It’s interesting to be back in Israel after 15 years—interesting for many reasons, not least of which is the different perspective I have on “security” now. A few weeks ago Jeffrey Goldberg published this fabulous article on “security theater” in the U.S. A must read. My personal favorite is the “beer belly” which is in the spirit of the snack-sized-Ziploc-under-the-bra trick I devised in the days immediately after the London bombings when the No Liquids Nazi Idiots took power. Since I’ve been griping about this stupidity since I first experienced it on Day 4, it’s nice to see that somebody got the goods in print.
But now I’m here in a country where it’s not just theater and there is real cause for concern on a daily basis. And so there is lots and lots of security. Lots. I’ve lost track of the number of times our trunk has been popped or our bags opened. Our American/British passports have meant that none of this has been very invasive, but it’s happened more than a dozen times in the week that we’ve been here. Everybody has a security guard, not just big government buildings or national monuments. We’ve been searched going into all manner of mundane tourist sites, restaurants, and even supermarkets.
OU recently had a discussion about whether or not to let “community members” (read: homeless people) use (read: monopolize) university computers when the library is open over night. At least the homeless people are allowed inside the library. At Hebrew University, where we were staying last week, no one could enter campus without a student ID or a passport. Trunks popped. Bags checked. The entire campus was fenced in with revolving gates that only allowed one person to exit at a time and those rental car spikes that will pop your tires if you try to back up. A little intense.
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