The promise in this land
that everybody has. Your neighbour. A guy at work. Someone you met at the supermarket. I love that this is a country built by the sharp elbows of immigrants who not only were given nothing on a plate but in fact had an awful lot taken away from them, and refused to give up.
On a Jerusalem tram-car, you see the Orthodox, the secular, the black, brown and pale, Arab ladies in head scarves and teenagers slouched over mobile phones. Apartheid, obviously.
I love seeing the young men and women in uniform everywhere. I didn’t think I would. I am not a militarist kind of guy. But here it is different. These are citizen soldiers, teenagers mostly, asked to serve at a time and in a place where the streets and bus stops are often the front line and where they are targets. But they do it anyway. They still put on their uniform and go out there each morning, bravely and proudly.
I was upbraided by a young man in a restaurant when I mused aloud about whether the loss of young Israeli lives defending places like Hebron or West Bank settlements is really worth it. Of course it’s worth it, he said. My friends who were killed thought it was worth it, too. Why? Because we are defending Israelis! They are defending me. And, by the way, more Palestinians die every year in traffic accidents than are killed by Israeli soldiers.
I love the passion here. Sure, there is craziness. The janitor at my cousin’s building says that the dust storm that settled over Jerusalem the other day was the fault of the Arabs who have failed to make their deserts bloom. But walking home down Jaffa Street of an evening you hear angry arguments between left and right, religious and secular, peaceniks and hawks. On one occasion, a leaflet from one was snatched from my hand by the other and set on fire with a cigarette lighter. But then one of the agitated arsonist’s comrades gently takes me aside and makes sure that I get a new copy of the offending literature from someone whose views he bitterly hates.
I love that so many people here are prepared to demonstrate for what they believe in — in their tens of thousands — whether for a reasonable cost of living, peace, or animal liberation, or the memory of an Courage: There is a true sense of pride in the young soldiers