Like a Stranger In A Strange Land

It seems like it’s been night for two days. And that’s finally over. It’s nearly 7:30 am Mondayy morning in Jerusalem – which means it is 1:30 am Monday morning in Virginia.

While most of the last two days has been taken up with traveling, it’s still been an eventful time. I am here as a guest of the American Israeli Education Foundation. The AIEF is affiliated with AIPAC, and sponsors trips of influential Americans (and, apparently me) so that we can both see the country and learn more about the unique challenges facing our strong ally.

This is a trip featuring twelve consultants. The Dems are Maura Dougherty, Jim Duffy, Maren Hesla, Tom King, Martha McKenna, Leigh Garland, and Ed Peavy. The GOPers are Aaron Liebowitz, Caryn Eggeraat, Chip Saltsman, Rob Stutzman, and myself.

We are being shepherded around by Marilyn Rosenthal from AIPAC in DC, Tom Sawicki of AIPAC/Israel, and Ian Stern, our American born/Israeli citizen Tour Guide/archaeologist. We also have a security person assigned to hang with us, but he doesn’t have an AK 47 at the ready, and nor is he constantly smoking cigarettes and mumbling about how he can kill a man with a quick move from his pinky, so maybe not every spy book is exactly true to life. But, there’s still a week left.

Drawn together by an interest in politics and life, coupled with a willingness to have some drinks and crack jokes/tell stories, the group already is getting along well – except when I had to threaten Chip and Aaron in the Atlanta T.G.I.F.’s with a fork in the eye if they continued to talk about duck hunting. Caryn and Maren were relieved (not that there was no violence, but that I figured out how to escalate close enough to violence to end the tiresome duck discussion!).

After we all enjoyed a good night’s sleep on the Delta flight over from Atlanta (a shout out to my new friend Ambien!), we landed in Tel Aviv shortly before dusk. Maura had recently been to Iraq for an NDI trip, so she was brought in for additional questioning (apparently, the “I”s have it – if you’ve been to Israel, it’s probably harder to get into Iraq or Iran. I’m guessing an “Iran” stamp on your passport raises red flags in Israel or Iraq. And Indonesia? The mind spins at the possibilities.) Anyhow, after a brief separation when the rest of took our chartered bus from the Airport, across the coastal plane, up into the foothills, and into the hills of Jerusalem, we were all reunited at the highly rated Inbal hotel.

Whoops – time to get dressed and run to breakfast (Yes, I am blogging in my underwear, but I thought that was the point!).