The Little Zionist

I was in a taxi in Jerusalem speaking to Blade on my Israeli telephone at a cost of three hundred pounds an hour. I put down my Israeli telephone and chatted to the taxi driver, which was free. The nice driver offered me a simple Hebrew newspaper, which I glanced at, pretending to read it in order that he would not read it whilst driving one-handed. We talked about some new flats that had been built on a big ridge that reared up beside the road. I finally established that they were nice flats for rich people. The conversation was somewhat stilted. We then began talking about the situation in Gaza, which was mentioned in the newpaper he had given me. I suggested that perhaps all the Arabs would kill each other. He expressed the desire that they would do so. We then drove on to the railway station, from where I caught the train to visit my friend binyaminah, with whom I had an excellent time.

Blade and I were in a taxi to Cambridge station very early in the morning as I was on my way to Israel. The taxi driver was hideous, and not at all like my righteous Liverpudlians mentioned below. He attempted to make smalltalk as Cambridge taxi drivers sometimes do. He asked where we were going. Blade foolishly told him I was flying to the holy land - to palestine. It then transpired that he too had been to the holy land - to palestine. Blade and I thought this somewhat odd, something Blade expressed by subtly poking me in the side and squeezing my hand. As if I had not noticed this oddness of this man’s visit. We asked for further details and learned that the hideous man had run out of money when travelling ‘around europe’ and ended up in the holy land - in palestine. He said he had an awful time there, and was kind enough to dispense some advice about how best to make my visit bearable. I will list the advice in easily-degistible bullet-points below*:

1. Arabs offer the best hospitality in the world - especially coffee.
2. Israelis are arrogant people.
3. Israelis will not look after you, they will only look after their own.
4. Israelis are oppressing the palestinian [sic] people.
5. Stick to the Arab areas and you will be fine.

*This advice can be made more generally applicable by inserting the word ‘Jew’ where ‘Israeli’ appears.

Blade expressed his incredulity, and mild excitement at meeting a real-life antisemite, in the same way as described above. I did not tip the man.

Blade and I had just docked in Bilbao, having come to the end of a hideous 36-hour ordeal on board a large, lower-class ferry. I was hanging around the reception desk of the vessel wearing Blade’s Israeli Airforce hoody, and trying to look offensive, when I noticed a man whom I assumed to be northerner, wearing some nylon shorts. We disembarked without showing anyone our passports, and with the Liverpudlian following us. The northerner then offered us a lift with him and his brother, whose parents have moved to Spain, and to whom they were driving. They dropped us outside our five-star hotel. I left Blade’s 2003 rowing jacket in the car. I was more upset about this than he. So in the car we conversed on various matters. Blade told the nice men that he wanted to be a teacher in order not to make them feel bad about their relative stupidity. I told them that I did French, and English, thinking this to be a rather inoffensive combination as would be studied by asinine girls from the north. Blade later told me I was wrong on this point. The younger of the brothers said that he was in the army fighting in Afghanistan, and this pleased me very much. I said that my cousin was also there shooting the savage Taleban, and we bonded. He spotted my hoody, and asked me if I was in the Israeli airforce (this was before I had told him about my studying French and English). I said that no I was not, and that I had the hoody because I had bought it as a souvenir, and because the Israeli Airforce is the best in the world. His only point of contention was the superiority of the British in this area. This, again, pleased me very much. We made a few small jokes about F16s and mohemmedans, and, again, bonded. This was a very heartening conversation. These people have not been perverted by the scourge of moral relativism, because they do not know what it is. They prefer to talk about aeroplanes and guns than Edward Said. They are excluded from the post-al-aqsa tide of anti-semitism, that I shall very originally observe, has swept along islamo-facsists as well as ‘intellectuals’. This is very good, and I entered my Bilbao hotel happy.