CHAPTER 1

TRAVEL IS A STATE OF MIND

THE FIRST TRIP you take feels the farthest.

When I was 18 years old, I had never traveled to a country outside the Middle East. I only spoke Arabic and some broken English. But despite my limited exposure to the world, I was confident in my knowledge of it. One day, however, I took what felt like the longest journey of my life: I traveled across town to study Hebrew in West Jerusalem.

I had visited the western side of Jerusalem before, but only as a dishwasher at an Israeli café. At the café, I didn’t speak Hebrew, and no one really tried to speak to me. I didn’t have any meaningful interactions with Israelis and never felt like I was treated as an equal.

For the Israelis, I was the Arab who washed the dishes, and that was as far as our relationship went. I worked and went home. I was just hoping to save money to buy a computer. But the job left me angry, convinced that I had nothing in common with Israelis.

When I started studying Hebrew, though, that trip from the east to the west of the city became more meaningful. It forced me to explore my own life through the other side. I remember one of the first days walking to my Hebrew class, when sounds of sirens suddenly cut across the skies.

The sirens—which you can hear across Israel on Holocaust Day and Memorial Day (for remembering Israelis killed in the Arab-Israeli conflicts)—caught me off guard. Suddenly, the crowds on Ben Yehuda Street stopped walking and stood still. This was typical for a moment of silence in Israel, but I had no knowledge of it.

I freaked out. I tried to ask people on the street what was going on, but they refused to talk—because they’re not supposed to. I was always very into sci-fi books, so my brain went in bizarre directions, scrambling to find an explanation for their odd behavior. Were they being controlled by aliens? Were they robots?

I was less than a 20-minute walk from my house, and I felt like I had been dropped into a completely foreign environment and culture. Later, my Hebrew teacher took the time to explain these moments in which I had felt out of place. In retrospect, I wonder: What had all these Israelis thought, seeing me run around instead of standing still to commemorate the Holocaust? Did they think I was purposely being disrespectful? How much fear and hatred exist between our communities due to ignorance and fear?

I was fortunate in that the Hebrew class helped me overcome my fear and acclimate to this new and strange habitat down the street from me. I was the only Palestinian in the class, and it was the first time I had had any real interactions with Jews and Israelis as an equal. I was just another student in the classroom, and we all studied together. For the first time, I was learning about their culture and history. Our teacher had us listen to each other’s music and discuss movies and television.

Although the class was just across town, going to and from it was an act of traveling, and it profoundly transformed me. Before, I had only seen Israelis as the ones who had killed my brother and shot at me on my way to school. I had never met everyday Israelis, who were just everyday people, living their lives just like me. And this journey occurred just a few minutes from my home. I faced my own ignorance—for example, I learned that not all Jews are Israelis and not all Israelis are Jews. I realized how little I knew, and I was excited to explore this new world.

Despite being born with no passport or citizenship, I’ve now traveled to more than 60 countries. As a cultural educator and peacemaker, I’ve worked in conflict zones and negotiated between enemy groups as part of my work at the Center for World Religions, Diplomacy, and Conflict Resolution in Arlington, Virginia. I’ve worked in Afghanistan with the Shia and Sunni communities, in Northern Ireland with Protestants and Catholics, and in South America with indigenous communities. I’ve established a socially responsible tour company (MEJDI Tours), a social enterprise that partners with local organizations to develop sustainable community tourism. And I’ve traveled around the world speaking and doing projects as a National Geographic Explorer and speaker for National Geographic Learning. But no trip has been as difficult as that first trip just down the street.

