The day after a singularly divisive day in our country, I found myself on the road, traveling to Texas to give a book talk. I had been on the losing side of the divide. I was tired from lack of sleep, and worn from the previous day’s events. So I was glad to have a limo (well, at least a fancy black SUV) waiting for me at the airport after two flights.<\/p>\n
My driver, it turned out, was from Jordan. He too was worried about the country. We were both glad for some like-minded company.<\/p>\n
I asked him about Jordan, and whether he missed home. And what did he think of the US?<\/p>\n
He told me.<\/p>\n
I said a few words in Arabic, which prompted the reply: “Oh, you’ve been to Tel Aviv.” I guess my Arabic sounds Israeli.<\/p>\n
We talked about travel. I hadn’t seen Jordan yet, but I wanted to go. I had lectured in much of Europe, and of course all over the US.<\/p>\n
He had visited a few spots in Europe, and much of the Middle East, he said: “Jordan, of course. Syria. Saudi Arabia…”<\/p>\n
I interrupted to ask, “What’s Saudi Arabia like?”<\/p>\n
“Pretty much the same as anywhere else,” he said. “People are people.”<\/p>\n
I nodded.<\/p>\n
He continued his list of destinations: “Qatar. Egypt. Palestine… or Israel<\/i> or whatever you<\/i> call it,” he said, his words highlighting a deep divide between our peoples, as well as personal pain on his part.<\/p>\n
We clearly disagreed about a matter of great importance to us both. My Israel was his Palestine. I knew it. And he knew it.<\/p>\n
We moved on to other topics, and enjoyed the rest of the ride together, taking temporary solace in our comradery on a difficult day in our own lives and in the life of the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“I’ve been to Palestine… or ‘Israel’ or whatever ‘you’ call it,” my driver said, his words highlighting a deep divide between our peoples. We clearly disagreed about a matter of great importance to us both. My Israel was his Palestine. I knew it. And he knew it. So…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":971,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[13,212,149,214,213,211,36,153,215],"class_list":["post-970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-shorts","tag-cultures","tag-gaza","tag-israel","tag-jordan","tag-palestine","tag-perspectives","tag-travel","tag-153","tag-215"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joelmhoffman.com\/Human-Stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joelmhoffman.com\/Human-Stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joelmhoffman.com\/Human-Stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joelmhoffman.com\/Human-Stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joelmhoffman.com\/Human-Stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=970"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/joelmhoffman.com\/Human-Stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/970\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":987,"href":"https:\/\/joelmhoffman.com\/Human-Stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/970\/revisions\/987"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joelmhoffman.com\/Human-Stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joelmhoffman.com\/Human-Stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joelmhoffman.com\/Human-Stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joelmhoffman.com\/Human-Stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}