SAFE AND SOUND PATRICK FOSTER visits Israel expecting a war zone, but instead merely encounters an abundance of weapons
ENTERING A COUNTRY that, so we are told, is constantly in some state of conflict, I wondered exactly what I could expect to see.
I was hoping for a few explosions, some sniper fire around tea time, and maybe some light artillery fire as the sun went down, something to satisfy my sadism; but in reality Israel is a lot more sedate than the media would have us believe.
The reasons for this air of artificial calm are apparent as soon as you hit the airport. In a country that is still at war with Syria and Lebanon, and has found that the only way it can make its people feel secure is to fence off its borders, the security goon is king.
The scary thing is, it works.
Never once did I feel uneasy or unsafe. Annoyed, yes, lots. The second I walked off the plane I was sussed by security as some sort of peace activist.Apparently a scruffy mop of blondish hair, coupled with dirty jeans bearing an eight inch crotch rip is the de rigueur look for budding International Solidarity Movement activists. No matter how many times I told them I was in Israel on a Jewish propaganda trip, they were still intent on breaking my balls.
I remember walking into a Tel Aviv beachfront café in the middle of the morning. The second I approached the threshold I was accosted with the now familiar words: "you have gun?" Well let's think about it mate. I'm obviously a westerner, I'm wearing a t-shirt and shorts, and I'm carrying a tourist map of Tel Aviv.What are the odds on me having a Colt 9mm shoved down the back of my pants?
It sounds ridiculous, and when you're in that situation it does get bloody tiring. But less than a month later the front of the place next door was ripped apart by a suicide bomber, killing five and injuring fifty. Under that light, it's not hard to see why constant vigilance, backed up with constant militarisation, seems the only option.
But it's an eerie sort of calm that pervades from the barrel of a gun. Every street corner has some poxy eighteen year old on national service with an M16 slung over his shoulder.
In the cities,most of the national service conscripts live at home, and take their small arsenal of weapons back with them. The result is a Tony Martin-esque gun culture where every household has a machine gun under the bed.
In the midst of all those guns, it seems bizarre that Jerusalem still has such a feral cat problem (they were introduced to solve the rat problem). So many cats, so many men with guns. It doesn't take a genius to work out the solution.
But it is all those men with guns that are the necessary obscenity if western tourists are to spend their dollars in Jerusalem. A sad rejoinder perhaps, but it is because of this that my lasting memory of Israel remains that of having my inside leg felt up by some greaseball with an Uzi.