We can all experience self-transformation by traveling in our own neighborhoods. Travel is not about distance; sometimes it only requires walking across the street and learning about the people who live beside you. Perhaps this means visiting a neighbor who has different views or who speaks a different language. In Fairfax, Virginia (where I spend half of my year), 39.5 percent of residents speak a non-English language, and 14.4 percent are not US citizens; 50.6 percent are white, 19.3 percent are Asians, and 16.2 percent are Hispanic or Latino.¹

Fairfax is not unique—such diversity exists in many cities around the world—but despite this diversity, there’s a pervasive tendency toward insularity in our lives. We tend to stick to familiar social circles, spending time with those who look, think, or worship as we do. We’ll travel and take photos of a secluded beach in Thailand (and post the photos on our social media to evoke the jealousy of friends, coworkers, and strangers) but come home without having spent any time with or learned about the lives of the Thai and Lao peoples. Even in our own neighborhoods, how much do we know about the stories and histories of our own communities? In other words, travel can begin at home, with a change of mind-set: a move from insularity and routine to a curiosity about the people around us.

From Fear to Transformation

When I was growing up, the barriers to meeting Israelis were complex, and the Israeli military occupation and the decades-long conflict dominated my views concerning the other half of the city.

For a Palestinian, even the simple act of driving could result in a life-threatening situation. One of my earliest memories was driving from my grandmother’s house back to our family home in Bethany—at most a 10-minute drive—and running into an Israeli checkpoint.

Our car was pulled over by the army. The soldiers asked all of us to exit the vehicle. We obeyed, and they began searching all the men and boys—patting us down one by one. My middle brother, Fawzi, was stubborn when he was a teenager. And on this day, his stubbornness and the presence of an Israeli soldier was a bad combination.

One of the soldiers asked my brother to spread his legs. He complied. But the soldier shouted that it wasn’t enough and kicked my brother between the legs to spread them farther apart. Fawzi got angry and gave the soldier a shove. In a split second, the soldier lifted his gun and pointed it at my brother, ready to shoot. As we shouted and cried, my father, along with the other soldiers, intervened to try to deescalate the situation.

My father demanded that my brother quiet down and behave. But Fawzi, consumed in his fury, wanted to fight. “He [the soldier] kicked me in my legs!” Fawzi shouted. My father replied, “Yeah, but he has a gun. He can shoot you.”

I was terrified. This was my first real encounter with the Israeli Army. But cooler heads prevailed, and after additional security checks, we were allowed to pile back into the car and continue on our way. I remember my father’s fury at Fawzi as we drove on to Bethany. My father is from an older generation; his cousin was killed during the Six-Day War, and in order to survive, he learned to keep his head down and not cause trouble. As a result, Fawzi was the target of a verbal tirade for the rest of the ride home, which involved a lot of the word “stupid!”

In the years ahead, my view of Israelis only worsened. When I was seven, I tried to give up on the idea of going to school. It was too dangerous, I concluded.

Prior to this decision, it had been a typical school day. I was watching the clock hands slowly spin around until the ringing of the bell, when I could grab my belongings and barge outside into the fresh air. However, on this day, a protest erupted outside. Instead of breathing in fresh air, I found myself choking on tear gas from canisters shot by Israeli soldiers.

I remember running to the bus stop, thinking I was going to suffocate. Arriving home with eyes still burning and crying from the gas, I told my mom very bluntly, “I don’t want to go to school anymore. I could die. It’s not worth it.”

My mom insisted that it was not possible for my seven-year-old self to drop out, so she packed me an onion every day in my lunch bag—a local remedy to help with the tear gas.

After fourth grade, I was sent to the Dar al-Aytam school in the Old City, which was famous for being a battlefront. As a child, however, I was not aware of this. A few days in, a group of students pulled the sideburns of an ultra-orthodox Jewish man, and the Israeli Army raided the school.

The other students were used to this, so they knew how to escape quickly. I did not. As fully armed soldiers stormed into the school, everyone rushed into the halls and scattered. But by the time I figured out what was happening, I discovered that I was the only one left in the classroom. I was alone and terrified.

I felt stupid: how had I not thought about an escape route? This should have been the first thing to do when arriving at a new school, I told myself. Almost 30 years later, I still sometimes find myself looking for escape routes when I’m in confined places.

