the graces of the American Embassy, which needs to see him to approve his scholarship to go to the United States in a few weeks. Within days, he has a visa to visit Al Quds.

His time frame is from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

With his meeting at the Embassy at 1:00 p.m., Q. decided to leave at 7:30 so he can enter the Al-Aqsa Mosque and pray. At the first checkpoint, he is turned back twice until one of the Israeli soldiers eels a bit sorry for him and calls the Embassy to make sure he ahs permission.

Once he reaches Jerusalem and the second checkpoint, he is almost sent back to the West Bank.

'Can you believe this? They let me past the first checkpoint and then they try to send me back. I have a permit!'

By the time he reaches the Mosque, the two Israeli soldiers pull him aside and do not want him to enter. As they are bickering, a Jewish man, complete with the 'doodly things from his hair' walks right past the three of them and enters with a 'Shalom.'

At this point, the jibne toast is dismissed, and Q. beckons the waiter for the coffee and pulls out his cigarettes. Just moments before, he has proudly proclaimed he was cutting back, but lights up instantly with a guilty expression and explains, ' This conversation is frustrating me.'
After a puff or two, his mind is back on the Mosque.

'It is MY Mosque, you know. Mine! And not some Jewish guy's Mosque. Except, he gets to enter and they get to interrogate me.'

A wild look takes over his face as the conversation turns into a rant. In Hebron, where Isaac, Abraham, and their wives are buried, Palestinians cannot enter on a Saturday and the ehzaan (call to prayer) is not allowed. On the days the Palestinians may enter, the must enter from the back.

'Can you even imagine this? Say this is a Palestinian restaurant (motioning around to the café). Everyone who is not Palestinian enters from the front, while we enter from a small, side door.'
He pulls out a second cigarette with a challenging look pasted across his face. Suddenly, he switches back to Jerusalem and his trip to the United States after he received the visa and the scholarship.

In a split second, he is reminiscing about his weeks in D.C, Chicago, and Madison, with the stories of Jerusalem and Hebron locked up as if they are a part of a different life.

I wonder if this is how he (and everyone else here) copes.