Security threat

Tel Aviv is a hi-tech-clean-tech-liberal business hub with better coffee than London and better night-life than Palo Alto. Yet the Tel Aviv security bureaucracy reminds you that the backdrop to this clever-clever city is the ongoing, decades-old violent struggle over land and recognition. Used to the scans and searches I thought I had become immune to the inevitable frustration that results from the airports famous zero-tolerance security approach. Until my current book, Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenare, was taken away. After the third scan and search, a telephone call and deliberately repetitive questions from different security personnel, I was allowed to leave for my flight. Reaching for my unzipped hand luggage, I was told that it would have to go in the hold.

Why?

Security

OK. I will just take my wallet and phone

No. You can’t.

Really?

Would you like to speak to our supervisor?

Yes. (supervisor arrives)

You can’t take anything on board.

OK...I will just take my book then.

No.

Why not?

Security.

As a Belgian and therefore a natural surrealist, Madame Yourcenare would have no doubt been amused at her Penguin classic, becoming a Middle Eastern security threat.


SM