By pass roads and power plays

I'm traveling around in a group of Americans, and god is it painful! I'm more of a solo traveler, but it's not the company because actually there are amazing individuals in this group. I've been coming to Palestine for nearly a half decade, and I've basically always been with Palestinians. So, to be parading around in this group...it really kills me. Actually, the group just started joking about how embarrassed I am by them. But it's not being surrounded by 12 white, loud and camera bearing tourist-educators that does it; rather, for how much we try, we don't really get it--at least not in the way I want to get it.

We are staying on the Mt. of Olives at the guesthouse of an old Palestinian man. For him it is natural to buy whatever water is on the shelf. For me, I boycott the Israeli economy and would never buy Israeli water, which I call stolen water. But that is my choice, and I'm not looking to impose it on the group. For him, he secures us a bus driver from Israel who takes us on settler by pass roads, illegally built in the West Bank and boasting devastating consequences on Palestinians. For me, I protest the illegal and racist roads by always traveling on the Palestinian ones. And when I say for him, I mean for the group also. No one seems to have a problem shooting the shit with the soldiers. They stop us, a bit of racial profiling happens, one gets on board to perform for us. He asks for passports, we flash the blue. He smiles and says thanks, I don't really care. They laugh and say oh thank you! I mean, the problem isn't buying and drinking stolen water, or using by pass roads, or joking with soldiers. The problem is not thinking about how problematic these things are. They are morally problematic, though certainly they are also in other ways, and we are a group of "critical educators" who, I think, should be able to think through these things. And every time I try to start this conversation, I see how much they don't want to talk about it. Because it's easier to find Israeli water on the shelves, and it's faster and smoother to take the by pass road, and it's also sort of enjoyable to flirt with the kid and his gun. At least it speeds up the checkpoint experience, which we would also, surely, choose to avoid if we could.