My other advice are this:

(1) TELL THE TRUTH. Tell the truth unless u are like leonardo di caprio in that catch me if you can movie and can lie through anything. I shudder to think what they would have done to me at customs if i didnt tell them bethlehem and they found kaffiyah, santas ghetto brochures, bethelehem sovernirs and postcards in my bag.

(2) BRING A NEWSPAPER CUTTING OR A BBC/CNN PRINTOUT OR SOMETHING ABOUT SANTAS GHETTO. No one believed me when i told them about santas ghetto. Its even harder to prove u have been to one when u have no artwork to prove for it and the receipt u get for the banksy print is a bubblejet print out a competent 8 year old paraplegic could churn out. Its EVEN harder when the receipt says GOLD FLAG and they look at the price list of the originals and they ask why isnt GOLD FLAG on it. I had to give a 3 minute summary of the difference between prints and OG and the concept of bidding. I felt I was back in law school.

(3) BRING SOME WORK ID IF YOU ARE WORKING. Maybe cos i look like im 18 but no one believed I was working and where I was working. They kept asking me for proof of where i worked to which i could only shrug.

(4) IF YOU DONT WANT TO STAMP YOUR PASSPORT ITS OK. JUST TELL THE CUSTOMS PERSON. My customs woman didnt even have a separate card to stamp on. So essentially i was walking around with no stamp anywhere in my passport. When they askeed why i didnt want a stamp, i just said "i wanna go see the pyramids in eygpt one day".

(5) CROSSING THE WALL TO BETHEHEM - this was really easy for me so i cant give any advice. It was painfully easy. I strolled up at 7am. walked into the customs, showed them my passport, and it was over in 2 mins.

hmm.... nothing else i can add now.

For the love of God. Dont buy a kaffiyah and/or pick up that sticker from SG which has arabic words on it and the face of a girl in a kaffiyah.

The officers at Tel Aviv airport searched my bag and found those two items and immediately raised eyebrows, they kept asking if i understood those words and why i had a kaffiyah and "erm... i dunno what those words mean and the kaffiyah is just a meomento" didnt work for them.

so they escorted me to a room, questioned me, stripped search me, emptied my bag, went through every item in there, swabbed every holy nougat i bought, sniffed every bottle of shampoo i took from my hotel, opened every shoe polish i took from the hotel, went thru my ipod playlist, checked my blackberry, took my phone apart, x-rayed the bag of M&S fruit and nuts i had, and proded the little nativity scene i bought.

thank god they stayed away from my anus.

that took about 45 mins in total. So yeah, get to the airport early if u desperately want to buy a kaffiyah and a little propoganda about palestine.

but yeah, the good thing i have to say about this was that they were pretty nice about it all. i mean, there were no punching, goodcopbadcop , " U ARE LIAR! LIAR! " style hollywood-tommy lee jones/al pacino style interrogation, they just asked the same questions again and again and again.

Also, they were very courterous and kept telling me its just procedure. They also reassureed me I will not miss my flight and even helped me check in and rushed me thru to the plane.

On the briyghter note, they had a mean cuppa coffee in the room.

Do you have photos of the sticker? I know Arabic and can tell you what it means.