Reuven Koret is publisher of israelinsider and CEO of Koret Communications.
More from Reuven Koret
	Transfer, now and then
	From Ariel to Tom
	It's survival, Tom.
	Is Sharon following Bush to war?
	Bin Laden, Columbus and the Jews
	Dealing with the devil
	A caution before the crusade
	Time to face Mecca
	What the world can learn from Israel
	Israel should be grateful for Durban
	Do good fences really make good neighbors?
	Sexual fantasies of a suicide bomber
	Re-Orienting Israeli policy
	"Swordfish" and Israeli anti-terrorist policy
	Before the boom
	Old enough for a new gas mask
	Renaming for peace
	Israeli airspace: Who's flying, who's not
	Before the storm
	Avoiding future catastrophes
	Facing the faceless enemy
	A tale of two doormats
	Replacing Humpty Dumpty

I am an American. I was born there. I grew up there. America was where I learned to read and write. At some point after college I discovered Israel. I suddenly felt at home, because here was a Jewish country, young, struggling for self-definition, struggling for survival. I was a Jew, choosing to live in the Jewish nation.

I felt alive in this nation, because it felt like it needed me. I could contribute value to its future. In Tel Aviv, I am marked as an American -- by my accent, by my taste in music, by not having shared the Israeli experience that begins in nursery school, continues through the army, and culminates in a lifelong devotion to one football club or another.

Yet from the moment those cursed 767s hit the twin towers, I suddenly felt American. I cried as an American. I mourned as an American. For nearly two months, I regarded my homeland from an uncomfortable distance, almost afraid to approach. I resisted going to see it, as if seeing America weakened was to expose its shame, to insult its dignity.

When I came here last week, I experienced the numbing shock of seeing a hole in the Manhattan sky, the disorientation of the thing that should be there, but is not, never will be again. A smoldering wound, a castration of American power. An insult to humanity.

On my first day, I was stunned by the omnipresence of Old Glory. Flags flying everywhere: on the back of fire trucks and in the window of every public establishment. I don't think you can even operate a restaurant or a store or a bar in New York and not fly the flag. It would be un-American. You'd be driven out of town on a rail.

I went to a meeting in mid-Manhattan. There was a security check, where visitors line up obediently to show their government-approved photo ID and tell the security man where they are going. You can show him your laptop, too, if you want, or you can walk around security and get where you're going without much interference. The national guardsmen wear camouflage, but they don't seem to know what to do with the M-16s they cradle.

The next day I went with my brother-in-law to Ground Zero, surrounded by a green fence that shields the mass grave of nearly 5000 souls. Still smoldering, still smelling -- of plastics, of death. We wanted to identify, to pay our respects, to not be separated. A cop barred our way. "It's a crime scene, not a tourist site." We circled the site, a jagged, melted, charred, monument to destruction.

Around a too-quiet corner was a collection of teddy bears, thousands of them, accompanied by love letters from spouses and children and parents, pictures of fathers and mothers and husbands and wives forever lost, with wreaths and prayers and wishes of a four year old, in his own hand, that if he asked for chocolate, his Daddy would say of course you can have chocolate and I love you Daddy and I'll meet you in heaven.

You feel the smoke, and you're coughing as you complete the circle, choking back the tears. I left New York, and flew to Washington. A few things to know about flying to Reagan National Airport: these are "high security flights" and once strapped in to your seat, you can't leave it till you arrive. If you want to use the rest rooms, you are told; you better use them before the plane leaves. Once airborne, you must remain in your seat. Or else. The following day the papers were filled with the story of the stoned passenger who was tackled by a flight marshal a moment after he rose to go to the bathroom. Charged with possession but at least not terrorism.

New York is hurting, but New York has never been more beautiful, more human. There are posters above the hotels: "Thank you for traveling." The hotels and restaurants are half-filled. In the bar and grill, the girls cling to out of town firemen. The man at the next table talks about the trauma of that Tuesday, escaping from the collapsing tower, losing his friends forever. New Yorkers are relearning how to talk about something other than that awful day and everything that followed, the nightmare from which we can't wake up.

New York is the quintessential city of immigrants, the melting pot of nations, committed to coexistence and the great American bootstrap dream. There are stories of foreigners, including Israelis, being pushed against the wall, pushed into the ground, held without charges, harassed without reason. There is news about military tribunals, of the death penalty without a trial. This is not the America we know. This is America in pain.

I realize now that one of the reasons I chose to live in Israel is because the Jewish state is the underdog, the outnumbered good guys. Fighting for the Israeli nation is the good fight, the uphill battle to beat the odds. But now, strangely, America is today also an underdog. Civilization is under attack by the pre-medieval barbarians, outnumbered by the ignorant and resentful have-nots, outcasts from civilization, bent on revenge, trying to drag down the democratic and the free to its own fourteenth century moral squalor.

"United we stand." "Stand beside her and guide her." The slogans surround you, but they don't substitute for the confidence that has been lost, don't recover the vulnerability exposed. The flight of the Taliban makes little impact, because the threat remains, at all times ready to pounce. The danger of enemies within is ever felt, turning the openness of America against it. That fear, that terror, will persist until Americans adjust to a view of the world that is more realistic and at the same time more moralistic. Suddenly, all realize, there is good and evil.

America must learn anew to judge: friend or foe. Americans intuitively sense what is right. Support for Israel is at an all time high. Support for Arafat is at an all time low. But polls mean little. Emotions are too raw, opinions too volatile. If and when Israelis disagree with aspects of a new American peace initiative, there will be difficult moments in binational relations. The feeling here, correctly, is "you are with us or against us." But for the land of the free, the melting pot of immigrants -- her openness viciously abused by immigrants, resident aliens, and "tourists" who came here for flying lessons -- perhaps the most painful question is: who is "us"?

Today America is wounded, and she will take time to heal. Words have been devalued and debased by the horrible crime against the United States. Right action is all that matters. America will exact justice, but she will need all the help she can get to do it right. God bless America: stand beside her, guide her, and protect her.

Views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.

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