Living With the Terrorist Threat

Surprise are not popular here in Israel. Especially not, I have learned, at the post office. When you pick up packages--something that can be a day-long event if you don't plan it right--you have to confirm you know someone at the return address and that you were expecting a package. One doubtful look and your package may be whisked away to be opened by professionals, in a shrapnel-proof roof.

Similarly, a birthday party prank that included a busting balloon or exploding box would not go over well--professors who don't pause for helicopters flying low overhead will pause after a truck backfires and listen for sirens to make sure it wasn't something unexpected.

Israel is also renowned for its airport security measures, some of which border on the most sensible sort of paranoia. Israeli pilots and flight attendants, some of the best to come out of mandatory army service, know a thing or two about how to wrest an airplane from terrorists if necessary. Security questionnaires along with seat assignments have long been the norm here.

All of these security measures--ho-hum to Israelis who subconsciously stock up on food and hourly update themselves on the news--are worth mention now as the international picture continues to look more threatening. With governmental woes stretching from the United States to Russia, much of Southeast Asia in revolt or under water and North Korea sending a little surprise birthday present Japan's way, perhaps professors in other parts of the world will also start sitting quietly after a loud backfire and listening for sirens. Living in the half-century of truly global war, and a decade of unprecedented terrorist attacks within the United States of both homegrown and imported evil, the North American continent is not necessarily a safe place to be.

How can we live with this constant threat? After the U.S. bombed Afghanistan and the Sudan, the precautions taken in America filled highlight reels here for days: cranes moving gigantic barriers around the Washington Monument, increased airport security and decreased access to certain offices and revered sites. Surely this barricading offers some protection, But something will be lost when third-graders go home and describe a Washington Monument not as a serene pinnacle to American glory but as a virtual maze of uniforms and restrictions, recalling that it was surrounded not by flags but by concrete.

We must protect one of the great quirks of being American: the ability to enter the hallowed halls of Congress or the memorials to Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt or war veterans without hassles, dress codes or security checks and say, "I own a part of this place. It is mine." One might argue that these are just the necessary steps to ensure everyone's safety--whatever distance must come between President and citizen, the rationale would go, is for their mutual benefit. But it seems that America may be losing that irrational, incredible feel of ownership unnecessarily.

Israel has grown up under the constant threat of terror attacks. Here to see a semi-automatic weapon or two a day is routine. Yet the security measures taken here have no effect on accessibility. Pilgrimage under Israel's control has always been a priority, and despite the potential dangers, one can approach and enter the holy sites like the Western Wall and the Dome of the Rock almost 24 hours a day, through metal detectors and under the gaze of sharpshooters. At first it is a bit shocking, to one used to the American fiction of invisible security.

But after a while, it actually adds to your confidence to see an Uzi or two. Most mornings I take a walk directly past the Prime Minister's residence. I am free to stop and look up into his kitchen and see what the head of state is having for breakfast, behind a wall and bulletproof glass but no more than 20 yards away. I can put my ear to the wall and try to listen for what song he is singing to put his children to sleep, and if I am tired of walking I can get on a bus a half-block away on a major street.

Surely there are soldiers with very powerful-looking guns, who spend their spare time digging through the neighborhood trash cans (including at times mine) to see if anyone has left a bomb. But they have not cordoned off the area just in case; they will take the risk and not take away the chance for the Prime Minister to live on a street just like any other Israeli, with neighbors, music, buses and a grocery store around the corner.

Perhaps there is no other way here--to build barriers would be to rip up every Israeli neighborhood with fences, to surround all historic areas with walls. Lively modern Israel, its stores, pastimes and errands, just can't wait. But more likely it is a conscious choice: politicians, rabbis, sheiks--they too are human, and cannot live and be believed in a vacuum. Just ask George Washington about how accessible King George III was. Adam I. Arenson '00-'01, a Crimson editor, is spending the year in Jerusalem.