April 30, 2007 3:47

Crossing Over Jordan

It's never easy entering fortress Israel from the Arab hinterlands. My trip on Saturday from Beirut to Jerusalem -- which in some perfect, peaceful world would be a quick joy ride on a direct highway -- took 14 hours of delayed airline flights and expensive taxis up and down the Jordan Valley in search of an open border crossing.

The Israeli border agent at the Sheik Hussein bridge freaked when she saw the stamps on my passport, many of which are from countries that don't recognize or are at war with Israel. Iraq? Syria? Lebanon? "Oh my God!" repeated the girl, who couldn't have been much older than 18. She then began a battery of detailed questions concerning my family and professional history. I decided not to mention that one of the family names on my father's side is Adolf.

But perhaps even harder is the psychological shift. Israel is a constant presence and obsession in the Middle East -- the 800-pound gorilla in the room that everyone talks about but almost never to. That's in part because most of what we see is the business-end of the Israeli Defense Force, not exactly Zionism with a human face. I spent the entirety of the war in Lebanon last summer without ever seeing a single Israeli solider, tank or aircraft. I just saw the bombs explode.

So covering the other side of the Jordan river while Tim McGirk is away on vacation feels like the fulfillment of an unrequited fascination. My instant impression -- as a native New Yorker -- is one of gut-level familiarity, like I'm in Brooklyn on the Med. And as a wayward member of one of the three Abrahamic religions, Jerusalem has it's own spiritual claim on me too.

But this is the modern Middle East, so I have certain expectations about what my welcome here will be like. Namely that most people whom I meet, with whom I'll work, and whom I'll interview, will consider that neutrality is not an option and will subtly or overtly try to win me to their side. And that given where I live and what I do, it will be hard to convince them that I haven't already chosen. Harder still that I don't want to choose.

--Andrew Lee Butters/Jerusalem