The event that shaped me the most, however, happened when I was nine. Just after dawn, Israeli soldiers stormed into our home. I remember the shouts, the terror, the interrogations. And then they took my 18-year-old brother, Tayseer, away. He was arrested for allegedly throwing stones at soldiers. I have memories of waking up early in the morning, stumbling onto a bus provided by the International Committee of the Red Cross, and waiting for hours before they released the prisoners into an open, fenced-off area. Families rushed toward the fencing while their imprisoned loved ones desperately searched for them from the other side of the fence.

When we finally noticed Tayseer behind the fence, our voices were drowned out by other families squeezed beside us, screaming over one another. The Israeli prison allowed us just 10 minutes for the visit. It was frantic and noisy, a frenzied competition for space—elbows flying, everyone hoping to have a rare moment with their loved one.

I was angry and frustrated. It was also summer, extremely hot, and no one gave us water. I remember one of the soldiers looked at me, and I looked into his eyes and thought he was evil. One thing was clear in my mind: he was, quite simply, the oppressor. This was the portrait I had of the Israelis: the soldiers who tore my family apart and managed the prison that kept my brother inside a cage.

Soon after, my brother was released from prison. But by then, his organs were failing from the beatings he had sustained during Israeli interrogation sessions. We rushed him to the hospital, but he died from his injuries.

By the time I turned 18, this was the world I knew: my brother had been tortured to death by the Israeli Army. My dad’s cousin had been lynched at a gas station by Israeli extremists. And several of my fellow students in high school had been shot by the Israeli military at protests.

As I grew up, these realities enraged me. I became very active politically and joined the Fatah Youth Movement. I wrote articles for the Fatah youth magazine and demonstrated in protests.

But after graduating from high school and struggling to find a job, I realized that I had to learn Hebrew if I wanted to work or study. I signed up for a Hebrew course; it was time for me to make that dreaded trip to the other side.

Crossing that line to West Jerusalem remains, to this day, one of the hardest things I have ever done. Yet, it changed my life. I can’t even imagine what my life would have become if I hadn’t attended that Hebrew class.

Crossing Boundaries

We are often afraid to ask questions. At times, we feel it’s more comfortable (and polite) not to ask. This creates a fake peace. We maintain a smile and claim to be working together. But what if we asked hard questions? What if we found ways to travel into one another’s lives—that unknown country that holds all the risks and discomforts of relationship?

If there’s anyone who has the right to be angry at the Israelis, it’s my father. Owing to his past, he’s also one of the least likely to cross to the other side.

My family lost most of their possessions during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. My grandparents had raised livestock and owned a large farm in Jerusalem, and during the war, all of their animals either were killed or went missing.

My father, being the oldest, was forced to drop out of school and started working to help support his four brothers and sisters. He began selling fruit on the streets of the Old City. He ended up doing very well for himself, eventually owning his own business. He leased land in Jericho and sold bananas and watermelons across the West Bank; this expanded to exporting fruit to the rest of the Middle East.

In 1967, however, another war broke out. My father’s brother had gone to work in Amman, Jordan; when he realized what was happening, he tried to return but found the border closed. He remained in Jordan and was not allowed to visit Jerusalem again until the Oslo Accords between the PLO and Israel were signed in 1993. My father’s brother wasn’t the only one: about half of my father’s family ended up being displaced in Jordan. Our family had been ripped apart, stranded on opposite sides of the Jordan River.

The border closed, my father’s export business collapsed. He also learned that one of his cousins had died trying to escape the fighting. Another war had once again turned his life upside down. He had lost his education and livelihood; half of his family was displaced in another country; one day his cousin was alive and well, and the next morning she was draped under a white sheet. All of this had been due to the conflict with Israel. How much could one person possibly take?

