The three of us were approaching the security gates leading into Tel Aviv University. It was 8:00 a.m. And the Vice-President of the United States was in town.
Back home, we all know him as "Scranton Joe"--a self-assumed label he has worn proudly in his thirty plus years in the U.S Senate. The Israelis have another name for him: "Sloppy Joe."
I prefer the Israeli label if only for its accuracy and creativeness. Well done.
"He just doesn't take crap off anyone," Andrew continued as we crossed Rehov Chaim Levanon.
"Yea, I get the impression that he's someone that goes off behind closed doors," Ryan responded neutrally.
"Biden's just awesome, man!" Andrew blurted out excitedly. Our newest roommate was displaying a degree of misplaced youthful enthusiasm to a degree that I had not witnessed in quite some time. His praises for our Vice President stemmed from having met Biden in person back in 2008 and having had the opportunity to hear a story or two from him.
While most of us haven't had the pleasure (or displeasure) to meet the man, I think it's safe to say that we've all heard plenty of stories from him.
That stated, I understood Andrew's enthusiasm. I did not share it. But it would have been more than a little hypocritical on my part to challenge Andrew on something that I too had been guilty of in the past.
As we moved through the front gate and down past the music studies building, a building guarded by no fewer than twelve child-sized cats, I pulled out my phone and called Tyler.
They were already heading to the ticket line.
***
"I didn't know we were going to have twins," Dustin remarked with a deep laugh.
"Bite me," I replied.
"But my horse is a different color than his!" Stefan protested half-seriously. His French-Irish accent contorted the words into a near indecipherable strand of disbelief.
Both of us were wearing the same baby blue Polo shirt. The indignity of such a fashion faux pas must have been nigh unbearable for Stefan. The French part of him had a flair for high fashion. And it had just been reduced a few levels by the upstart redneck from Alabama.
Matt, Tyler, Pieter, Stefan, and Dustin had gotten to the first check point a few minutes prior. Matt wanted to hear what the Vice-President had to say. As a Green Beret who had served in and out of Iraq for the better part of half a decade, he of anyone deserved to know what the Administration's message was going to be to our best friend in the region with regard to security policy and with regard to the growing Iranian menace--a menace which had claimed hundreds of American lives in Iraq.
We handed our student ID cards in to the two Israelis at the table. They checked our names and put a sticker on the card for the next round of screening.
The line to get inside the auditorium was already expanding into the parking lot when we arrived at the second and last security check point. Israeli special police units and Shin Bet operatives were everywhere.
The Shin Bet is Israel's domestic intelligence/security agency. It's a combination of the FBI, the NSA, and DHS. And their operatives certainly possess a distinct attitude about them; one that suggests that they are Yahweh's gift to the art of kicking butt and taking names. Their placement outside the auditorium and on the surrounding buildings was strategically determined long in advance.
As we began to run through the second security apparatus which resembled a makeshift tent, I couldn't help but notice that the protocol was similar to airport security. We were required to remove shoes and all objects from our pockets. As I walked through the metal detector, a small black-haired, black-eyed Israeli girl stepped out in front of me.
"This whole 'intimidating pretty girl' thing is getting to be a little too routine," I thought with a silent laugh.
"Yesh lecha neshek (Do you have a weapon)?" she asked sternly.
"Lo," I said flatly. "Unless you count Matt. He's pretty dangerous."
Standing in front of me with their arms crossed at their waist were two bald-headed Secret Service agents and a Shin Bet operative. The two American flag lapel pins, amongst other features, stood in stark contrast to the hardened Israeli next to them.
Stefan and I made it through security first. He hustled up to me and asked if those big guys were Secret Service.
"Yea," I said as I looked back. "And from personal experience, I can tell you that they don't have much of a sense of humor."
"Really?"
"I drove in a Secret Service convoy for Sarah Palin during the election. When I asked one of them for an earpiece, he literally stared me down for a solid three seconds before telling me never to do that again."
Stefan started cackling.
"See, I thought it was funny too!"
"Thank God," Tyler announced in marked relief. "We've got air conditioning!"
"And it looks like we've got a while," Matt said as he walked up behind us.
