Last time I got out of Ben Gurion Airport, I had a pretty hard time. I had a can of SHAHAR chocolate paste in my luggage. They really had a problem with that, and asked me millions of questions and opened my luggage seventeen times and scanned the poor little plastic pot full of chocolate. It had a weird consistency/density on their scanner monitor thing, and they had to go by the book about it. (It must have been their first time to deal with a SHAHAR pot. I guess no one but me actually brings this chocolate crap out of Israel, it’s not that good, but for me it’s just such a sweet taste of Israel, I always need one in my kitchen)

I mean, I’m Israeli, born in Jerusalem, Israeli passport, answer their questions in perfect Hebrew, when they ask me which company I fly with I always answer “El-Al” and when they ask me why I always answer “Even if it’s more expensive, I’d rather fly CAHOL-LAVAN and help the Israeli economy than save a few bucks”, I already know the exact order of the security questions they ask me because I’ve gone through that so often, I never fuss about opening my stuff, I never overweight, I don’t even care if someone pushes ahead of me in the line, I always cooperate. In other words, I’m their ideal traveller.

And yet, they gave me a hard time for the pot of chocolate. Because it was their job. Period. And I’m glad they did it.

So I can imagine what ISMers have to go through when they do the security check. And they deserve any rough treatment they might get. If you don’t like it, then get a flight to Jordan or Egypt, and get to Palestinian territories through their borders. Why bother Israel? (oh yes, I forgot, that’s the ISM modus operandi)