Israel: It's Safe to Come

As you've probably heard, earlier this week there was yet another bulldozer rampage in the center of Jerusalem. My coping mechanism this time around has been to read the blogs of my future Israel roommate and her HUC classmates (thanks, Leslie!) in order to gain reassurance that things are already back to normal (or as normal as they can be) in J'lem. I've heard about Israelis and their tough-as-nails personalities - they are, after all, affectionately called "Sabras" after the cactus fruit with a hard shell and sweet inside. It's good to see that the Americans spending the year there have already adapted to this mentality and view Tuesday's attack as firsthand insight into the reality of Israeli life.

You may recall that last week I spoke of the Taco Bell hats as being the tackiest promotional giveaway of all time. This week, I am reminded of the most brilliant one I've ever seen. During college, I attended an Israeli event at a nightclub where all of the guests received packets of condoms emblazoned with the following phrase:

Israel: It's Safe to Come.

Lest this become a blog about how to/how not to promote yourself (I do, after all, work in PR), I find it ironic that the same country that bleeped the title of the "Sex and the City" movie to "... and the City" has people giving out condoms to promote tourism! At the same time, condoms are generally effective in preventing unwanted pregnancy and STDs; however, they occasionally break. Israel's barrier method of protection -- ie the security fence -- has been somewhat successful in minimizing the onset of terrorist attacks. On the other hand, it has severly angered many of the Arabs who live within the boundaries of East Jerusalem, such as the two young men who perpetrated this month's bulldozer attacks.

With all of the security measures in place in Israel (metal detectors at every store, text message systems used to transmit emergency info), Israeli intelligence has had extraordinary success in thwarting terrorists attacks. In fact, just yesterday the IDF aprehended a team of Palestinians armed with pipe bombs, and when I went to Ha'aretz to fact check the article, the story was already buried deep under new breaking news. Conflict is not a foreign concept to Israeli society, it's just a sad fact of life.

I hope that this new idea using bulldozers as weapons of destruction is nothing but a bump in the road towards achieving peace in the Middle East. Perhaps someday we won't even need to "use protection" -- outside of bed, of course.

(My apologies if any of you are offended by this racy anaolgy).