Adan Jerreat-Poole is a Canadian novelist and a Professor of Communication Arts at the University of Waterloo. Their bias is Jung-kook. You can find this playlist on Spotify.

1. BTS (ft Halsey), Boy With Luv, “Come be my teacher / teach me everything about you.”

In August of 2023 I took a Palestinian dialect language course in Hebron/al-Khalil and travelled through the West Bank meeting locals, taking pictures, and learning more about life under Israeli military occupation. On the bus I’d listen to BTS songs and think about checkpoints. The word for checkpoint in Palestinian is “hajez” (sing.) or “hawajez” (pl.) and literally translates to “block.” As a pop culture scholar and ARMY (BTS fan), I wanted to write down my experiences in the West Bank framed through pop music, weaving together fandom and politics through a re-interpretation of BTS lyrics rooted in a liberatory and anti-apartheid lens.

A note on terminology: in 2022, Amnesty International published a document stating that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians amounted to apartheid, something that Palestinians and their supporters (including Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu) have been saying for decades. Other organizations have affirmed the use of the term, including B’tselem, an Israeli human rights organization. BDS is an acronym for “boycott, divestment, and sanctions” and is a global movement that advocates for Palestinian liberation by encouraging governments and corporations to put pressure on Israel through the actions noted above.

I’d learned a lot about Israel-Palestine prior to this trip—I’m an academic who loves research, after all, and my partner is a Palestinian citizen of Israel with a PhD in Political Studies. Still— standing on Palestinian soil, breathing the summer air, bearing witness to the systemic violence, and hearing the personal stories of everyday people was very different from reading facts and statistics in a bland academic text. In this piece I hope to bring some of that personal knowledge to readers.

2. BTS, Permission to Dance, “We don’t need permission to dance.”

A technicolour performance of multiracial, multinational joy in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, the music video for “Permission to Dance” offers a utopian vision of global solidarity and togetherness. Yet as the chorus shimmers across my brain and the bus carries me through the desert, all I can think is that Palestinians do need permission to dance. Checkpoints are all over the West Bank, serving four purposes: 1) to prevent Palestinians from using Israeli roads and services, 2) to fragment Palestinian cultural, political, and social movements, 3) to constrict Palestinians in the tiniest possible enclaves, similar to South Africa’s “Bantustans”, and 4) to ultimately make life so difficult that they either leave or die, so the land is then “free” for settlers to take.

Most settlements and checkpoints are located next to pre-existing Palestinian towns, with one exception: Hebron. Not only are there checkpoints inside al-Khalil, but a settlement has taken over the heart of the city. The downtown core and the city centre, al-Shuhada Street, is now a ghost street of settler homes and shuttered shops, protected by more soldiers than there are Israeli settlers. The few Palestinians who remain in this area are subject to daily threats, danger, and violence. The checkpoints within the city make movement difficult for locals: five-minute trips become an hour or longer. Our bus takes long, winding routes as we struggle to navigate the city and avoid checkpoints. It’s difficult since the military will randomly open temporary checkpoints throughout the city. You can never be sure if your path will be clear.

Checkpoints are a hassle for tourists, but they can be deadly for Palestinians, who might be arrested or shot if the soldier deems them a threat. They can also be refused entry or kept in the checkpoint ‘cages’ for hours, depending on the soldier’s mood. There is no one to complain to about this treatment—Palestinians in the West Bank have no legal rights.

In Jerusalem/al-Quds we saw a Palestinian stall owner get arrested.

During our visit, the Israeli military closed Hebron and blocked Palestinians from leaving or entering the city. We were on a tour bus coming back from Bethlehem when it closed. The white Canadians and Americans—like me—sit at the front of the bus and are let through after a quick passport check. Around us, Palestinian cars are being prevented from entering. As we drive past, I watch soldiers searching cars, interrogating Palestinians, and gesturing with their automatic rifles.

My partner picks me up after the language course ends to drive me back to Jaffa. We are stopped at a checkpoint and asked to exit the car. My name, “Adan,” confuses the soldiers. My hippie parents let my three-year-old brother name me, so “Adan” doesn’t automatically register as an Anglo name. The soldiers think it might be Arab. My partner has Israeli citizenship but that means less than his Palestinian name. The soldiers take my passport and make us wait. Eventually they ask me my parents’ names, and decide I am not an Arab. They let us go. On the way back to the car, a soldier casually points his gun at us. I’ve never had a gun pointed at me before. I try to make friends with him, so he won’t see us as a threat. “It’s hot out,” I say, fanning my face, “Drink lots of water!” He smiles at me, lowering the gun and holding up a half-empty cup.

