Aaaaand we're back

Immediately after I published this morning's lame excuse journal entry, I managed to forget...

1. ...to kiss my beautiful wife goodbye.
2. ...to take my trusty Starbuck's travel mug full of 'Sumatra's finest' out to the car.
3. ...that one of my regular passengers had told me before the weekend that he was taking the day off today... so I woke him up to ask 'where are you?'

Results:

1. My first conversation with Zahava today is bound to be a little, er, frosty.
2. I had to drink two cups of liquid cat sh*t Israeli instant coffee before I could manage to focus on the computer screen.
3. When I go to pick up this regular passenger tomorrow, his demeanor is bound to be a bit, er, frosty.

Well, it's lunch time and the day can only get better from here, right?

Wrong! I made the mistake of taking lunch at my desk and reading the news.

It seems that overnight a naive imbecile budding young student journalist went and got his-stupid-self kidnapped in Nablus (Shechem).  Don't worry... he's OK now.

This 20-year-old exchange student named Benjamin Bright-Fishbein (don't get me started about the flashing neon arrow pointing to an ultra-liberal upbringing inherent in his hyphenated name... or the irony, under present circumstances, of one half of that name being 'Bright') is an undergraduate at Brown who decided to split his year abroad between the American University in Cairo and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Funny thing is, I went to Hebrew U. back in the 80s with a naive young Ivy leaguer who had chosen exactly these two schools for his year abroad.  This classmate of mine was so far to the left that most of my liberal friends thought he was loony.  He failed to realize that the American University in Cairo was a protected little bubble which effectively insulated him from the harsh realities of Egyptian politics and street crime.  And upon arrival in Jerusalem he felt that his brave forays into the Cairo souk entitled him to affect a world-weary persona... not to mention the right to look down his nose at any of us provincials who failed to realize that Israel was indeed the last evil colonial power left left on the planet.

I mention my old Hebrew U classmate because during those far safer times he made a regular practice of 'going native' (translation; frequenting the Arab coffee houses of east Jerusalem and Nablus) late at night.  He continuously tried to ingratiate himself with the locals by buying rounds of coffee and leaving extravagant tips.  But for his trouble he ended up getting rolled on numerous occasions on the way home by those 'natives' who were unable to resist parting this young American fool from his substantial money clip.

In short, though he would never admit it (even to himself), my old classmate looked upon Arabs in general... and  Palestinians in particular... as noble savages that he could sooth/join at will simply by singing a few bars of his ultra-liberal song. 

What he failed to realize is that the Arabs/Palestinians are neither noble nor savages.  They are a complex/diverse population made up of good, bad, rich poor, honest and criminal people.  And no amount of fawning and saying 'I soooo get your suffering and oppression' will mean a whit to someone who sees a strange American as a meal ticket or political hostage.  There are a lot of these 'natives' around these days who haven't received their promised paychecks in a few months!

I've had a version of this conversation with a journalist friend of mine. I once joked with her about wanting to drive a Joo-hater we both loathe into the center of Nablus and throw him out of the car just to see him pleading to the advancing crowd, "No, wait... I'm not a Jew... I hate the Jews more than you do!!!" 

Naturally my journalist friend, who has spent a great deal of time in Nablus and other Arab cities, was appalled at the implied prejudice in my statement and chided me for assuming that any white face in Nablus would automatically become a target.

I reluctantly agreed that I was simply indulging in a little schadenfreude fantasy, and that the overwhelming majority of Palestinians who might glimpse such a person being thrown from a car in Nablus would have no interest in him... for good or for bad.

But I did bite my tongue just a little.

What I really wanted to tell her is that as a journalist, most (if not all) of her visits to Nablus and other Arab locales are carefully coordinated with Palestinian politicians and/or journalists.  She is nominally escorted to and from most of her interviews, and as a known journalist, she represents arguably the only segment of the Israeli/international population to whom it would be expedient to show one's best face.

