Jerusalem’s finest
June 16th, 2008I haven’t been posting for a while, and I’ve drawn up a backlog of things to write about, so over the next few days I’ll be putting them up as I write them.
Today’s local moment: I was driving through a roundabout (US: traffic circle) in East Jerusalem when I very nearly crashed into a police car that had decided to take a short cut by going around it the wrong way.
In Britain a cop would only do this with in an emergency, with his sirens blaring, and still stop to make sure there was nothing he might crash in to. This being an Israeli cop, he didn’t seem to be on any urgent mission; he just didn’t feel like standing behind all the other cars.
In Britain a policeman could get fired for such an offence. Israeli police seem to think it’s their prerogative. In fact, even here it’s somewhat eccentric behaviour, but they allow themselves more licence in Arab areas than they would elsewhere.
In Britain I would have tried to get the car’s licence number to file a complaint, but I wouldn’t dare raise my voice. This being an Israeli cop, I stuck my head out of the window and roared at him, “What are you, insane?” He barely glanced at me, as if to say, “Yeah, and so what?” And we both drove on our separate ways.
In Britain I would have told my friends about it. Here, who cares?