A Russian-born Israeli friend asked us recently, “Is there going to be civil war in America?” As odd as that question seemed to my wife and me, two American expatriates living in Israel whose entire childhoods passed under an umbrella of seemingly unshakeable stability, my answer, “I don’t know,” seemed stranger still. The question was prompted, of course, by the recent events at the U.S. capital in Washington which have since been characterized by the world media as right-wing, left-wing, treasonable-patriotic riots/demonstrations fomented, deplored and/or ignored by President Trump and carried out by Antifa and/or Trump supporters. That is Donald John Trump, America’s 45th president, who now, unlike Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei, can no longer post on major American social media platforms thanks to the diligence of less than a handful of young billionaires who claim to have the nation’s best interests at heart.
I could have answered the question more succinctly had she asked, “Has the world gone mad?”
“It’s just that, while growing up in Russia,” our friend continued, “America was the one place in the world we could look to and expect to find order, stability and morality. What is happening is hard to believe.”
Exactly. What is widely reported as happening in America is hard, if not impossible, to believe.
Israelis have always seemed to behold Americans, “Americaim,” as a breed apart. Among our many other faults and defining features, Americans are rich, poor negotiators (hesitant to haggle), amazingly illiterate at Hebrew and, next to the British, the most addicted folks on earth to odd notions of propriety.
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