Homeland Part II--Good Borders Make Good Neighbors

Sometimes a neighborhood turns bad.  Sometimes it always was.  

There is much to contrast between Israel and Turkey.  But their mutual complaint is about their "tough neighborhood," they say with a roll of their eyes.  

The Israelis love their neighborhood, just not their neighbors.  Every street corner, every road and hillside has a Biblical antecedent.  On a visit to an Army base the driver explains the area is called Herodion, where King Herod stopped on his rush from Jerusalem to Masada.  His Mother's carriage overturned and he feared she was dead.  To show his gratitude that she survived he built a town to commemorate it.  It ultimately became his burial plot.

At the last minute our visit with the soldiers is altered by the recent kidnappings.  We switch to a bullet-proof minivan because you don't know what it will be like down the next block.  We stand on a hilltop with soldiers pointing out the Palestinian and Israeli overlapping neighborhoods.

The soldiers, men and women, explain their day.  In Washington people show off their wall of fame, photos of politicians they've met for a moment.  The man (boy) in charge of this base shows us a picture of two Israeli F-15 Jet Fighters flying over Auschwitz. "We are not just the protectors of this land, we are protecting the Jewish people," he tells my children.

The flight from Israel to Turkey is only 90 minutes, but when you land at the Istanbul Ataturk Airport the two worlds collide. Woman in Burqas mingle with tourists in shorts and tanks waiting at the Burger King. The expensive jewelry stores glisten, the Hermes scarves stack neatly.

But baggage claim brings it all together as our luggage from Tel Aviv rests on the turnstile alongside flights from Baghdad and Najaf.

Turkey shares a border with Syria, Iraq and Iran.  Israel's border partners are well-known, but no less volatile.  When you ask about the contrast and concerns they all say with resignation, "This is the Middle East."

But how they deal with the internal and external threats is illustrative:

• In Israel my kids notice the doorman at the King David Hotel wears a taser on her belt
• In Turkey, thousands of daily visitors to the Blue Mosque, their most traveled tourist destination, has no security, no metal detector, no bag check.  The only thing strictly enforced is the dress code.
• At Ben Gurion airport they ask you numerous questions about why you were in Israel. The usual stuff like "were your bags with you all the time" preceded questions like, "what Jewish holidays do you celebrate?"
• There were 4 security check points before we got to our gate on Turkish Airlines, including one at the front door, where we sent our suitcases through an x-ray machine before we were even let into the air conditioning.

Turkey is a sprawling country across two continents, and their worries are not about Israel, but the influences of their fellow Muslims.  It is a fiercely proud place whose bright red flag with a crescent and star flies from every hilltop.

It is a land of earthquakes, carpets and kilims, where 90% of the people are Muslim, but Burqa's are officially banned on constitutional grounds of the "secularity of the state."

In Israel all the Army bases are Kosher and celebrate Shabbat.

When people emigrated to Turkey in the early-20th century they were told to pray wherever they could, a Mosque, a synagogue or a church, as they were all houses of god.  That is no longer the case.  A city of 15 million people has 3,000 Mosques, 250 churches and "only 2 or 3 working synagogues," according to our guide.

Both countries are divided, some reaching for the future with others pulling it into the past. Israel is a place rooted in its history, but has embraced a future that gave way to a start-up nation of businesses and board appointments.  Modern Turks wrestle with their progress as well, more worried about whether their neighbors will quash it.

While countries can't move, people can.

France is in the midst of a record migration of Jews to Israel, who have had enough of their neighborhood and are getting out.  

“I love France, and this is my country, but I am disgusted now...In Israel there is an army that will protect us. Here, I can no longer see a future for my children," one French Jew told the New York Times before leaving home.