Racial profiling in Israel? Just make sure you shave.

My recent exit from Israel proved to be harder than I expected for a very simple reason: I had not shaved throughout my ten days of vacation. Despite my American name and passport, my long facial hair meant special attention when checking in at Ben Gurion airport.
I had already been surprised by their system at the checkpoint for cars entering the airport to drop-off passengers. A uniformed security guard stops the vehicle and asks one question: where are you coming from? After the answer he lets the car in or pulls it aside. I asked the person driving my car how does that work to spot potential terrorists. His answer: the guard just wants to see your accent in Hebrew.
Then came the check-in ordeal. A youngster of little more than 21 made me a battery of questions. Why are you here? How long have you been here? Do you speak Hebrew? How did you learn what you know? Is it your first time? Not to mention he asked me at least three times my name and date of birth to see if I got confused.
You have to give it to them that they are serious about security. But when the person checking my identity walked away with my passport and took almost 15 minutes to reappear, I started to get annoyed. That was when my companion called the beard issue to my attention.
I got comfort when I saw another security person grill a couple of old people who were as American as you get - yes, they were southern, were strongly built, to put it nicely, and the clear hypertension they suffered from gave their skin, and necks, a distinct red color. But then I noticed that the same couple was accompanied by a guide of sorts who looked - you guessed - Arab.
I know they have their reasons. But coming from a country in which during 25 years of dictatorship you could be interrogated by the police just for walking around in groups bigger than three people, I cannot agree with Israel's methods.
I do not mean to pretend that I can teach Israel how to maintain its security tight. But I do wish they were more scientific about their screening and stuck to bomb-sniffing dogs and metal detectors.
I am sorry to say, but it reminded me of the racial profiling Jews suffered during the second world war.

Israel back to a woman's hands?

Ehud Olmert has just announced his resignation. Well, kind of. He said he will resign as soon as his party, Kadima, elects a new president, and then he will pass the baton so this person can complete his term.
Once elected, this person has a month to put together a cabinet before taking the reigns.
Regardless, the matter of the fact is that Israel's helm will be given to one of the two leaders of the Kadima which are coming to a face-off on September 17.
On one side is Tzipi Livni, the cunning foreign minister who could become the first woman to hold the highest office in the country since Golda Meir.
On the other is the hawkish Shaul Mofaz, currently transports minister and formerly the defense minister.
While the secular Jews here clearly pend toward Livni - I heard one person say that she is very honest and seems to never lie -, this is not a general election. The direction this small country with big ambitions will take in the next couple of years is now in the hands of a few representatives of the ruling party.
If Livni wins, she will have followed a similar path to Meir, which was foreign minister herself before taking the higher office.
Let us just hope that Meir's fate is not repeated in a possible Livni tenure. In 1973, just before Meir's last year in office, Israel went into one of its bloodiest confrontations, the Yom Kippur war.
As Olmert said today in his address to the country, the northern border is at peace, following the Lebanon war. The peace with Jordanians seems to be holding. Livni seems to bring tidings of more peace, whereas, Mofaz indicates the opposite.
But in this country, life and death decisions often do not depend on who is at the helm.
No matter what is the outcome of the election on September 17, Israel is once more in the hands of God.