I want Israel to be a guy from Oklahoma

In the first few months of 2020, I dated a Regular Guy from Oklahoma. Or Wisconsin. He may have actually been from Nebraska. He was definitely American and had a Regular Guy name, a Regular Guy beard, and a Regular Guy job. I was in grad school at the time because I needed a mid-20s side quest and because I, unlike Regular Guy, was full of ambitions.

I had won lottery tickets for What the Constitution Means to Me and took him as my plus one for our first date. We talked about film and he listened intently as I described all of the different scripts I was working on for school. I didn’t have much free time back then, but he didn’t mind and would even drive me to class if it meant spending time together. Regular Guy was thoughtful and we had a great “we’re not seeing each other seriously although you know all of my friends” dynamic.

As Regular Guy drove me to campus one day, I joked about Americans who put ketchup on their scrambled eggs. I laughed at my wit and culture but sensed an awkward silence coming from the driver’s seat. Regular Guy liked ketchup on his scrambled eggs.

I don’t think I would have dated Regular Guy if I had actually wanted to be dating. He was good company. I think of him fondly as someone who sent me decent music and never added any conflict to my life. We always knew we had a short-term expiration date. Neither of us expected that to be brought on by COVID.

Regular Guy and I kept in touch for a bit while the world ended. We had a couple of social-distanced hangs, but I don’t think either of us wanted to commit to the end of the world together. Things fizzled out naturally, but I remember him as the calm before the storm.

Israel is not Oklahoma. It’s the size of New Jersey, a state I’m fairly certain Regular Guy was not from, yet everyone seems to have an opinion on it. Most people on the planet have never even heard of New Jersey. There’s something those in the whole Israel/Middle East space forget, and that’s that the issues we’re hyper focused on are not as unique as we think. On second thought, I think that’s something most of the world forgets.

This week my phone lit up with BREAKING NEWS notifications announcing that Israel had passed another round in Eurovision, a music competition mostly watched by American Jewish mothers. Jews celebrate every Eurovision advancement like the escape from Egypt. Why do we care? That’s a rhetorical question. I know why we care. Sometimes I wonder if we should.

There is a lot that makes Israel very much not like Oklahoma, starting with the fact that I don’t know the first thing about Oklahoma outside of the 1943 musical, Oklahoma! Still, I’m told Oklahoma doesn’t have ballet classes inside of bomb shelters, which my school in Ra’anana did. I bet you’ve never heard “Never have I ever… taken a ballet class in a bomb shelter” before.

Oklahoma doesn’t have compulsory military service. I think Oklahoma borders Kansas, or Arkansas? Regardless, nobody is accusing Oklahoman settlers of escalating regional tensions. When I tell people that my parents wanted to leave Colombia in the ’90s because it was unsafe and that the Israeli government welcomed us with gas masks for the whole family, they think surely I can’t be serious. Fun fact: I once shared that with a guy on a first date. He ended the night by saying, “See ya later,” and not texting me again.

Regular Guy and I never spoke about the Middle East. I think the only time he had left the continental US was to go to Cancun, which doesn’t count if what you were doing involved a beach and a margarita in your hand. The only thing remarkable about him is that he hasn’t unfollowed me, considering how political my content has gotten.

There’s blame to go around for Israel’s seemingly exceptional status. Some of the obsession is geopolitical. Some of it is theological. Some of it’s just the internet rewarding outrage until every conflict starts feeling like early 2000s reality television. But what if part of Israel’s suffering comes from participating in its own mythologizing? What if in our attempt to show the world how good we can be, we’ve accidentally trained it to keep its eyes on us?

It would have been easy for Regular Guy and me to find meaning where there was none. I remember saying goodbye to him on March 13^th, the day I got to campus and murmurs of an extended Spring Break were roaming the halls. We got on the phone that night and laughed off something we were both about to take very seriously. Keeping in touch as if we needed to be in each other’s lives felt doable, but it quickly became a nuisance for both of us. He was having COVID parties, and I was hand-making face masks for my friends.

Every Jew/every ambassador of Israel has a few go-to lines when discussing Israel. “The gay capital of the Middle East!”; “There are Arabs in the Knesset”; “It’s the most moral army in the world!” These lines feel more like affirmations than talking points and do the exact opposite of what we hope they will. Our determination to make Israel out to be the greatest country on Earth reeks of desperation, and anyone determined to be an Israel-hater can smell it.

I know why Regular Guy and I felt a momentary need for meaning making. When I told him over FaceTime that I didn’t think we were sustaining a healthy dynamic, I knew I was ending the only stress-free thing I had. He knew it, too. But bringing our situationship down to Earth is what lets me think back to him and say, “Hey, that was just alright.”

Maybe Israel doesn’t need to be the light unto nations. It deserves the dignity of being ordinary. I think that’s what I liked about Regular Guy. He never needed to be important to justify existing. I want Israel to be like Oklahoma, to have a 3.3 rating on Letterboxd and be completely forgotten about unless you happen to drive through it.