Young Benjamin (of the hyphenated name), on the other hand, possessed no such contacts or immunity from harassment.  Though right up until the moment he was blindfolded and tossed into the car he surely fancied himself a seasoned newsman because of his political punditry with that august publication; 'The Brown Daily Herald'... what he failed to realize is that Nablus is no safer for an unescorted outsider than Falujah (or some parts of Holon/Bat Yam for that matter).

During his captivity our hero made the obligatory video claiming that he would be executed unless a bunch of Palestinian terrorists scumbags murderers activists were released from Israeli prisons.  But by the time he was released this morning, any threats torture undue pressure that might have been applied to force him to broadcast such a provocative statement seem to have been both forgotten and forgiven.

I honestly don't know if young Benjamin got himself released by flashing his Brown University press credentials, or if someone in a position of authority in Hamas decided that holding an American hostage might not go very far towards swaying congress to release funding to Hamas just now. 

But once he was free, our intrepid young reporter seems to have decided to let bygones be bygones and was able to sum up his feelings about his captors in the following cheery sound bite:

"I had the feeling they were in over their heads."

Ah yes, our worldly veteran emerged from the belly of the beast without a single negative word for his captors other than to say that they didn't seem up to the task.  No mention of being denied liberty for several harrowing hours.  No mention of the death threats.  No mention of kidnapping/execution as an accepted tool throughout the Muslim world.  Just a one line 'boys will be boys' type statement in an attempt to laugh the whole thing off like some fraternity prank taken too far.

I'd have to say that 12 hours has to be a new world's record for developing Stockholm syndrome!

Anyhoo...

My journalist friend will doubtless continue to visit with her friends and press contacts around the region... and so she should.  Her access to 'the other side' provides everyone an essential conduit for information.  This isn't to say that all of the information she gleans is accurate or perfectly objective.  But it is far better than the information vacuum that would exist without such orchestrated contacts.

Look, I don't wish anything bad on this young idiot for pulling this stunt... particularly not a 'Falujah shave'.

But think about all the bad stuff that could have happened as a result of his stupidity. If he hadn't been released in a timely manner, a bunch of IDF commandos (i.e. husbands, brothers, sons of regular Israelis who do understand the potential dangers of going into Nablus without an invitation) would have had to risk their lives to go in and get him. 

I can think of almost a dozen student bloggers I've read this past year who think they've earned their 'liberal street cred' by wrapping a kafiyah around their neck and going into Nablus late at night to drink coffee with the natives.  That they lived to tell the tale has given legs to the misconception that rumors of the 'dangerous Palestinians' are simply so much Israeli propaganda.

The truth is, in every society there are dangerous elements.  It is foolish to 'go native' if you really aren't a native.  With the exception of one ill-conceived bar-crawl through Manhattan's Alphabet City and East Village (remember 'King Tut's Wawa Hut' at 4:00AM, Alan?), I can honestly say I have never attempted to ingratiate myself with a crowd to which I had no real claim of membership.

A perfect example of this concept is the scene from Animal House where the Deltas, out on a road-trip, make an unscheduled stop at 'The Death Delay Club' to see their favorite frat-house party band; 'Otis Day and the Nights'.  They realize only as they are running for their lives that the love was not exactly reciprocated by 'Otis' and his core fan base.

Add to this lesson the growing anarchy in PA 'controlled' areas, and one can't help but realize that unescorted travel by westerners (regardless of their genuine affection for the plight of the Palestinians) is simply an invitation to disaster.   

Did Mr. hyphenated-Bright really think his presence would somehow help the Palestinian cause?  Did he really think Palestinian/Israeli relations couldn't get any worse? 

Just think about what would happen - especially in light of the current tensions over the tragedy in Gaza this past Friday - if this Jewish American college student had gotten killed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time... or if some Israeli soldier had lost his life going in to rescue said student. 

Yes, things could get far worse for both sides... and very quickly at that.

So do me a favor:  If you find yourself prancing around campus wearing your oh-so-trendy kafiyah and you suddenly get the urge to take a road trip into Nablus to commune with your Palestinian cousins... either find yourself a reliable escort who REALLY knows the lay of the land... or stay in your dorm room and email another 'scathing and controversial' editorial about the evil Israeli occupiers to your classmates back home.

Thanks.