By Daniel Wirtheim, Features Editor

Published in print Mar. 25, 2015

I like the bicycle because I understand it. I’ve built one from the ground up, I understand how each part works and I can fix mine when there’s a problem. A car is too much for me.

It’s a strange sensation to have no idea what’s pushing me along, and that’s how I feel about government most of the time. What’s done in those offices, and during political campaigns, makes no sense to me. When I heard about the Israeli election I wondered how this thing actually worked, and what it meant for the people of Israel—mostly the younger generation.

I met a lot of Israelis when I studied in Istanbul, and I still keep in touch with Ameer, who I consider a close friend of mine. So I figured that I would Skype him, to see what he felt about the election, and if anything was really going to be different, for better or worse.

I should say that Ameer is an Arab, but he can speak Hebrew, and grew up in the southern town of Eilat, by the Sinai Peninsula, so I felt that he was the right person to ask for understanding what the election meant to the Arab minority living in Israel.

“Listen, people are depressed here,” said Ameer. “I don’t know what’s going to happen. I mean, you know how it is, dumb people rule … I think Bush was alright, this guy is insane and smart. Bush was only driven by his supporters.”

In some ways, Ameer just made things more convoluted. He speaks as if many people his age feel a similar way, but if people were so depressed, why didn’t they vote against Netanyahu?

“I mean imagine Obama going on national television and shouting out, ‘emergency, the Hispanics and the blacks are coming in herds to vote, come vote and save this country,” said Ameer, referring to Netanyahu’s public service announcement regarding large busloads of Arabs being driven to the polls. “I know, Obama isn’t a good example, because he’s black, but think about any other white president.”

It’s hard to imagine a political machine, meant to protect people, being so mean to one group in particular. I feel that someone is exaggerating the story somewhere, and it’s impossible for me to understand—I’m just one guy, thousands of miles away.

I was curious as to what the younger generation of Israelis—like the one’s Ameer had taken me to the bar with in Tel-Aviv—were thinking. One day Israel will be theirs, and I wonder how they were feeling about the recent election. All I got from Ameer was a bunch of convoluted statements about how messed up everything is, how he feels that everyone is racist in Israel. What he describes is the feeling of riding an automobile that you have no control of.

What I find really interesting is that Ameer loves Jon Stewart. He understands Stewart, even though he’s never been to the United States.

“I can’t believe he’s leaving [The Daily Show],” said Ameer. “It feels like Superman is leaving us.”

It crossed my mind that Jon Stewart supports the kind of politics appreciated by those of us who don’t care about changing the lives of other people.

In Ameer’s world, there are often bigger ramifications for the politics of other people. He has friends and family on another side of a concrete wall. He’s not allowed to join the military, even if he wanted to.

After an hour or so, Ameer and I came no closer to understanding politics, or whether or not the next generations of Israeli’s could turn a new page.

“Welcome to Israel,” said Ameer.