All posts tagged: terror

>>>>> 01.01.2017 Quiet on Israel’s Northern Front; Massacre in Istanbul

I entered 2017 at Kibbutz Malkiya on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon. On the first day of the new year I woke up to the view of snow-peaked Mount Hermon in the horizon, erect with might. The sun shone strong even at 8:00 am and warmed the crisp air. I strolled through the fields towards the Hermon. I wanted to smell the snow. The Lebanese across the border are simple farmers, my host had said the night before. Outside of Tel Aviv’s urban hum, the quiet of the kibbutz and its surroundings gave me a sense of inner peace. I felt calm despite walking along wires and fences guarding the Kibbutz from Israel’s northern enemies, despite watching tank-like military jeeps patrol the border, despite my knowing that just behind the white snow that graced the Hermon lay the bodies of tens of thousands of people drenched in the blood of the Syrian civil war. On the morning of the new year, I woke up cheerful, filled with hope for the coming year. “2017 is going to be great,” I hollered towards the …

[Don’t] Fear the Travel Warning

After the terror attacks in Brussels on March 22, 2016 the United States issued a warning to its citizens cautioning travel to Europe. I read the notice while lounging on my friend’s couch in central London, where I had arrived after dodging a throng of tourists near Parliament Square. The alert warned of “near-term attacks throughout Europe, targeting sporting events, tourist sites, restaurants, and transportation.” Reading this email at first made me laugh. I’m used to seeing Israel or Turkey – my emotional homelands – frequent travel advisory lists. In fact, most countries I live in or travel to are on some kind of list: don’t go to Mexico lest you become collateral damage in the county’s drug wars; don’t travel to Colombia for you’ll get Zika; in Israel you might become the victim of a knife attack; in Turkey someone might blow you up in the middle of the capital. And now the Americans had put an entire continent off limits. The absurdity of it all sounded like a joke. I looked at the …