Brave Travelers

JERUSALEM, Israel -- A handwritten sign taped outside a souvenir shop in central Jerusalem reads "Discount for Brave Tourists." It’s no surprise that there are no shoppers inside, though it’s not for the reasons you’d imagine.

The sign is meant as a respectful invitation to the tourists still coming to Israel. In this shopkeeper's mind, those courageous few who ignore the threat of violence are entitled to extra courtesy and a special discount.

Israel is legendary for giving visitors a hard time, but that's not been my experience in two weeks here. Everywhere I go, I've been treated with respect and offered discounts I didn't request. Walking the narrow streets of the old city, I'm besieged by vendors whose gorgeous rugs, silver ornaments, handmade pottery and fancy clothing are arranged like museum displays. Coming back the next day, in shop after shop, nothing changes -- except the begging grows more intense when discounts are cut deeper. Terrorism is working here.

Since the current round of suicide bus-bombings, tourism has been decimated and the ripple has passed through the private sector into the government. Trash in the street, endemic in some Arab sectors, is spreading. Last week, disgruntled municipal workers throughout the country went on strike so there's no garbage being picked up anywhere. Parking cars is a breeze because no one is there to issue tickets. On television, there's coverage of government workers who say they haven't been paid in weeks. They're storming the gates of a prison in an attempt, they say, to break in. In prison, they claim, they'll get some food at least.

I meet a journalist at The Israel Museum. It's empty, like every place else. She's about to be interviewed by a couple of Seattle radio stations about a radical idea from the Israel government to cut down on suicide bus-bombers. It's been reported that the government is considering smearing its public buses with pig fat. This, goes the theory, will discourage Muslim suicide bombers because being splattered with pig grease will supposedly bar them from entering heaven. I smirk but she grins and insists this is no joke. She read about it in the country's most respected newspaper.

She's a friend of another journalist who had exercised her right as a Jew to return to Israel, but recently left the country. She succumbed to the fear that meets you at almost every place where people in Israel gather.

Everywhere I go, I've been questioned, scanned and frisked. When I encounter this at home, I'm outraged, but here, I'm almost happy to submit to the inspections, to this invasion of privacy. Here, in my Jewish homeland, I am not feeling so brave, and that scares me more than anything else.

But, come what may, I will return to Jerusalem. I hope you will too.

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