On my flight back from Chicago I sat next to a very interesting young guy who was on his way back to Iraq after a leave holiday at home in the US. We talked alot about war, and the situation in the middle east (he was quite surprisingly pro-Israel) and mainly Iraq in particular. What amused me most was when he asked me "Isn't it dangerous to live in Israel, aren't you scared all the time?" Halllo - you are fighting a war in Iraq...
I stepped off the plane and there was a mini-cab waiting to take me back to my mother-in-law's house. The driver was dressed in a long white kaftan-type robe with a huge white Kippa on his head. While driving he took a call on his cellphone, it was his brother reminding him it was time to pray. He asked if I would mind if he stopped on the side of the road for 5 min, I was not going to object. When he returned to the car he started to talk about how Islam is the essential peaceful religion. That they pray 5 times a day and this makes them very peaceful and spiritual people, something he claims the world does not know about Islam.
He continued talking - totally unprompted by me, I was too scared of saying the wrong (politically incorrect) thing to say anything at all. He continued, that he thought Islam was misrepresented in the world - and it's all Bush's fault. Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction and he has no proof that Muslims were involved in 9/11??? He said that Jews and Arabs are brothers and that Islam teaches you should love Christians and Jews. So I asked him - how do you justify militant extremists like Hamas who call for holy wars against other races and religions? He answered that there are no such things as Islamic extremists, he said that the people who are called extremists are very loving peaceful people (it was around this time that I started to hope my husband would not come out and greet me wearing his kippa).
When I asked him what he thought of the situation in Israel at first he said "I don't have an opinion on that, I am not studying what is happening in that part of the world" But he proceeded to include this little gem. "When the Muslims controlled Israel they did not treat the Jews as Hitler treated the Jews, now the Jews are in control they treat us the way Hitler treated them."
I just hope this mini-cab driver, who hailed from Afghanistan 6 years ago is being VERY closely watched by the Homeland Security (or whatever the equivalent is in the UK). Anyway - I still arrived home safely, and my husband even came out to see me!
