My friend, whom I’ve known since childhood, is a well-educated woman with great taste in literature and a poetic way of looking at the world. She was excited to reunite with an old friend from America, someone she hadn’t seen in decades. Her friend had endured a rough life but remained resilient. My friend eagerly planned to host the visit, not knowing that her friend would bring along their a-romantic partner—a person with a perpetually sour face who never attempted to smile or be nice.

Months before their arrival, my friend informed me of their planned trip to Israel. She was excited to show them the full experience of the Holy Land, without hiding the ugly parts. She even gave up her own apartment for the guests, choosing to stay at her son’s place instead. She was eager to pay for all their expenses while they were her guests.

She invited them to a very lavish and fancy restaurant in East Jerusalem, in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, a disputed and contested part of the city. Knowing that I was familiar with East Jerusalem, she asked me to join the lunch to share some history about the area. Despite the luxury of the restaurant, I felt uncomfortable there, as Sheikh Jarrah is not an easy place for me. It’s where my friends and comrades were beaten and arrested. I had been there to protest for the rights of Palestinians to own the homes where they were born and had lived their entire lives.

My friend genuinely believed that her guests wanted to hear about the complexities of life in East Jerusalem. She even paid for my taxi to the restaurant. But as I spoke, the sour-faced partner remained completely uninterested, their expression never changing. After lunch, I suggested we visit the less commercialized parts of East Jerusalem, where Palestinian shopkeepers would appreciate their small purchases. However, the guests seemed to realize that these areas were not queer-friendly and might not be safe by their standards. They wanted to return to their hotel as soon as possible.

Later, we discovered that the sour-faced person supported Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel. The day before, she had experienced what she called a “healing experience” in Wallajeh village near Jerusalem—another contested territory with a heartbreaking story. I was furious, not only because they held these opinions about Israel, but because they weren’t true to their convictions. If they truly supported BDS, why did they accept a visit to the Holy Land funded by the sour-faced person’s work at an NGO? And why did they let my right-leaning Israeli friend pay for everything?

My anger at my friend grew as I realized she had gone out of her way to please these guests, who were obviously taking her hospitality for granted. She, too, began to understand that she didn’t actually know these people as well as she thought. The situation even created a rift between her and her husband. She started to distrust the guests, worrying that they might vandalize her apartment to protest against the Israeli occupation or steal her jewelry as a statement against Israeli land theft.

Her fear and distrust grew to the point where she knew she had to get them out of her apartment. She booked a hotel in Tel Aviv for the rest of their stay, a move that brought her some peace of mind. Yet even after all this, the sour-faced person had the audacity to send her an invitation to an art gallery in Abu Ghosh, as if my friend needed an American to school her about her own country.

In the end, my friend declined the invitation, fully aware that her efforts to please these guests had been in vain. The visit ended, and with it, a chapter in her life that taught her hard but necessary lessons about the limits of hospitality and the importance of trusting her instincts.