There is a difference in mindset between the current ultra-liberal US administration and a country that knows there are people who hate them and want to do them great harm.
As a young man in the early 1970s, I worked in Israel. After about a year, I took a vacation flight to Europe. I had a Temporary Resident's card issued by the Israeli government and some local clerk at the airport copied the number down incorrectly on some additional paper issued to me. This caused no problem in leaving, but on my return trip to Israel, on my arrival at Schipshool Airport in Amsterdam, the same airport that terrorist Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab boarded his plane for Detroit, a problem arose.
I arrived hours early at the airport and, in an unnecessary move, I volunteered my supplemental/additional temporary resident's paper from the Israeli Government, the one with the mismatched numbers. This got me taken aside for questioning as a potential terrorist. Remember, I was a young man in his 20s who would be of the age group for physically fit hijackers or terrorists. I also had a homemade 110-220 volt electric converter assembled by my uncle in Tel Aviv which didn't look that much different than a homemade bomb. The security people took that and examined it as well.
I was asked where I stayed while in Israel, what were the names and addresses of my relatives in Israel. If that wasn't enough, I also was "befriended" by a young Dutchman, probably a plainclothes policeman, who tried to size me up psychologically as I waited in the passenger lounge. Talking to him was when I recalled what probably happened with the miscopied Temporary Resident number on my paper. After the Israelis checked out my information, presumably by communicating with their records offices in Israel, I was allowed on the plane. If this procedure had taken longer, I'm sure the authorities would have had me miss the flight – and worse.
Fast forward to the 1980s . . .
In the 1980s, I flew to Israel to attend my first cousin's wedding and travel around the country. After the wedding, I went to a local travel agent near Haifa. I speak around 5,000 words of Hebrew and in a mixture of that and English, told the agent that I wanted to fly to a beach, preferably at Ashqelon, a place where I've never been. With little resistance, she persuaded me to fly to Eilat, the southern port and resort city on the Red Sea, instead.
After relaxing at the Malkat Shva (Queen of Sheba) Hotel, I boarded a Hawker-Sidley propeller plane (perhaps a prop jet) for a flight back north to Tel Aviv on the internal Israeli airline Arkia. As we taxied away from the gate, I saw a young man, goofing around, jumping up and down, in a freight storage area under the terminal building. I mentioned this to the stewardess in my English-accented Hebrew and she remarked that few foreigners would understand the need for such caution. She went forward to the captain and got the flight stopped short of the runway while Israeli security agents looked for the young man, bombs, missile launchers . . . whatever, underneath the terminal. After about 20 minutes to a half-hour, we proceeded to fly north, first to Jerusalem and then on to Tel Aviv.
What I have hoped to show you, the reader, is a difference in mindset between the current ultra-liberal US administration and a country that knows there are people who hate them and want to do them great harm. I believe the Israelis – and the Dutch of 1972 – understood the world as it was and is, not as they hoped it could be. We all wish the world to be peaceful and loving, but we have locks on our doors and cars. And even Barack Obama travels with armed security agents. Come to think of it, the Dalai Lama has a similar security force.
As liberal actor Richard Gere might well agree, we should all strive to be as wise as the Dalai Lama.
Recent Comments