My father is resilient. He tried to restart his life and attempted several businesses. Unfortunately, he was never able to recover financially. By the time I was born, my family could barely find enough money to send me to a good school.

For my father, the losses seemed to never end. His son Tayseer was killed. Then another cousin was murdered by Israelis. My father’s cousin had been working at a gas station late at night. A car full of Israelis pulled up, and my father’s cousin filled their tank with gas. But when it came time to pay for the gas, the young men grabbed his arm and slammed on the accelerator, dragging him across the pavement and down the street until he died.

You would expect my father to be reeling with hatred and anger. But incredibly, he wasn’t. On the contrary, after each tragic death my father sat us down and warned us, “Don’t do anything stupid. Do not get involved in revenge. That’s not the way to solve this.” He feared one of his young sons would grab a knife and go seek revenge on the Israelis.

Then, about 20 years ago, a friend of the family, Dr. Adel, told my father about the Bereaved Families Forum, an organization that brought together Israeli and Palestinian families who had lost sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, in the conflict. Adel’s father had been killed by an Israeli settler, and the doctor turned to this organization for reconciliation, justice, and peace.

My father and mother visited once out of respect for Dr. Adel. They weren’t sure about joining, but they knew I was interested in the activities related to the conflict, so after attending, they asked if I might like to go to a meeting. I excitedly said, “Great. Will you come with me?” My father looked at me and gave a resounding “No. I went once. That was enough.” He added, “You should go. But please be careful.” My father was worried that I would say the wrong thing and get myself thrown in jail. To this day, my father is still terrified to talk about politics with me when I call.

I attended the meetings, and within a few years I became the chairman of the organization. Then one year, I persuaded my father to attend a conference we had organized, presenting the dual histories of Israelis and Palestinians side by side. I explained that I was speaking and it would mean a lot if he came. He was open to it but understandably pessimistic.

This conference was one of his first real meetings with Israelis. He listened to the lectures. At the end of one session, the mediator asked if anyone had questions. My father raised his hand and shouted “I do!”

Like any son, I hoped they would not call on him. I expected that whatever my father was about to say would be embarrassing. Even though he lived in the same city as Israelis, he had zero knowledge of them. It was the first time he had heard Israelis speak about their lives and experiences, alongside Palestinian speakers who did the same.

My father started with “So you mentioned this Holocaust thing . . .” My heart dropped in my chest; no one has ever started a sentence with that comment and followed it up with anything constructive. I never felt like I wanted to disappear from a place as much as in that moment. I slumped down a bit in my chair, hoping no one would notice me. My father continued, “This Holocaust thing, did it actually happen? Or is it just political manipulation used by the Israeli government?”

Silence gripped the room. The hall was filled with 200 to 300 Israelis and Palestinians, many of whom were experts in peace work. Still, no one wanted to tackle that question. Meanwhile, I was praying the earth would open up and swallow me whole— anything to escape the palpable tension in that room.

The truth is that many Palestinian participants had the same question but didn’t have the audacity to ask it like my father. The Israelis also knew that we Palestinians have that question in our heads—always unanswered and quietly hovering in our thoughts.

After what seemed like an eternity of silence, someone finally spoke up. It was Rami Elhanan, whose daughter had been killed by a Palestinian suicide bomber in 1997 and whose father was a survivor of Auschwitz. Rami replied to my father, “You know what? It is absurd for us to expect you to believe in something you have never learned about.”

He offered to take my father to the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem. And my father accepted, and went. Not only did my father take up the opportunity; so did 70 other Palestinians—all of whom were bereaved parents. Rami’s father and a few other Holocaust survivors led the tour through the museum, sharing their stories.

The Palestinian bereaved families asked hard questions. And they had a million of them. They were not used to Israelis, so they were unsure what was offensive and what wasn’t. In the end, however, the trip went very well.

The museum visit taught us how powerful this kind of intercultural travel could be. As Israelis and Palestinians, we were all living next to one another but knew nothing about one another. So we began setting up tours for the members of our organization to learn about each other’s histories.

