Junior Sam Buchbinder, a double major in political communications and Judaic studies, is spending the spring semester studying at Ben Gurion University in Be'er Sheva, Israel. A few times this semester he, along with other students spread out across the globe, will share his experiences and observations abroad as one of The Hatchet's "GW expats."
While I sat in a restaurant with 20 other students from my program at Ben Gurion University in Be'er Sheva, I looked around and experienced firsthand that what the world has seemed to forgotten exists in this thriving Middle East democracy: life.
When the majority of the world thinks about Israel they think about war, strife, insecurity and struggle, but I am able to see for myself the story that is not often seen amidst the bombs, barricades and barbed-wired fences strewn across the evening news.
There are families together eating falafel, girlfriends and boyfriends on dates and people shopping in stores such as Ace Hardware, Best Buy or McDonald's. There are soccer and basketball games, concerts, world class museums, Intel plants, skyscrapers, discothèques and pubs. Israel city life is alive and kicking.
While the threat of terrorism in the United States is real, in Israel it is even more so. Americans could not even conceptualize what it is like to be worried about sending your children on a public bus to school in the morning with the fear that a suicide bomber could choose that bus as a target. But you would never know from talking with Israelis that they live with these fears everyday; they live a normal life in spite of the reality around them.
The way of life is one of acute awareness to ones surroundings. This is not to say that it is a life of paranoia - it is simply a life of common sense. In D.C., awareness is nothing more than the subway signs that say "Is that your bag?" Bags are left on the subway all the time; they usually go into the lost and found.
In Israel it's a different story. As an overseas student, every University official reminds us that leaving a bag in a public place, even by accident, is subject to a fine as well as other punishment. A bag that is left behind, even for just a moment, has a good chance of being destroyed within minutes by a bomb squad. It's no joking matter.
While I sat in a restaurant with 20 other students from my program at Ben Gurion University in Be'er Sheva, I looked around and experienced firsthand that what the world has seemed to forgotten exists in this thriving Middle East democracy: life.
When the majority of the world thinks about Israel they think about war, strife, insecurity and struggle, but I am able to see for myself the story that is not often seen amidst the bombs, barricades and barbed-wired fences strewn across the evening news.
There are families together eating falafel, girlfriends and boyfriends on dates and people shopping in stores such as Ace Hardware, Best Buy or McDonald's. There are soccer and basketball games, concerts, world class museums, Intel plants, skyscrapers, discothèques and pubs. Israel city life is alive and kicking.
While the threat of terrorism in the United States is real, in Israel it is even more so. Americans could not even conceptualize what it is like to be worried about sending your children on a public bus to school in the morning with the fear that a suicide bomber could choose that bus as a target. But you would never know from talking with Israelis that they live with these fears everyday; they live a normal life in spite of the reality around them.
The way of life is one of acute awareness to ones surroundings. This is not to say that it is a life of paranoia - it is simply a life of common sense. In D.C., awareness is nothing more than the subway signs that say "Is that your bag?" Bags are left on the subway all the time; they usually go into the lost and found.
In Israel it's a different story. As an overseas student, every University official reminds us that leaving a bag in a public place, even by accident, is subject to a fine as well as other punishment. A bag that is left behind, even for just a moment, has a good chance of being destroyed within minutes by a bomb squad. It's no joking matter.
