was i targeted for refusing to get out of the palestinian line at the allenby bridge?

Pamela Olson, commenting on Mondoweiss, seems to think so, and I think I agree.

I've thought a lot about the initial interaction with Israeli security at the Allenby Bridge, the first passport check that set off the whole chain of events, particularly because it was my first meeting with Skinny Jeans, the woman who became my primary interrogator. Maybe I'm reading too much into little moments, but damn, I couldn't have written a better character introduction. The way she popped up right by my side, just minutes after I'd relented and gone over to the "tourist" line, meant that it's very possible she watched the whole interaction between me and the soldier who tried to pull me out of line. She might have been standing there the whole time and I didn't notice her because I was busy feeling so horrible about being forced back into my place of privilege in the tourist line. Actually at that exact moment I was concentrating most of my energy on not crying over how unjust and dehumanizing the whole border system is. Sympathy with Palestinians!!! I bet she could smell that shit like a bloodhound. I can almost imagine her muttering: "Oh, you want to go where your Palestinian friends go? We can arrange that."

Of course there is no way of knowing for sure if my being singled out was an act of random terror, blanket young-person profiling, or targeted cruelty. But knowing what I know of the IOF, I tend to lean toward "targeted cruelty." Was everything that happened the rest of the day just punishment for trying to stay with my newly-made Palestinian friends in the line they had to wait in? I wouldn't put it past them. Not when the punishment for holding a Turkish flag at a Flotilla protest is a crippling and potentially fatal injury. Not after the targeted destruction I saw in Gaza, the attacks on schools, hospitals, the main UN food warehouse, attacks that were unmistakably completely intentional.

One reason this explanation feels likely is that it fits with the Israeli M.O. of disproportionate response. Ten seconds of disobedience, unsuccessful and over something that's really purely symbolic? Five hours' harassment for you! Yup, that feels about disproportionate enough.

Pamela Olson makes a very good argument that the border is not the best place to be noncompliant, because they have a lot of power there. And this is the strategy I followed when I was traveling with other people who could be put at risk by my belligerent tendencies. But on my own, sometimes I just can't help it. I also think, they're the occupying power. They have a lot of power everywhere. And as the occupying power, they'll always set things up so that the spaces where you have direct contact with them are places where they're strong and you're weak. Borders, checkpoints, home invasions, patrolling soldiers--they're all just various choke points of the occupation. So if the border is not the space to be noncompliant, where is?

I realize there's another reason I like the targeted-response explanation over randomness. In a weird way, it puts the agency back in my hands. They're responding to me. They might appear to have all the power, but secretly I'm controlling the action. I did something to provoke them and they have to respond. And yes, I'm aware the consequences could have included deportation. But the idea that one minuscule act of noncompliance could bring this whole enormous system of repression lumbering into action--three interrogators, five hours of questioning, who knows how much energy and resources--is kind of funny, and also kind of empowering. The fact that the tiniest acts of resistance provoke such an insane response ultimately betrays their weakness and their fear of being challenged in any way.

Of course the point of disproportionate response is to terrify; to make the price for the smallest act of resistance so appallingly high that no one will dare challenge them. So it follows that the only way to defeat that repressive strategy is to keep resisting anyway, no matter what the price. Easier said than done, I know. Don't get me wrong--I know just how high the price can get. But that's the only way.