Friendly travel tips for Tel Aviv

Israel is a special country, and getting there is part of its special nature.  If you choose to come, here are some useful travel tips that might make your voyage a more pleasant one: 

Get to your gate on the early side.  All trips to Israel involve a second – and to my eyes, at least – completely superfluous security check at the gate.  I say superfluous because it seemed to be an exact duplicate of the security screening required to get to the gate in the first place.  So, just to be clear, this is bad redundancy, not good redundancy.

Once on the plane, immediately be prepared for a high-stress effort to get the plane out of the gate.  The reason is that most planes flying to Tel Aviv have a fair number of Orthodox Jewish families on board.  Given that the average size of such a family is about five kids, there are a lot of child seats that need to be installed, seat-swapping that needs to be done, and so forth.  On my flight, as well as Goldie’s, Marty’s,  and B-Woww’s, the flight attendants went to 11 on the panic meter because the plane couldn’t leave the gate unless everyone was sitting down, and inevitably someone wasn’t sitting down.  Frantic warnings about missing slot times for takeoff will ensure.  In all likelihood, the plane will settle down just at the last moment possible.

Go to the bathroom about 45 minutes before landing – because you’re not allowed to get out of your seat for the last thirty minutes on a flight to Israel. 

Israel is a member of the OECD, which means it has OECD levels of traffic.  It will take some time to get from the airport to your hotel.  The traffic signs are in Hebrew, Arabic and English, with many in Russian as well.  Some of the English translations can be very direct.  Next to one power line, it simply said, "Danger of Death." 

As for Tel Aviv itself, my only useful geopolitical observation is that I’ve discovered the real reason that the U.S. embassy will never relocate from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.  Presidents repeatedly pledge to make this move, but it never happens. 

Hard-bitten realpolitik types will explain that this is because of the ill will that such a move would engender within the Arab world.  Ha!!  The real reason is that the current U.S. embassy is located on some prime beachfront property next to the big hotels.  If I was a Foreign Service Officer assigned to Tel Aviv, I’d do everything in my power to prevent moving the embassy away from a beach with powdery sand, warm Mediterranean waters, and bikinis and Speedos as far as the eye can see.  It doesn’t even matter if there’s ever an Israeli-Palestinian peace – bureaucratic politics will keep that embassy right where it is. 

Fortunately for embassy officials, and unfortunately for almost everyone else, there won’t be a peace anytime soon.  More on that in my next update.