Three days later we travel to the King Hussein Bridge, the crossing for non-Palestinians to the first Israeli checkpoint into Palestine. After getting our exit visas, we board the bus that crosses the Jordan River and into Palestine. The tone inside the bus is one of muted concern. Would each of us "get in?"

As we proceed through several checkpoints, we drive past the wash that is the Jordan River, and then see razor wire fencing and sniper and surveillance towers spotting the barren landscape to our right and left. We feel we are entering a prison.

We arrive at the curb of the IDF immigration and customs building at around 10am. The site is stark, largely due to the many teenagers armed with automatic weapons - our tax dollars at work. These are the prison guards.

As I head to collect our luggage, one of these young prison guards points his machine gun at me. "Hey you," he says, "who are you traveling with?" I am of European ancestry, but perhaps my headscarf is a grave concern for him.

I indicate towards my husband guiding our friend who is a blind older Puerto Rican woman. "Them," I answer. He orders me to put our bags on a separate cart, "including the little bag" he says pointing to my purse. This feels quite uncomfortable, but he insists and then orders me to go into the building with another man.

The second man is not obviously armed. Let's call him UberGuard 2. He is haughty like the first, with close shaven hair sporting sunglasses on his forehead. He is quite pleased with himself and the authority his weapon gives him. He brings me and my companions to a bench and orders us to wait. As he turns, I notice a bulge in the small of his back. A handgun or some kind of medical device? As all the "unarmed" men seem to have them, I assume it is a gun.

An older woman wearing hijab and conservative dress "needs" to be searched by a female guard in a booth. Uberguard 2 peeks in while she was being searched. And the security "need" for this blatant invasion of privacy? Most likely to intimidate me. But as he has a gun at his back and he works for a fascist state, it seems he needs no reason.

A more refined man approaches and tells us he is head of security. He tells me to come with him for questioning. He politely asks whether I am married, what my job is, whether I have children, if I plan to have children... I am certain all of this is very relevant to the self-inflicted security concerns of the Israeli government, I just can't for the life of me see how. He then asks where we stayed in Jordan, why we went, and who we were staying with. He asks why we are traveling to "Israel" and where we will be staying. He asks if I have "a friend in Israel." That jingle about "you've got a friend in Pennsylvania" rattles in my head.

He then moves on to my husband. Marta, our blind companion and a person of color, does not seem to exist to the UberGuards or the higher ups. He asks my husband roughly the same questions and if I, his wife, is religious. Is this a standard question in a democracy?

Soon after, it is my turn to be searched in the little booth. Not one, but two female guards are called in for the task.

They insist I take off my headscarf and they ask me if I am Muslim. They search carefully with a metal detector and even search the soles of my sock feet with their gloved hands.

Next is Marta's turn. As dehumanizing as being searched is, this is the only time any of the Israeli guards even speak to her, so in some respects it is the least dehumanizing part. My husband is also searched.

Next we are taken through the metal detectors, through a main hall and into a back room filled with screening equipment and large metal tables. Here they tear through their contents, test nearly everything for traces of explosives, and toss underwear, tampons, etc. onto the table. They fish out some political buttons that I have forgotten I have nor are they happy about my pocket-size edition of the UN Universal Declaration On Human Rights. They take my address book along with other items to another room. The "friendly" head of security returns some time later triumphantly holding a political flier that had been saved for the email address scrawled on it. Now he is angry.

He takes my husband aside and scolds him - "you told me you were going to Israel for tourism." My husband answers truthfully, "We are." The top security officer continues to rave. He is now bad cop.

We are then "allowed" to repack our things, except for those still being sifted through, and likely copied. We are then placed in a narrow hallway lined with chairs and surveillance cameras. It is around 11am. We will get to spend quite a few more hours here in the windowless hallway. After about an hour, the self proclaimed head of security comes to collect my husband for further interrogation. He is brought to a different man who also claims to be head of security.

After what seems like a very long time, my husband returns and tells us that they aren't going to let us in because he has refused answer questions about our host in Jordan, a country that Israel has no jurisdiction over. The security officer told him that he still needs to finish investigating us because of terrorism concerns!& Ahh, yes, that blanket excuse to suspend anyone's rights any time and any where.

We wait for some time and I ask one of the guards if we are being detained. He tells us, of course not. I ask him to return our passports so we can leave, since as he himself has just said, we are not being detained. He says that it will take just a few more minutes. I ask if he is clear on the meaning of the word "detain" and he assures us he is.

A few minutes becomes an hour. At some point, an Uberguard walks through with a tray filled with the loose contents of my address book smoothed out and in a pile with the book on top. What a great democracy - searching people's private papers for no reason. Recall, we have already been told long before this point that we wouldn't be getting in to their country, so they are simply using the fact that they have our passports to subject us to an open fishing expedition for information about people who might have opinions that they disagree with.

At 5pm we are allowed to leave the holding zone prison of the Israeli border station. Also turned away are a Palestinian woman with her toddler, a Palestinian man traveling alone, a Swedish backpacker, and a German traveler who was heading to work for a non-political Israeli organization of some kind. None of us are given any concrete reason for our barring. We leave the building to board the bus to Jordan. The last Uberguard says "you can try again tomorrow," as she hands our passports to the bus driver.

Only as we sit in the cool shade and relaxed atmosphere of the stone border control building in Jordan waiting for our passports does my husband notice that the keys to the home of our host in Jordan are no longer in his pocket. He had been asked several times during the interrogations to empty his pockets and then refill them after the materials had been taken away and examined. The keys had been kept during one of those searches. What do you call a police state that extends past its own borders? An expansionist empire. Israel showed us that the US is not the only one operating in the region.