***
"He's really smart and really respected. It's why a lot of Americans really like him. I mean his name is Joe!" Andrew repeatedly emphasized by repeatedly using 'really.' "Like he's an average guy on a lot of levels, but also really respected."
The curly-headed Israeli girl standing behind our group had her arms crossed and was nodding her head in a manner that suggested she was sorry she had ever asked.
"I think he's one of the better guys on foreign policy and..." Andrew continued.
The girl looked over his shoulder at me.
I was shaking my head and mouthing "No." She started to laugh. Andrew turned around and saw Tyler and I leaning against the air conditioner. He couldn't help but smile.
"I take it that you don't agree?" the girl asked in an unusually impressive display of English.
"Yea, all these guys are conservatives or Republicans so they don't exactly see Biden like I do," Andrew said a bit too sheepishly. I almost wanted to encourage him not to back down to me so easily or quickly. Almost.
"Well, as conservatives, we stand for liberty and freedom."
"As opposed to tyranny and oppression?" she countered sarcastically.
"Precisely," I quipped in return. "Gam anachnu ohevim latsood anashim ra'im." (We also like hunting terrorists).
"Well that sounds nice to me," the Israeli girl said as she turned to Andrew.
"I don't know what he said," Andrew uttered with a laugh. "But it sounded nice to me, too...I think. And I just want to clarify that I don't stand for tyranny and oppression!"
"Yea, yea, that's what they all say. Don't believe a word of it," I said, giving Andrew a wink.
We had been standing inside the auditorium for nearly forty minutes. It was almost 9:00 a.m. Biden wasn't expected to speak until 11:30. Ryan and Pieter had peeled off to talk with a few other MAMEH students that had come in behind us. Andrew eventually gave up with the Israeli girl and found a group of fellow undergraduates to hang out with.
The rest of us passed the time by telling jokes and cutting up--mainly with Matt and his experiences in Iraq.
"So there was this guy named Ahmed in this unit of Iraqis that we worked with," Matt explained. "He was a big guy, you know, and these Iraqis were pretty good in a fight. It might have been the only really well-trained Iraqi unit in the entire country, but they were as good a shots as we were by the time we left and had respectable unit cohesion."
"They were Iraqi Special Forces, right?" Tyler asked.
"Yea," Matt answered. "But we had a lot of fun with these guys. I mean the stuff we had to do to keep them on a leash could be made into a comedy."
"So we're flying through Baghdad one day and we're in our trucks and humvees and I get a call from one of my guys in the back of the convoy and I'm thinking 'Great. This can't be good.' And my guy starts yelling and says "Sir, he's doing it again!"
"Who's doing what again?" Matt asked.
"Ahmed!" the other Green Beret replied. "He's tossing flash bangs out into the crowds as we drive by. There's sheep, goats, and merchants running for cover!"
"Damnit! Who let Ahmed have the flash bangs again?!" another Green Beret yelled over the radio.
"I dunno," the initial soldier answered. "But he's certainly having a good time."
Tyler, Dustin, Stefan, and myself are laughing so hard that my side begins to spasm. Matt continued with the Ahmed stories to our utter delight.
One day, they were preparing to blow in a door in an effort to nab a high-value Al-Qaeda target. And before the charges had been finished being put into place, Matt, his men, and the other Iraqi commandos heard a loud yell as Ahmed jumped out of the humvee and charged toward the door.
"You've got to be kidding me," one of Matt's men said.
Sure enough, Ahmed lowered his shoulder and plowed through the door. The hinges collapsed and the door fell straight down with Ahmed laying on top of it!
"Go! Go! Go!" Matt yelled.
"Thanks Ahmed!" one of the Green Berets shouted as he and the Iraqi Commandos charged inside and stepped all over Ahmed's back.
Soon thereafter, the doors opened to the auditorium and we were allowed to go inside. I think all of us could have stood out there and listened to Ahmed stories for a few more hours, but that was not the reason we had come.
An Israeli girl and her boyfriend, in typical display of ignorance with regard to manners, kept shoving Matt, Ryan, and I forward. I flashed annoyance in her direction. She scowled in return.
"Sometimes I think Israelis display the herd mentality of cows," Matt quipped in frustration.
The girl behind him, perhaps overhearing him, shoved him forward a little harder.
