"If you want us to come to visit or to live in your country, then you're going to have to make the right adjustments. You're going to have to set it up for us. We're used to certain things the way we come from and this is the way we have to have it if we're going to be able to manage. Otherwise we're just not going to be able to come.
You're going to have to handle the problems with your drainage systems, your schools, your traffic, your paper, and a whole lot of other things. You're going to have to put the things on the shelves your grocery stores that we need, and you're going to have to make sure that when we come there we're going to feel right at home."
Well, you're not at home. You're in Israel. Israel may or may not become your new home, but it's different. This is the way we do things and we can't turn the country upside down just so that you can visit us, to make your annual pilgrimmage to the country and say I'm a wonderful Zionist.
Sorry.
Those people who feel like moving to a different country in which things are run the way they are in that country, may be able to manage in Israel. Some will, some won't. However, for somebody to make all sorts of conditions before they're going to come about how the country has to be, act, change, and manage according to their own needs and demands is an impossible situation.
Israel is not going to turn over because of you. Israel is not going to change because of you. Israel is not going to turn into the country that you want.
Yes, you can come to Israel and you might be able to make some changes. You will probably be able to make a difference by being over here.
But it won't come because you've made your demands and your preconditions about coming to the place in the first place. To the contrary, that's only going to make a whole bunch of people unhappy.
You can't look at Israel as a paternalistic big brother who knows what's right and good for the country and who wants to turn it into a little America. It is not going to be a little America. It will never be a little America. And Israelis do not want to live in a little America. If they liked America that much they would have gone to America for more than a visit and they would have stayed there. America does welcome and open its doors to a certain number of people and they even grant them green cards, in some cases.
No, and America does have its share of those people who do want to live in America. They are called yordim and we hope that they are happy there. They didn't belong in Israel, so now let them try it out in America.
These are people who were born in Israel and we did not adjust Israel for each one of these people so that they would be happy or so that they would fit in.
It does not seem likely that we are going to make that adjustment for you either, does it?
If this is your feeling or attitude, then your visit to Israel is a non-starter.
******
Some people are harrassed from the moment they come to Israel until they leave by well-meaning people who try to convince them to come to Israel, to try it out, to tell them how wonderful it is and how good it is and they belong here and all that.
Don't expect to read that approach or attitude in this website. You won't find it.
Israel is not for everybody. Some people should live in Israel, others shouldn't. You do not necessarily belong in Israel. Maybe it will be good for you, maybe it'll be better, but you certainly don't deserve the harrassment. It's a very major, it's a very big decision that you are going to have to make and it should not be based on pressure from loved ones, family, friends, or acquaintances.
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