Alfie in Israel

"This is me and Jesus," said Alfie, handing Yaron a photograph. "I'm the one on the left."

Yaron peered at the picture and chuckled. Alfie stood inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, next to a stone where Jesus Christ was said to have been laid to rest. Right now they were sitting outside, on the terrace of a cafe in Herzliya. "How very nice," said Yaron. "You are getting in touch with your inner Christian."

"Opium of the masses, my friend," said Alfie.

"Don't discount it," said Yaron. "Being a Christian is like being a Jew. It's cultural as well as religious, and it goes back a long time in history. Doesn't matter if I believe in G-d, without the "o". I can never stop being Israeli, nor a Jew. When I try to forget, my enemies will remind me."

"What I like about Catholicism," said Alfie, "Is the history, the art, the architecture, and eating fish on Fridays during Lent. And that's about it." He had even promised his gay priest at his wedding that he would raise the kids Catholic, even though he had never been confirmed himself and thought it was all a lot of twaddle.

Yaron was newly married to his wife. She was hot, Alfie had discovered when he visited their house the previous evening. When last they met, during a conference in Fiji, Yaron had put the moves on Alfie's girl, Sheila, who was now his wife. There was some gentle jockeying back and forth for Alpha male status: just young dogs barking at each other.

Now they had moved on in life, to the important business of making money. Yaron was doing better than Alfie, that was for sure. He was now a venture capitalist and Alfie wanted Yaron to fund one of his projects. Alfie had just come back from Jerusalem, where he met with a bunch of settlers who had formed a venture capital company. They had built and moved into a settlement in record time, just months after evicting some Palestinians goatherds from a barren hillside outside of Jerusalem. The settlement felt like dwellings perched on a cliff on a Greek island: the exteriors were all white to reflect the sun, the air was clean and arid: all that was required was the Aegean outside your window. The settlers said no to his proposal. It was another internet portol idea: to sell network telecommunications equipment and it appears Alfie had missed the boat.

"The Internet is a bubble and the telecommunications industry is worse," said Yaron. "That's why nobody wants to fund it."

Yaron made polite excuses and paid for lunch. Alfie diidn't expect much. He knew that Yaron's company only funded Israelis, especially since they were restricted, since they got money from the Chief Scientist.

Going through security at Ben Gurion he was given the usual finger-in-the-butt questioning session one experiences at Israeli security. But when they heard that Alfie was there on business everything changed. He was pulled out of line, and given the royal treatment by El Al. Upgrade to business class sir? Yes'm said Alfie. He was led past a group of Japanese pilgrims who were languishing in the queue, only too aware by now that they were being discriminated against after seeing lines of Hasidum and Orthodox Jews being led ahead of them to the front of the line.

Some of this was accommodating the religious lobby, which was now becoming increasingly necessary in Israel. Alfie knew one Israeli businessman with a 24/7 operation who moved his company to Cyprus after the government passed a law saying that Israeli citizens, claiming religious exemption, didn't have to fly on Saturdays. Alfie himself had also discovered some of the peculiarities of the country when he got on a Shabbatt elevator, which stopped on every floor. "WTF is wrong with this elevator," muttered Alfie. He soon discovered that the reason was so observant Jews wouldn't have to operate machinery on Shabbatt by touching the button to go up or down.

On board Alfie was given a first class mezza meal of houmus, vegetables, and steak. Say what you will about how the State of Israel treats the Palestinians, the fact is the food in Israel is excellent. How do Israelis manage to pull fresh produce out of this awful, barren landscape? You need only wonder until you're airborne and see the blotches of green against the brown earth; the greenhouses and back gardens amidst all those much maligned friends.

"How's Yaron's wife?" asked Sheila.

"I don't know. I didn't have time to give her a good pump," said Alfie. "Yaron was making dinner and she didn't have a girlfriend handy, so why bother?"

"Maiale!," said Sheila squishing a couch pillow into his face. Alfie was avoiding the obvious issue, which was that he had come home empty-handed, again. His project was another one that was going nowhere fast and Sheila had had enough, or so she often said.

It was then that the pain hit Alfie. "Aaaaaaaaaaaagh."

"Quit your whining, you toilet mouth bastard," said Sheila, jamming the pillow further into his throat.

"Get off!" gasped Alfie. He rolled onto the floor.

It was a bad night. He went to the doctor the next morning who poked his stomach. "It was obviously something you ate," she said. She gave him something and sent him home. This is what happens with socialized medicine when it's gutted by the likes of Margaret Thatcher. Take two aspirin and don't call me, ever.

Yet the pain persisted for a week. He returned to the doctor who had an X-ray done at the Royal Free. She then ordered bloodwork. "Have you ever had dysentery?" she asked.

"Yes, twice," he said. He recalled painful weeks in Burma and Nicaragua.

"Go down to the Chemist and get this." She scribbled out a prescription.

The chemist had to order it in special. It was a drug for tapeworm. It worked though, killing every little thing in his intestines. He drank Yakult for a couple of weeks to rebuild his good bacteria.

So much for the great, fresh food of the Holy Land.