"Relax, sweetheart" Matt said. "We're all gonna get there."
***
The auditorium was newly renovated and absolutely massive. Secret Service and Shin Bet operatives had been placed at all entrances and exits. The sheer number of visible security personnel was astounding. The undercover agents were likely just as numerous.
Matt, Pieter, Tyler, Dustin, Ryan, and myself all took up seats on the front row and slightly to the right of the stage. American and Israeli flags draped the backdrop of a large, hastily assembled construction plastered with the Seal of the Vice-President.
Ryan took up a seat to my right while Dustin sat to my left. Tyler and Matt sat on the other side of Dustin, their conversation turning toward all things military.
It was 10:00 and Biden wasn't supposed to be on stage for another hour and a half. Little did we know that he would be nearly forty-five minutes late.
Members of the White House press pool started to file in from the door to our far left (there's some irony for you). Among them was none other than MSNBC's Chris Matthews. He looked tired, unkempt, and wretched. I managed to snap a picture of ole' Chris in what has to be a very unflattering photo.
Andrew had wound up sitting just a row beneath him and quickly turned to talk with him. Stefan had also been funneled further out into the crowd. On the other side of the auditorium, I made out Huoshin and Dominique, both of whom waved and grinned.
Within thirty minutes, Tel Aviv University's auditorium was packed to full capacity. This observation did not immediately register with my faculties due to interference of the worst kind seated in the row directly behind us.
I had not come to this event seeking confrontation. But as usual, confrontation found me.
***
It began as a wildly unbelievable tale regarding a military show from back in the States. One of the men behind us claimed he had witnessed a military demonstration before coming to Israel and was elaborating on the event to his friend. I admittedly began to eavesdrop if only to hear the details.
When I did, I was unimpressed. Neither of these guys had any idea what they were talking about. And that pretty much became the theme for the next ten minutes.
"You actually read that garbage?" one of the guys behind us asked the other. "Thinking men read Haaretz. Jerusalem Post is crap."
"I think the Jerusalem Post is a rightwing publication," the girl to his right commented.
"Aside from that, it's garbage," the man responded.
"A thinking man?" I chuckled to myself. "This coming from a guy who just a few moments earlier claimed he once saw 20 Marines load up into an Apache helicopter? Apaches are used exclusively by the United States Army and are attack helicopters that hold a total crew of...two. Not twenty."
The conversation then took a turn from the comically ignorant to the flagrantly stupid.
"Our last President was a moron," the second kid said smugly. I could hear him crinkle his copy of the Jerusalem Post.
"I mean...I think...you know...the whole terrorism thing can be drawn back to the fact that since the end of World War II, the U.S. has invested in the IMF and the World Bank and has been exploiting everyone around the world," the other managed to utter seriously.
"Yea and we also fully funded the Taliban during the 1980's," the second dude followed up in what I initially thought was an impersonation of the type of staccato conversational transition typically found in Family Guy.
As it turned out, this guy was also serious.
"Think about the fact that the CIA has assassinated all those people and populist leaders in South America," the first guy continued.
"What the HELL are you two vomiting out of your mouths?" I thought as I squirmed ever more uncomfortably in my chair.
Dustin and I exchanged looks of irritation. He could hear them and he rolled his eyes. Ryan also looked more than a little perturbed.
"There was a time when I would have already turned around and made a scene," I whispered to Dustin.
"That makes two of us," he whispered back.
"I mean, Bush tried to kill Chavez in 2002. And the CIA went in there and you know...Chavez was locked up for two days and then was released from prison and was stronger than ever," the man continued.
"Aaaaand...it's go time!" I thought as I flashed Dustin an apologetic look.
"Alright, I'm sorry but I can't just sit here anymore," I announced as I spun around in my seat. The audible groan emanating from Dustin was not so much a sign of disapproval as it was disbelief. Ryan crunched up the issue of the Economist that he had been reading and leaned away as he smirked.
Ryan would later tell me that he had been wanting to turn around and metaphorically blast them the entire time, and that his heart had been in his throat while I opened up on them.
"Everything that you two have said over the past ten minutes has been completely and utterly wrong in every conceivable way."
