Mike Bell

2016-11-12 22:50:58 -0500

Tommy’s experience visiting Israel largely parallels mine.



It certainly is different than what the media present.



The last Gaza war started when I was there. On the same day I saw an inbound Hamas rocket (thankfully intercepted by Iron Dome) and Muslims in Jaffa peacefully attending mosque. The mosque didn’t even have a security guard for protection. This, in the middle of a war, where the other side’s ideology is islamist. It occurred to me that there aren’t many countries where, in similar circumstances, the people peacefully attending mosque wouldn’t be worried about “vigilante” action targetting them. You know, the type of thing that French Jews in France ended up on the receiving end of, during that same war.



I concluded that Israel is actually a much more civilised society than most. In spite, or because of, the frequency of these events, perhaps.



In downtown Jerusalem, one can see a mix of (obvious) Muslims and Hassidic Jews going about, along with “regular” people. The mix is similar to the Côte-des-Neiges area of Montreal.



When I flew out, the war hadn’t ended yet. Sitting in the next row of seats was an Arab family, who appeared to be on their way to holidays, chattering away in Arabic. Nothing wrong with that. But it occurred to me that in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, it might not have been so casual in Canada, even.



The previous time I was there, I overheard an all-in-black hijabi woman charmingly wishing her Jewish colleagues the best for the Jewish Sabbath.



One can also see both bikinis and burqinis at the beach. Neither seems to attract attention. Nor do the many obvious gays. It occurred to me that a left-winger could easily make video clips of this place as promotional material for how well these various groups can coexist, and use them to prove their theories about multiculturalism, etc. Obviously, they never would, given the location. But they’d drool if they could find the same scenes in Europe.



Now, obviously the country does have problems, and they’re serious. But the feeling that one gets on the ground is different from what one sees in the media – this is a much less troubled country than it appears to be, day-to-day. Indeed, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s likely less troubled than much of Europe. I’d rate the relations between Jews and Arabs as being fairly similar to what they’re like in Montreal.

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