Our idea was to find a way in which both sides would be able to travel into each other’s lives. One week we would focus on personal histories of both sides. We discussed the Nakba (the Palestinian “catastrophe,” which Israelis celebrate as Independence Day), when 750,000 Palestinians were displaced during Israel’s creation in 1948. Palestinian elders who had lived through the event would host Israelis and tell their stories. Likewise, the Israelis would invite us to their homes so we could get a glimpse into their lives and histories.

It wasn’t about comparing suffering. It was about crossing these lines that we had never crossed before. I can promise you that none of those Israelis or Palestinians who joined these tours had ever had a more meaningful and challenging travel experience in their lives. And more than 15 years later, this project is still alive and going strong: thousands of Israelis and Palestinians have participated in learning each other’s narratives and histories.

One of the Israeli members of the Bereaved Families Forum, Sharon, once worked in the educational unit of the Israeli Army. Although she had never worked at checkpoints or served in combat, fear of Palestinians still shaped her life as an Israeli. The two of us decided to start hosting a radio show about the stories of Palestinians and Israelis.

One day, I invited her to my house in East Jerusalem. She agreed but was noticeably worried about the visit. She parked her car outside my house, close to the garbage bin, and hurried inside. About a half hour later, someone knocked on the door. It was a neighbor, who told me in Arabic to move the car because the garbage had caught fire; he and other neighbors were worried that our guest’s car might get damaged. But Sharon, who does not speak Arabic, immediately thought someone had intentionally set her car on fire because they knew she was Israeli.

When I explained to her that the neighbors were only concerned about her car, she was surprised. It was a big deal for her: people she thought were out to get her were only coming to help. This made a huge impact on her, and she began coming to East Jerusalem more frequently and building connections with Palestinians.

It’s an invaluable experience to get out of our comfort zone, visit an unfamiliar community, and hear narratives that conflict with our own. It’s not an easy form of travel. But hearing others’ stories does not need to negate our own identity and beliefs. It does force us to open our mind, however, to other realities— some of which exist just down the street.

Cultivating a Spirit of Exploration

Israel and Palestine are an extreme example, but I’ve seen these same processes occur in other places in the world. Let’s take a trip to Washington, DC, where I lived part-time for several years. We wanted to organize a dual narrative tour to bring people to the historical Anacostia neighborhood, a predominantly poor black area. It has important sites, like the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site, and an assortment of black churches.

We started with a pilot trip and invited people in DC to participate. These were open-minded people: some described themselves as progressives. Yet none of them had visited their neighbors in Anacostia before.

We started at the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site and then visited a local church. We talked about the role of faith in social justice. We then took a trip to some other parts of the city that most of the group had never visited. We met with the Heritage Foundation, a conservative organization, to hear them talk about their vision for the city. We followed that up with a meeting with a councilman from one of the progressive neighborhoods in Washington, who talked about gentrification and its effect on underprivileged communities. Even as we visited some of the most popular sites in Washington, like the Lincoln Memorial and the Korean War Veterans Memorial, our discussions evolved into understanding the “other side.”

The truth is, you can live in a city for a decade, but not truly get to know it. We tend to surround ourselves with people who look like us, who share our political views, and who worship like us. In this sense, Washington, DC, is not that different from Jerusalem. The dividing lines might not be as visible as in Jerusalem, but these borders are no less real.

I always wanted to explore Vietnam, for instance; I am in love with the country. But for years I ignored the fact that Washington, DC, has a huge Vietnamese community. Now I realize how ridiculous it was to travel all the way to Vietnam to listen to stories there while ignoring the Vietnamese community in my own city. I had also never reached out to the Indian community in my city, or the Ethiopian community—and these are the people who live beside me.