The second guy, the one now sitting to my left, recoiled. The first guy, the one who thought the CIA was powerful enough to destroy entire governments on a mere whim, leaned forward and spat out a well-rehearsed trigger phrase, "But you don't deny that the U.S. is controlling people with the IMF and the World Bank?"
"What does that even mean?" I countered.
"It's colonialist..."
"Do you even know what colonialism is?" I asked before he had time to spout off another inanity. "We're not some imperialist power that's oppressing native populations through force in order to drain their resources. You want real imperialist powers, look no further than Britain and France in the 19th Century."
"The U.S. invaded Panama to take back the Panama Canal!" the young man continued. It should be noted that this individual was easily thirty years old and could not use misplaced teenage angst as an excuse.
"So let me get this straight. The U.S. invaded Panama in 1989 to retake the Panama Canal? The most powerful country in the history of the world invaded the tiny piss ant nation of Panama, defeated them with a relative yawn, all in an imperialist effort to retake direct control over the Canal, and yet, did not actually take the Panama Canal?" I retorted, incredulity dripping out of my mouth.
"What about the sovereignty of Iraq?" he asked, trying to ignore the flaming corpse of his previous statement. "Did we not invade a country and assassinate their leader?"
"Define sovereignty," I fired back. "Sovereignty usually requires that a nation-state has the backing of the people. In the West, we define sovereignty as having key elements, among them that the will of the people is properly represented by its government. Do you think the will of the Iraqi people was being expressed by Saddam Hussein?"
"Well, I mean, look what we did in Iran in the 1950's with the CIA..." he floundered.
"You mean with Mossadegh?"
"Yea! What do you think caused the Iranian Revolution?" he asked with a raised voice.
Ryan guffawed off to my right.
"Well, seeing as how we're Middle Eastern History Master's students, allow me to elucidate something for you. The people hated the Shah for a variety of reasons, none of which had to do with the CIA's intervention in 1953. The true seeds for the Iranian Revolution began in the Tobacco Protest in 1891."
"I know, but..."
"You know?" I asked in surprise. "Tell me about the Tobacco Protest then."
"Okay I don't..."
"And speaking of Iran, it would have been nice if our President had taken the time to utter three little words, "We support you," when the people were rioting and dying on the streets protesting the theocratic tyrants running their regime last year," I continued full force. "But he was too big of a coward. And he certainly did not then, nor does he now, understand this region." I finished.
Cleanup on aisle two. Can we get cleanup on aisle two.
***
The two guys behind us had very little to say from that point onward. This was understandable if not unfortunate because Biden's speech was nothing more than a lecture disguised as a speech.
He buttered up the crowd with his anecdotes on his father's love for Israel. Then he spoke about Israel's obligations to stop settlements only after he had laid on the compliments in a thick fashion.
It was utterly transparent. And I could tell that he was personally offended at having the Israeli government announce the creation of new settlements while he had been visiting in the West Bank. The move had been intentional by the Netanyahu Administration.
Prime Minister had visited the U.S. three times to meet with President Obama since he had been sworn in in January of 2009. Obama had not returned the favor and had deigned to send the Vice-President instead of himself for the Administration's first official visit to Israel.
Many Israelis disapproved of this decision and were offended at what they saw as a slap in the face. The previous Administration had never faltered in having President Bush front and center meeting with Israeli leaders, both in Israel and at home.
And much of Biden's speech was aimed at defusing the tensions and reassuring Israelis that the Administration's commitment to Israel was just as strong. But it seemed desperate to me.
The Q & A that followed was appalling. The Vice-President took three questions due to time constraints, but babbled on incoherently for ten minutes with each question. He mentioned the success of Iraq, but declined to mention that it had been himself who had originally wanted to carve Iraq up into three separate countries. He skirted the questions and did what politicians do best--talk incessantly without actually saying anything.
But then again, I think the Israelis expected as much out of 'ole "Sloppy Joe."
Waiting for the Vice-President.
Did ya get it, Chris?
Matt enjoying a refreshing energy drink while the Vice-President strings words together.
"Lord, I was born a rambling man!"
Apologies for the blurry pictures. The lighting on the stage was terrible.
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the pink camera might have been the better choice.
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