Visiting the Israel Embassy

---

Today, we went to the Israel Embassy in Jordon to see about a travel visa for my husband. We put our names on a list and waited to be called. This is out on the street in front of the embassy. There are many people waiting behind the cement blocks erected for barriers. There are to armed Jordanian soldiers here along with different men who come and go reading lists and looking at papers. They must work for the embassy. My husband's name was called and we pass throught the barrier and walked a few meters to another waiting area. This time two rows of benches with a sun cover were provided. Men in one row and women in another. "This looked like a sign of hospitality" I thought to myself. My thought was soon proven to be way off. The soldiers called two to three people at a time, at there convinience, to be screend my Jordanian soldiers . Men to one side and the women go into a small booth to be screend by two not so nice women soldiers. Assuming, you have no weapons or other harmful items, you are allowed walk up a small flight of stairs to sit outside a door. The length of time is determined by the mood of each person involved in this chain of people you must weave your way through. It is all very arbitrary. Here a man checks passports asks questions that are really none of his business and waits for someone inside to open the door to let one of the people who are waiting to go inside the door. Inside, you are asksed the same questions that the man outside just asked you, go through a more thorough security screening with a metal detectar and are sent back outside to sit some more. It has only taken about 1-2 hours from the time you were allowed onto the emabassy property.

Inside is another story. You are given a number and told, not asked, to sit down. What the number is for, no one knows. Who calls it, not sure. THe first time I was there , the box that lights up and tells you what number is being called was not working, so there was alot of confusion in the lobby. Customer service is not a priority for the Israel EMbassy. No one came out to tell waiting people what was going on. Being the quickly irritated and obssesive person that I am. I had to know what was going on. There had to be some order to this chaos. I went up to the front and asked what the deal was. I am not sure if this made anything better but I enjoyed it. A man, with a deep cigarette scratchy voice, came out and explained about the machine and the numbers. My husband and I decided to take some control of the waiting room and started get people in order by the number on the ticket they were holding. We eventually did get called. Of course being an American I did not need a visa but wanted to be there for my husband and experience this process for myself. I do not think they were to excited about that because it is not a process that is orderly nor seems to have a legitimate process. The lady, she was behind class and you can oly speak to her under a small opening at the bottom of the glass, that looked at our stuff. asked us why we wanted to go and how long we would be there. We said were wanted to visit Jeruselem and would only be there a week. She said there wouldn't be a problem giving us a visa all she need to see was our marriage license, no problem, I had it right here. She said we will contact you in a week. Great we thought, but in the back of our mind we new this was Israel.


It is really quiet needless and a waste of everbody's time as far as I am concerned. A majority of the people that I saw on the three different times I visited this place were elderly. One woman I saw had a hard time walking and could hardly breath by the time she got up the stairs. Most of them want to go home to Palestine and see family or maybe to die there. I am not sure. I am however sure that the people that I saw trying to get visas were not intending to enter into Israel to join a militia or to bomb anything. My husband's visa had to be sent to Israel.
The next day someone from the embassy called us and told us that his visa could dake three weeks or months they were not sure. Turns ou the person who called was the man at the front desk inside the Embasssy who I had confronted regarding the waiting process in the lobby. I am not sure if he had anything to do with influencing the wait time on his visa or not.

---