The long orange buses serve a mostly Israeli clientel. The shorter Arab shuttles run through the East and carry Palestinians. In the East on Salah-ed-Din, Arab women sit on the street and sell baskets of vegetables and fruits. In the West on Jaffa Street, there are air conditioned shops selling Belgian chocolates and trendy clothes.

I was shopping today in West Jerusalem wearing a cotton dress and sandals like lots of the Israeli women and when I entered shops most everyone spoke to me in Hebrew. Along Nablus Road on the way home with my purchases I stopped at a kiosk and before I could ask for the a bottle of water the young man standing in front said “Hello, Miss. Where are you from?”

The walk from Jaffa Street to Nablus Road is only about ten minutes and I went from blending in with the Israelis to standing out as a foreigner. I asked the Palestinian kid standing at the kiosk “How do you know that I’m not from here?”

He laughed at me. His laugh was not a polite chuckle. He laughed sincerely and spontaneously and I thought he would choke on the soda he was drinking. With raised eyebrows he said “You don’t look Palestinian and Israelis don’t come here. They just don’t.”