Israeli Hospitality
There's something to be said about Israel when, after crossing the Israeli/Egyptian border into the Sinai and witnessing the Egyptian flag and hearing an Arab voice greet you ("Marhaba!"), you think "Oh, my God. I'm free. I can breathe again. Thank God I'm out of Israel!"As repressive as one hears Egypt is, the police state of Israel is one that is very unwelcoming to anyone who has an Arab name, is a non-Jew, or just looks middle eastern. My experience in Israel made me wonder if this was what it felt to be black in America in the 1950's and 1960's. It's very difficult to feel welcome when almost everywhere I went I was looked at with suspicion, stopped, detained, questioned, checked and even woken up in the middle of the night in my hotel room by Israeli police wanting to know who I was and why I was there.
Damn it! Where are you???? Gimme a call!!!
I'll die if you already came back w/o saying hello!
Posted by Rinat | 11:21 PM
Just read this. Not much to say. It sucks that you got treated like a dog, and it's even worse to see that people have commented here making excuses for it. As you realize, not all Israelis are like that and war corrupts everyone; hopefully there can be peace some day.
Jonathan Edelstein
Posted by Anonymous | 11:11 AM