Later, I ask my partner, “Did he really have his gun aimed at us? Or did I imagine it?”

“I think so,” he says. “I think he did.”

Sometimes I still think about that smile, and our eyes meeting over the body of a rifle.

3. BTS, Fake Love, “I’m so sick of this fake love.”

On September 13, 1993, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Leader Yasser Arafat signed the Oslo Accords, a document which divided the West Bank into three sections: A, B, and C. Area A would be under the control of the newly-established Palestinian Authority, Area B would be under joint Palestinian-Israeli control, and Area C (the largest section of the region) would be under full Israeli control. The underlying premise—and promise—of the Oslo Accords was that Israel would withdraw from the West Bank within five years in order to allow for the creation of an independent State of Palestine.

This withdrawal did not happen. In fact, more Israeli settlers continue to move to the West Bank, requiring more soldiers for “protection.”

While the language of the current far-right Israeli government has laid out their plans for the West Bank quite clearly—most recently, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir is on record saying “my right, the right of my wife and my children to move around Judea and Samaria is more important than freedom of movement for the Arabs”–Israeli propaganda has long insisted that peace in the region is only threatened by Arab terrorism and Israel simply ‘defends’ itself against these terrorists. I’ve heard North American Zionists insist that Israel is a welcoming place for all people, a place that celebrates diversity and deeply desires peace and harmony. This could not be further from the objective truth.

After class one day we visit two nearby Palestinian villages. They do not have access to running water, the electricity grid, or the road system that Israel built through their land. In fact, soldiers and checkpoints ensure they can’t access any of these services. They have been told it’s illegal to build on their own land, and their homes are frequently bulldozed.

He tells us he has rebuilt his home seven times.

Across the street and behind barbed wire fences, settlers live in luxury in their American suburban McMansions.

I stand at the fence and stare at the settlers in their apartheid neighbourhood, wealthy and untouchable.

4. Agust D, AMYGDALA, “The sound of my mom’s heart tickin’ away in my ears.”

He starts the story by saying, “This happened to a friend of mine.”

His friend’s two-and-a-half-year-old daughter was severely injured by a soldier. “An accident,” he tells us, and I wonder what that means. There is no hospital here, only a medical clinic that was closed. “Here” is al-Fawwar refugee camp, a title that doesn’t fully encompass the crowded town corralled by soldiers and fences. The residents can’t build outward, so they build upwards, adding concrete stories when they’ve saved enough money to expand their homes and businesses. But back to his story: an ambulance came to take her to the hospital in Hebron. Soldiers stopped them at the checkpoint to search the ambulance and the bleeding toddler. A security threat, they insisted.

They made the ambulance wait for 30 minutes.

When they finally reached the hospital, she had died.

“It was me,” he says finally, his eyes damp. “My daughter died six months ago. I couldn’t protect her. I couldn’t save her.”

On al-Shuhada street, a resident tells us that her husband, an activist who routinely took foreigners on tours of the ghost street, died after inhaling gas sprayed by a soldier shortly after having heart surgery. The ambulance wouldn’t come to their house, so their neighbours wrapped his body and carried him down. Now, the children of settlers follow her son around asking, “Where is your father?”

She plays us a video her husband made before he died, an introduction to the settlement in the heart of Hebron and the violence he faced as a Palestinian living next to ideological Zionist extremists (typically recent migrants from the USA). “The first time my wife was pregnant, the settlers came and beat her until she miscarried,” he says. “The second time, they did it again.” She hadn’t told us that and looks uncomfortable. I wonder if I shouldn’t write this. I wonder if I have to write this, so people will know what’s happening. I think about how pregnant women are a threat to empire, how their unborn children are already understood as terrorists and enemies of the state.

When we leave her house, something catches my eye—a blinding brightness reflecting the sunlight. When I look down, I notice shards of broken glass under my feet. The settlers throw bottles and garbage onto her land every day. A trail of shattered glass marks the pathway from her home to the main street. I try to avoid the bigger pieces, my brain snagging on each sharp edge, on the promise of violence written into glass. I suddenly realize I’m shaking.

In the village of Umm al-Khair, a painting of an older man covers an entire building. “What happened?” we ask. “I don’t want to talk about that,” he says. Later, someone tells us it was his father who had been killed. A settler hit him with a truck.

I am coming to understand that everyone in the West Bank has stories like this.