I’m a firm believer that if I don’t explore or travel within my own community, then I’m not going to do it even if I travel 5,000 miles away. If I don’t have a travel mind-set at home, traveling abroad will most likely result in my staying at a resort and seeing the go-to top-10 sites. But it’s unlikely that I’ll really learn about the people or put myself in situations in which I’ll hear different perspectives or step outside of my comfort zone.

In other words, before traveling, we should ask ourselves a few questions: Have I reached out to people in my own community? What are the different cultures that exist in my own area? What are the different ethnic groups? What kinds of different foods are being cooked around me? And, most important, what stories, perspectives, and histories exist here? What can I explore and learn in my own environment before I buy a ticket to travel to a far-off part of the world? And if I am not able to break boundaries and borders within my own community, how am I going to be able to do it when I travel outside my country?

Traveling within our own city is not easy—but it is important for becoming more compassionate. Not every interaction I had with an Israeli was positive. I’ve been called racial slurs by 16-year-old Israeli schoolchildren. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve had a face-palm moment, like being asked by Israelis why I don’t just get Israeli citizenship (when it’s almost impossible for Jerusalem residents to become citizens), or being asked why Palestinians in Jerusalem don’t pay Israeli taxes (we pay the same taxes they do). But even these interactions become learning experiences. I also realize that many in my own community have similar assumptions about Israelis that are incorrect.

I cannot be angry at those Israeli teens who called me a “murderer”—because I used to be exactly like them. I cannot judge those Israelis who ask ignorant questions, because they quite literally do not know. I grew up believing that every Israeli was a child killer, all of them hated us, and they all wanted to expel us from the land. But the more I learned, the more I came to understand that this was not true. And some of those same Israeli schoolchildren who seemed driven by hatred ended up apologizing an hour and a half later after hearing a different perspective.

When dealing with conflict, we can choose to scoff at those who don’t know and treat them as bigots, or we can look at them with compassion and understand that they haven’t been given the opportunity to learn.

Toward Transformative Travel

Travel does not just mean journeying abroad or escaping to a pristine beach paradise: travel can be anything that helps us explore people, cultures, and environments. Travel is about exploration. At times, this exploration can be challenging. But the most crucial travel we can experience is usually just outside our front door.

With that in mind, whether you are a new traveler hoping to make a difference and participate in a movement of social change or a seasoned traveler who has seen it all and is looking for ways to travel more responsibly, this book is a guide to a different kind of travel. It is a strategy book for how to have transformative, sustainable, and responsible travel experiences.

As such, the book is roughly divided into three sections. The first six chapters make the case for responsible travel, arguing why it is important to change our travel habits, and giving practical guidelines on how to do so. The second section consists of two chapters that extend these concepts to common challenges we face when traveling. These chapters illustrate how responsible travel practices can help us manage problems along the road. In the ninth chapter, Ellie Cleary tackles issues faced by women travelers. Finally, the last three chapters of the book focus on the broader question of making travel sustainable, socially responsible, and a tool for peacemaking and social betterment.

In short, the book makes the case for travel—but not just any travel. The goal of the book is to explore how we can create travel experiences that are sustainable and mutually beneficial. It provides strategies for how we can connect with others abroad and provides tips on using these experiences to create positive change (tips summarized in bullet points at the end of each chapter).

So why travel responsibly? In a world of conflict and polarization, more than ever, travel can be a tool for positive change— but only if that travel is done respectfully and reflectively. Travel thus has to start with a change of heart and a new frame of mind. Whether spending time with those who hold different political opinions or meeting members of different ethnic communities, travel must begin with a willingness to listen and learn.

We might think the other side has nothing to say worth hearing; we might think the divides are too wide to cross. But if Israelis and Palestinians can “travel” to the other side (in the context of one of the most infamously intractable conflicts in the world), anyone can. Reflecting on our own travel practices, and being willing to hear new perspectives, is thus the first step to responsible, transformative travel—and the first step to a more peaceful world.