Crazy Airplane Guy

That's kind of a silly title for a blog post, but that's the whole point of this story, and we all know I like to be direct. So, here goes: taking off from Tel Aviv took a bit of time, and according to the flight attendant, always does. This is because some ultra-Orthodox Jewish men cannot sit by women, but are seated wherever Continental seats them ... which means they tend to get on the plane, sit wherever they want, and displace other people, who then aren't sure where they should sit, and often aren't happy with their new seats, etc. So in this time, and then for awhile after take-off, I sat in my seat, idly listening to the hum of conversation around me.

Until something behind me caught my attention – the young man sitting directly behind me was talking to a guy next to him about the current strife in Gaza and about his experiences in the Israeli army generally. Most of what he said was appalling, and I had to stop myself more than once from turning around and confronting him directly. I was less successful in controlling my semi-under-my-breath mutterings, but the men on either side of me wisely did not react. I can't remember the order of his statements, or the general conversational flow, but I remember most of what he said.

On why Palestinians should be grateful to Israel: “Every time I shoot an Arab, we call an ambulance and he gets taken straight to the hospital. If an Arab has a heart condition, we pay for their medication.” (Of course! Israel has nationalized health care – that's a basic right of citizenship.) “The Arabs in the West Bank live in awful conditions, but we've given them the choice of having foreign companies build factories for them to work at, and they just refuse. It's like they just want to keep saying no so they can claim that Israel doesn't care.”

On fighting the Palestinians: “Whenever we kill Arabs, we check them for weapons. Once, I killed two Arabs, and between them they were carrying an automatic rifle, two magazines – one for each of them – and eight grenades. If we hadn't killed them, they would have been happy killing one of my regiment. We aren't fighting an army – we're fighting a bunch of suicidal terrorists.” “When they fire rockets into Israel, we can track that rocket to within like ten feet. Within a minute, there are helicopters or army personnel on the way, and we fight back. It may sound like we're targeting civilians, and not all Arabs are terrorists, but for every rocket they fire at us, we're going to fire two back.”

On the current situation in Gaza: “If they don't stop firing rockets into Israel by March 23, the entire Israeli Army is going to march into Gaza. The army sent out a letter asking for volunteers from everyone eligible for active duty, and like 98% of people signed on. I signed on. Isn't that fucking amazing?” (Wow, sure does inspire feelings of patriotism ...)

On peace and reconciliation: “I can tell you that there are only two ways that the fighting will ever end, and neither of them will happen. First, we kick all the Arabs out of Israel. Or second, Israel pulls out of the West Bank completely. But neither of them will ever happen.”

The weird thing – this was a young guy with an American accent, probably someone with dual American/Israeli citizenship. And yet he has been completely indoctrinated to hate all Arabs, and to be perfectly persuaded in the rightness of his cause. I guess that's how soldiers in any army think, but given that army service is compulsory in Israel, this results in a whole lot of brainwashed people. It's an entire nation, raised to hate. I may have wanted to punch this guy, but I do agree with one of the things he said – with the current situation, there's no way that a real resolution can ever be achieved.

(Random note: indoctrination doesn't just take place in the army. Hannah was telling me that some Birthright Israel trips that teenagers/young adults take begin at the death camps in Europe – what kind of tone does that set for the rest of the experience???)