When I think of Israel.
I think a small group of innovative technologists.
A country full of many smart people, disproportionately packed into a space that’s too small for them.
Amazing Middle Eastern food. Have you ever noticed that less developed countries have better food? Food for thought.
A healthcare system that works impressively well.
And trauma.
Trauma from daily living – the fear of being run over by a bus, or being thrown around like a rag doll in a bus, or packed like a sardine on a bus.
For charging an arm and a leg for shitty housing, your fee for being in a place you didn’t want to be.
For harboring religious fanatics and absolving them of the basic obligations to all children – an education and life without poverty.
Of deep-seated racism for all Middle Easterners, Jewish or otherwise.
For failing to separate church and state.
For being a festering wound of transgenerational trauma where everyone is right and everyone is wrong.
As individuals, most people there are great.
As a collective, they grate against every traumatized fiber of my being. Trauma that was largely their own doing.
I don’t want to ever go back there again.
