Shortly after arriving in SSOI, I got a corporate job, which was encouraging but I was soon laid off with 1/3 of the company and never got a job like that again. At that point, I knew little about the history of Zionism but was starting to study it. I found myself asking questions about its history with the Arabs. Of course, I had been told that with regard to the Arab-Israeli conflict that we are wonderful and they are terrible. I still hear that all the time as do you. But I am a person who likes to get to some truths and I started asking questions because rarely is one side perfectly good and one side perfectly bad. I had been told that Israel has a vibrant democracy and people love to debate one another even in the workplace, not like that sterile America where nobody talks politics, sex, or religion in the office.
I found first of all that the Israeli workplace is ice cold. The people were so unfriendly that I was taken aback. These were nearly all non-religious people, all former army people, and I got the sense that the army turned them into androids. They were computer programmers for the most part, so that plays a part in that disposition, but I have known many programmers in my life. These guys were really cold. Nobody seemed to care about anybody else, and nobody reached out to me for being new to the country. A few of them could be personable at times, not very personable, but a bit. Even compared to the workplace in Manhattan they were cut-throat.
I engaged a few about their experiences in the army, and since there were stabbings taking place in the country, and nearby, some politics did emerge. I found that asking questions that suggested any doubt about Israeli propaganda was utterly forbidden. If you did that even once, you were branded an enemy, a bad guy, one of those. There was no recovering from that.
Pretty much everybody had the same opinion, uttered the same self-serving cliches, and hadn't the slightest interest in any opinion or facts to the contrary. There was a palpable hatred in the air. Hatred of Arabs for sure, but also hatred of anybody who may ever argue on the behalf of any Arab, no matter how old or young or vulnerable, hatred of anybody who questioned in any way the Zionist enterprise regardless of issues with Arabs but on religious grounds or just on whether it was a good idea and whether Israel is a good place to live.
I found that Israelis are trained to criticize America. They all do this even as the country would not exist with American financial aid and political support. They talk about crime in America and police brutality in particular, which is ironic, because in my opinion the Israeli police are worse. At this company, they tried to take swipes at America even though their entire business clientele was American as was the technology that they used and the media they consumed. Clearly, they were jealous.
Israelis are quick with the sardonic lines, the quick comebacks. They don't appear to think or want to even appear as if they are trying to be thoughtful. Being thoughtful is viewed as a weakness. Smiling is considered weakness.
There was one guy who opposed his colleagues somewhat. He lamented that utter lack of compassion that they demonstrated and talked about how in the army he was ordered to arrest Arabs that were commuting to work via checkpoints, tie them up, blindfold them, and leave them on the desert floor for hours until a security agent would come and interview them for 60 seconds and let them go. He was the one person who didn't object to my questions, one out of 100. With him I could talk, but not to anybody else.
It was one of the first of my many disappointments here, much of which have consisted of learning of the many myths that Jews create about Israeli society. I would say that nearly everything we are taught about life in Israel is a lie. It's not at all what aliyah pushers claim it to be, not with regard to its alleged democracy or free press or booming economy or society that is like family or world's most humane army or "bookstores on every corner". Israel has none of that. I suspect that some of the myths regarding SSOI came about in the day when it was a country of European and Sephardic immigrants when some of that stuff had some truth. Now it's Israeli. n every regard, you will encounter a steep drop from what you had in the Americas or Europe. And the end of respectful debate will be particularly noticeable.
And the end of respectful debate will be particularly noticeable. If you come to Israel, you will never again be allowed to finish a sentence or to hold an opinion different from whatever group you are dealing with. You will find yourself either covering your ears or living in silence. It goes from one to the other in a flash. Most of all, I think of a herd of screaming sheep when I think of the society here. They all follow their orders and they shout about it when they are not ignoring you.
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