Taking a ride on the 167 bus

SHANA ROSENBLATT MAUER SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN

To suggest that taking the bus in Israel has become a trying experience is an absurd understatement.

Not long ago, I was on a bus with my 10-year-old son. Almost all of the seats were occupied. Most of the passengers were women and teenagers, and soldiers on the way to their various bases. We were travelling from Jerusalem to our home in Efrat. Shortly after we boarded, a woman I knew, Yaffa, approached the driver and began to argue with him. She looked nervous and agitated. Hardly at ease myself about patronizing the national bus system, Egged, I got up to ask Yaffa what was going on. She explained that a young woman was sitting in the back of the bus speaking Arabic on her cellphone.

Israeli Arabs and Palestinians do not travel on inter-city buses that cross over the Green Line. They have parallel transportation services that go directly to their towns and villages. Because this woman's presence was clearly out of the ordinary – in fact, almost inexplicable – and the last two years have left Israelis just a bit apprehensive about public transportation, Yaffa had asked the driver to pull over and have the woman questioned. The driver was reluctant. Nobody likes to cause a fuss.

By this time, the soldiers who were scattered throughout the bus, a smattering of off-duty reserve soldiers and new recruits, were becoming aware of the situation. Although none of them seemed eager to get involved, a few finally persuaded the driver to pull over.

It took a seemingly interminable 45 seconds or so for the soldiers to politely explain to the woman, who was sitting near the back door, that they would like her to exit the bus for questioning. Despite the suffocating tension, the soldiers remained astonishingly coolheaded.

The woman seemed confused by the ruckus, but co-operated nonetheless. As the soldiers escorted her into the shade to begin a makeshift interrogation, I was dizzy with relief. We had avoided becoming the lead story on the five o'clock news.
It turned out that the woman could not explain why she was on that bus. Eventually, she said she was on her way to Beit Safafa, an Arab neighborhood in southern Jerusalem. But the bus, the 167, was an inter-city commuter. It did not drop off passengers at any point within Jerusalem's city limits. It only picked them up.

The explanation was suspect. She was carrying a large purse, but did not have an identity card on her. All Israelis and Palestinians have government-issued identity cards. To venture into public without such identification is illegal, a fact that could not have come as news to the young, cellphone-toting, bilingual adult.

In the end, the soldiers asked for a female soldier to come and search the woman before they allowed her to re-enter the bus. The whole episode took about six minutes and then we were on our way. The soldiers told the woman that, since she had paid the fare, she was entitled to resume her journey. After two stops, while still in Jerusalem, she asked the driver to stop and disembarked. One soldier accompanied her to follow up on the incident. I have no idea what ensued afterward.

I am a civilian through and through. I have only the vaguest familiarity with Israel's military apparatus. I did not serve in the army and am ignorant of its inner workings. For two years, copious articles, news features and broadcasts have painted a picture of an Israeli army bent on the use of excessive force. However, that was hardly the aggressive military monster that I encountered on the bus on that rather memorable afternoon. Instead, I saw soldiers of different ages and cultural backgrounds, armed with all sorts of firearms and ominous looking gadgets, who appeared altogether hesitant to demonstrate even a glimmer of military might.

Ironically, security concerns had prompted me to take the bus that day, rather than our car. Over the course of the past two years, scores of terrorists have used Israeli vehicles on the road from Jerusalem to Efrat for target practice. Six people have been killed as a result of these incidents and many others have been wounded. The Egged buses have bulletproof siding, which is not a sure-fire safeguard against hilltop snipers, Molotov cocktails and roadside bombs, but is certainly more secure than my Honda – unless, of course, that bus is boarded by a suicide bomber.

For me, the most unfortunate aspect of that afternoon was the fact that my son's routine orthodontist appointment in Jerusalem had morphed into a brush with a suspected terror threat. But, as a consolation, I was comforted by the fact that it had also been a chance for him, a future soldier – barring miracles of messianic proportion - to see members of the Israel Defence Forces behave with dignity, professionalism and overall decency in circumstances that would have justified far less decorum.

Shana Rosenblatt Mauer, originally from Vancouver, is a writer living in Efrat, Israel. She works as a PR professional and grant writer for the Shalom Hartman Institute.

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