With friends like this…

September 22, 2008 - 8:46 AM by David

One of the many aspects of life that makes Israel different, from say, the United States, is the overlap.

There’s not much a distinction between different aspects of society. Government, military, civilians, it’s all the same. Whereas in the States, it’s unlikely you’d ever recognize a policeman or a soldier, here the soldiers and cops come from your own family. And a city councilman or a Knesset member could just as well be your upstairs neighbor.

Case in point – we were driving to the beach last week for a Friday afternoon into the school year last gasp of swimming weather. One the way from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, my wife’s cell phone rang, and our policewoman daughter was on the end of the line.

“You just passed me!” she said. “Look behind you.”

Sure enough, a police jeep was gathering steam and soon sidled up beside us. There she was, in the passenger side, waving, in her blue uniform. And the grizzled, mean looking cop in the driver’s seat was also smiling and waving. Then they sped off ahead to some trouble call, or whatever it is that she does (sometimes the less you know, the better you sleep).

Now, in my limited experience with brushes with the law, I’ve never had any cops waving and smiling at me. And I gotta say, it was downright unsettling. Almost like he was saying, “yeah, I’m waving now, but next time you step out of line, habibi, watch out. We know about those unpaid parking tickets.”

Anyway, the beach was awesome – Palmachim just south of Rishon Lezion – and since then, I’ve only woken up in the middle of the night a few times with the image of a policeman waving at me and smiling. Good thing my police daughter finishes her service in just a few months.

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