Brett Brown and Jay Wright were sitting in the front seat of the bus as it crossed back from the West Bank and into Israeli territory in late July. They had just given a basketball clinic in Ramallah and were returning to do the same in Jerusalem as part of an outreach program sponsored by a group called PeacePlayers International. At the checkpoint, two young Israeli soldiers boarded the bus and this part was not about games.
"People come through and they're checking passports and there's two 18-year-olds with AK-47's. You know, they just want to keep the bus organized, and you pay attention," Brown said last week.