Misplaced intentions

This Friday's Jerusalem Post magazine cover story was about the tourism patrol in Jerusalem's Old City. They are there to protect tourists from pick pocketers etc. I wonder where the patrol was when my cell phone was stolen from my coat pocket while praying at the Western Wall in March?? Having a patrol to protect tourists is a good thing, but I was too disgusted to finish the article. Protect the tourists and have security at malls, supermarkets and other public places, but still the citizens on public transportation, one of the main targets of suicide bombers during the Second Intifada, have to fend for themselves.

As far as I know, there is still no security on public buses and it's very unsettling. With mass construction for the Light Rail in downtown Jerusalem still underway, buses have been rerouted and many buses now are forced to go in and out of town via Jaffa road, creating an endless line of buses and a mass of people waiting in the sweltering heat for their bus. In addition to being very uncomfortable with people pushing and shoving to see if their bus is in the long line of buses on Jaffa Road, I also feel that environment is ripe for an attack, especially with no one watching the hordes of people with packages and bags pushing their way onto a bus.

I don't know why, but I usually don't think twice about getting on a bus, however this weekend's story about the tourism patrol made me think about it again. It also made me recall a very frightening situation about a month ago. As the fairly full bus I was on made its way through the center of town, a woman wearing a thick long-sleeved shirt and a winter jacket boarded the bus. I thought it very suspicious that a woman would be wearing winter clothing in suffocating heat. No one else even looked at her twice! I was very nervous and couldn't wait to get off the bus. Unfortunately, traffic slowed to a crawl. That's when I noticed the plaque on a building wall memorializing the victims of a bus bombing in that spot a few years ago. The plaque came into view just where the suspicious looking woman on the bus was standing. Is that a sign or what? I thought to myself. In addition to the suspicious looking woman, an arab woman wearing a really nice head scarf, was sitting at the front of the bus. Maybe the arab likes to wear her finest head gear on her last ride, I thought. My husband always tells me I have a very twisted sense of humor.

Israel protects its civilians in public places, but not having security in the one place that needs it most, pokes a big hole through their effort to protects us.