Living in and loving Israel day by day

National Catholic Reporter, July 16, 2004 by Richard Thieme

"Is that how you experience Israel?" asked an Israeli last year when I shared my impressions of a week in Tel Aviv and Eilat. "With all the bombs, guns and weapons, it sounds more like Texas!"

I was in Israel in May 2003 to keynote the security track of Tech Ed, an annual Microsoft conference. I arrived in Tel Aviv on Sunday and stayed at a hotel on the beach. Two friends joined me for dinner in a pub near the hotel. One was particularly anxious because there was no security guard at the door. I hadn't noticed because I was not really in Israel yet. My head was somewhere over Cyprus just beginning a descent.

After dinner I walked the beach along the Mediterranean and noticed Mike's Place, a blues bar, and asked about the music. I was told to come Tuesday when lots of musicians came to jam. Since I was leaving Monday for Eilat, a resort on the Gulf of Aqaba, I didn't go. Others did, however, and were there when a suicide bomber exploded, killing three people.

The guard stopped the bomber from reaching the crowd and took the brunt of the blast. Guards are mostly young, just out of the army. Most restaurants, shops, bars and hotels have armed guards at the door who inspect parcels and backpacks, query people about weapons, sometimes pat you down. Walking with colleagues to conference sessions in Eilat, I often waited while guards checked weapons permits.

"Sorry to make you wait," a friend said, "but I'm carrying a gun."

"I'm glad you're carrying a gun," I replied. Clearly I was living in Israel by then.

By the end of the week I shared my friend's apprehension if I was inside a place that did not have a guard. It becomes second nature. You scan people around you for a bulky coat. You "read the space," looking for incongruities.

Back in Tel Aviv, I looked down at flowers in front of the bombed-out nightclub, remembering bouquets at the World Trade Center. The flowers always contrast with the rubble and destruction, and the smell of ashes is always stronger than the scent of petals.

Back in business

One year later, in May 2004, I was at Mike's Place once again. This time I was in Israel to keynote the entire Microsoft event, as a bookend to CEO Steve Ballmer. At Mike's I looked at pictures of three young dead and memorial plaques and more flowers.

Mike's was back in business in a week. Israelis refuse to stop living because of threats. Fear is paralyzing, they know; fear is the worst enemy. But in a world frightened of both terror and warnings about terror, what is the worst danger? To live with fear or not to live at all?

Often it is the warning that frightens us more than the facts. On the morning I left for Israel, I received e-mail from a friend who works in intelligence. The State Department had just issued a bulletin advising Americans not to go to Israel. The bulletin included kidnapping as a danger in addition to being blown up.

My anxiety spiking, I called the State Department and reached the person who wrote the bulletin. Is the warning based on new information?

"No," she said. "Nothing new."

"Then why did you add kidnapping to the list?"

"Because they're kidnapping in Iraq so maybe they'll kidnap in Israel too. we're covering our butts, that's all. This way, no one can say they weren't warned."

So when I was asked by the person who greeted me at Ben Gurion airport, "Are you afraid to be in Israel?" I said, "No, I am afraid to read about Israel, not be in Israel.".

Being on the ground in Israel clarifies both the real and the exaggerated danger. But paradoxically, the closer one gets to the real, the less clear political solutions become. The seminar room filters out ambiguities and complexities. Palestinians and Israelis see things very differently but share a single vision when they fight through fear or listen to their consciences.

Fear creates a Machine that tilters out the whispers of the conscience. The Machine is the system, any system, dedicated to survival at any cost. When we're part of the Machine, every Palestinian is a potential terrorist and every Israeli a potential destroyer. We lose our capacity for empathy. Then danger is no longer part of life, causing fear. Life itself turns into fear.

Or ... life turns into courage.

Take Lia Nirgad, for example.

Lia's recent book, Winter at Qalandiya, reflects on her experience at the Qalandiya and A-Ram checkpoints in the West Bank. She is part of Machsom Watch (machsom means barrier in Hebrew), whose members do daily watches at checkpoints with the blessing of the Israeli Defense Force. Their intention is to document and report, but their mission is also to humanize the process. They are the conscience of Israel, speaking into the ears of soldiers, and the reactions of young soldiers are those of any frightened persons to the voice of a conscience.

"People have been brought to a point where their whole existence is based on ignoring what is going on around them," Lia said. "Israeli existence is now defined by not seeing what is happening haft an hour away from your house."