Men (and women) with guns

A soldier in Jerusalem, his machine gun slung in front of him,
looking out at the Temple Mount and the Western Wall.

When traveling in Israel, you have to get used to machine guns. Active members of the Israeli Defense Forces carry their weapons with them, wearing them as comfortably as if they were pajamas. Israeli soldiers often have an air of maturity that is belied only if you stop to notice how young their faces are.

All Israeli Jews (except the Orthodox; we'll get to that in the next post) are required to serve in the military, women for two years and men for three. Israel is a very nationalistic place, and it seems that many young people take their required military service in stride.

On any bus or crowded street in the country, you're likely to find soldiers, both male and female, carrying their automatic weapons. Initially, I was both nervous and fascinated, being in such close proximity to objects of deadly violence that I had only seen in pictures. But soon, I got used to the sight. After a while, I came to find it reassuring.

I feel safe in Israel, and the armed IDF soldiers on the streets contribute to that feeling. I know the soldiers were trained to use their guns, and that it was unlikely that there were untrained civilians carrying concealed weapons, like I might encounter in Arizona or other US states. But there's more to my feeling of security than an American gun-control argument.

Israel feels safe to me precisely because there everywhere you go you find an awareness that Israel is NOT safe. The country truly is in a dangerous struggle with the West Bank and Gaza. And whatever you may think of that conflict (lord knows, everyone has an opinion), soldiers on the street and security checkpoints at bus stations are ways in which Israel acknowledges and prepares for the reality of that conflict. The Jerusalem central bus station was bombed about three weeks before Lynn and I traveled there. Seeing security guards and metal detectors at the station seemed entirely appropriate, and less paranoid than the shoes-off security checks at US airports.

Lynn and Jay's house is out of reach of the rockets occasionally launched from Gaza into the Negev, but those rockets reach Be'er Sheva, where the Steins do much of their grocery and household shopping. Still, a person is Israel is much, much, MUCH more likely to be injured in an auto accident than by a rocket from Gaza. Somehow, Israelis seem able to keep this in perspective, and find a balance between acknowledging and preparing for violence, while seeing it more as a threat to the nation rather than a threat to themselves as individuals.

While there are no rockets at Lynn and Jay's house, what is very visible is the IDF Air Force practicing maneuvers over the Negev desert. The day we hiked to the Bedouin tent, there were many fighter jets overhead. Jay said he notices an increase in such flights when the Israeli army is anticipating some kind of action. Indeed, three days later was Nakba Day, a day of protest against Israel, in response to Israeli Independence Day the week before. It turned out there was violence on the borders with both Syria and Lebanon that day (while Lynn's family and I visited the artists' studios, which probably aren't more than a few hours' drive from Lebanon).

After being here for several days, I've developed a sense of what it means that Israel is a land in conflict with its neighbors, or at best in a tenuous peace with them. It leads to an entirely different sensibility than we have in the US, where our wars and the people who dislike us most are, by and large, far away. No matter what you think of the political situation in Israel, there is no denying that the sense of conflict is palpable, and that the Middle East region is one of shifting sands and changing alliances, populated by many men with guns.