Dread and Dreams Travel by Bus in Israel
The young man looked like a typical Israeli hipster, with his cropped, spiky black hair and wispy goatee. At the back of the No. 405 bus to Tel Aviv, he was scanning a graphic in a Hebrew-language newspaper detailing a new sex survey. The digital readout of his cellphone, which rang frequently, was also in Hebrew.

But as he folded the newspaper, he identified himself as an Israeli Arab: Usama Darawshe, "You know, like Osama." He was 22, from Nazareth, and he studied dentistry in Jerusalem.

Mr. Darawshe described running his own particular gantlet in boarding the bus at Jerusalem's central station, to Tel Aviv, where he would catch a taxi homeward, avoiding the perilous Wadi Ara bus route.

He said he tried to pass as an Israeli Jew, not speaking any Arabic into his cellphone to avoid the "silly questions" of the guards. Then, once aboard, he scanned each new passenger, keeping the same fearful watch as his fellow travelers for suicide bombers.

"It's not so easy being an Arab in Israel these days," he said. "The situation now is that the Jews in the country don't distinguish between the Arab Israelis living inside Israel and the Palestinians living in the territories. I'm an Israeli. I'm a fan of the same soccer teams, I listen to the same music, I love the same TV shows."

On Route 1 headed west, the bus reversed the course of the Zionist soldiers — newly minted Israelis — who battled their way up these hillsides to Jerusalem in 1948. Then, six Arab states, rejecting the United Nations partition of Palestine, declared war after the declaration of Israeli independence.

Israel emerged with more land than the United Nations allotted it. Along this road, the husks of army vehicles, the sagging terraces of olive groves and the ruins of evacuated Arab villages testify to the ferocity of the struggle for Jerusalem. As the remains of war flashed by, Mr. Darawshe said he felt suspected, if not despised, by both non-Israeli Arabs and Israeli Jews. He said he did not understand why Israeli Arabs were not used by both sides to "draw them closer to conversations."

"We can serve as a bridge," he suggested.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/27/international/middleeast/27BUS.html?pagewanted=all&position=top