5. BTS, Dynamite, “I’m diamond / You know I glow up.”

When the oppressive August heat fades away, al-Khalil comes alive at night. Lights strung across bustling downtown streets glitter against an inky blue sky. I walk through the city taking pictures of graffiti. I stop for a minute, trying to read a sentence in Arabic. Three teenage boys stop to talk with me. “Do you need help?” one asks. “I can translate it for you.” He speaks a little English and wants to practice; I want to practice my Arabic. They call their friend from across the street to join us. “Where are you from?” they ask. “Oh, your husband is Palestinian. Where is he from?” They welcome me to their city and check again that I’m not lost, that I don’t need anything.

In the mornings, I chat with the café manager near the language school. “Ayy musiqaa bit’hib?” I ask. “What music do you like?” He plays Wael Jasser for me on YouTube. I tell him I miss my cats; when I show him pictures on Instagram, he says, “Your cats are beautiful.” He’s patient with me as I fumble for the right conjugation, as my tongue stumbles over the pronunciation of the ghain (غ( and the raa (ر (. On my last day in al-Khalil, he refuses to let me pay for my latte. This happened to me several times in the West Bank—I’m given coffee that smells of cardamon, sweet and sticky dates, figs freshly picked from the tree.

In al-Fawwar a husband tells us that his wife is an incredible cook, that she makes the best maqlooba. She blushes and leans against him. They are affectionate with each other and incredibly cute. We ask how they met. He tells us he was in prison with her brother, and one day she came to the jail to visit. He was drawn to her immediately. When they were released, he asked his friend to set them up. “It’s a Palestinian love story,” jokes their eldest daughter, who works as a graphic designer in Bethlehem. He invites our entire group to stay for dinner, but our guide is afraid the soldiers might close the checkpoint and lock us in for the night. Before we go, his wife gives us coffee, tea, and snacks. They tell us to come back and visit.

On al-Shuhada Street, a single mother serves us cold drinks and tells us about her family. Her walls are covered in gorgeous artworks, so we ask about it. She’s an artist, she says. It’s how she copes with everything. The brushstrokes are thick and heavy, but the colours are vivid and bright.

My host family in al-Khalil worries that I’m not eating enough. When I come home late, there is always food waiting for me—and a note, if the family has already gone to bed. The younger daughter brings me watermelon when the humidity rises and the heat weighs down our bodies. The older daughter has made cupcakes. “Shoo hada?” I ask. “What is this?” I want to learn the Arabic words for all the food I’m eating. She looks at me. “It’s a cupcake,” she says.

Palestine is not only a story of struggle, trauma, and pain. Everywhere in the West Bank I visited there was life and laughter, children wheeling on tricycles, friends talking and sharing sheesha. Like the lit-up football stadium near my homestay (a rival match between Jerusalem and Hebron, the boys near the school were buzzing with excitement), like the fireworks that burst in the sky, like the bright noise of the horns during a wedding celebration, like the neon signs on the downtown shops and restaurants–

they glow.

6. J-Hope (ft. J. Cole), On the Street, “Every time I look / Every time I love / Every time I hope / As always, for us.”

In Hebron we visit the organization “Youth Against Settlements,” which uses non-violent activist tactics to resist the annexation/settlement of the West Bank.

They’re one of many organizations working towards Palestinian liberation. Within the West Bank, in Israel-Palestine more broadly, and across the globe, people are standing up and speaking out for a free Palestine.

“We’re winning everywhere,” he tells us. “The people are with us. People are amazing everywhere.”

Despite the guns and the separation wall, the barbed wire and tear gas and glass bottles, there is hope. There is a refusal to leave or die. I want to hope with them. I want to believe that people are amazing everywhere, that people care, that apartheid regimes end, that freedom is inevitable; that, as Martin Luther King said, the world bends towards justice. After all, South African apartheid fell. Palestine is beautiful and I want to see it without chains.

“It won’t happen overnight,” he says. “These things take time. But it will happen.”

7. BTS, Singularity, “The pain in my throat gets worse / try to cover it / I don’t have a voice.”

Going through security at Ben Gurion airport (built over the Palestinian town of Lydda) after visiting the West Bank:

“Is this your first time in Israel? How many times have you been to Israel? Why did you come? When did you come last time? What did you do last time? What did you do this time? Where did you go? Why were you in Hebron? Why did you study Arabic in Hebron? Why didn’t you study Arabic in Jerusalem? Do you know anyone in Hebron? How long were you in Hebron? What’s your name? What kind of name is that? What are your parents’ names? What’s your job? What do you do in your job? Where do you work? What languages do you speak? What’s your husband’s name? What are his parents’ names? When did you meet him? How did you meet him? How long have you been married? Where do you live? Did you convert to Islam? Does his family approve of you? Come with me for extra security measures.”

If you’re interested in learning more about Israeli apartheid, I would encourage you to visit the websites for B’tselem, Al-Haq and Breaking the Silence.