Irani is at his usual place, with his touristic gadgets and antiques- few antiques, mostly new stuff- and souvenirs; he is the first thing that greets tourists buses visiting the Clock Tower in Ashkelon, in the State of Israel-about ten miles away from Gaza. Buses line up, tourists go down to enjoy this small Mediterranean City hospitality and buy from Irani, One of the best Falafel sandwiches and Pizza in Israel were in Ashkelon, last time I was there probably not after 1989-I came to America in 1990. The drive from Gaza to Ashkelon is about 17 kilometers, imagine, how close Gaza to Ashkelon, and vice versa. Actually living in America; a US citizen, and driving miles and miles, sometimes daily, every time the 17 kilos, about 12 miles come to mind, I get shocked, so close;nothing. Exactly like driving from where I live in Northern Virginia to downtown Washington DC. Irani is a good pleasant hospitable man, like the city he is from; always welcoming and we always greeted him by his name; Irani, maybe because he was originally from Iran and immigrated to Israel- I do not think though that was his real name. He was in his mid 40s. We never bought anything from Irani, we were not your typical tourists visiting the State of Israel, we used to drive often from Gaza for a change and to enjoy the city and to shop around- like many Gazans at that time. At some point I had a hairdresser- once I found few relatives at her hair salon having haircuts- I forgot her name, she used to have a salon in downtown Ashkelon, or the old part of the City. The Clock Tower, was the new Ashkelon, with fancy houses overlooking the Mediterranean and couple of country clubs. Irani always talked about peace but never in details, always in general terms, maybe because he was so kind that he did not feel that he needed to engage anyone in debates, also maybe because he was a merchant and a businessman, and as a businessman, he does not want to take sides. The bottom line is that he kept saying to us why we fight- The Palestinians, the Arabs and the Israelis- there is enough land for all of us to live in peace. Abraham the Egyptian is another story; he is an American now lives in the DC area and works in a convenient store with other Egyptian youth, they are all over the place now-in DC. I go there, and Abraham is kind, he knows the order, delivers it as soon as he sees me and then he would ask the question, Mursi or Shafiq- the two candidates for president in Egypt- and I would not answer but say, what do you think Abe, the abbreviation of Abraham, he would answer with ( explicit) ...both of them..and he would say the same thing that Gregory the Greek told me, check the previous article here, that thanks God he is in America and away from Egypt. Before the first round of the Egyptian presidential elections that took place last month-the second phase this coming weekend-Abed and other Egyptians at that convenient store wanted Amr Moussa- Former Arab League Secretary General and former Egyptian Foreign Minister- to win; none of those Egyptians wanted the Muslim Brotherhood candidates to win. I’m not sure if this is actually how they felt but it was what they communicated to me. Abe used to say before the first round that there is no way that the military in Egypt would allow a Muslim Brotherhood to be president, he used to say, hey, the military will be screwed if one of the other candidates win;he would continue to say, and another reason, how could Egypt elect president that was in jail; that was Abe’s logic. Abe was referring to the fact that most of the Muslim Brotherhood leadership were at some point in jail during the era between 1952 and even before and 2011, and especially during Hosni Mubarak, the last Egyptian president that represented the continuation of the 1952 generation that ended the monarchy there and established a military regime that formally ended in 02/2011, but still governing through a transition period. Abe would ask and say, hey, Jamil, would or could such thing happen in America; where a person who was in jail could run for office; and I answered and say yes, they could run after they pay their debt to society and its up to the voters, technically, to decide; yes, it could happen. Now in Egypt the accusations to the Muslim Brotherhood leadership that were in jail, were all political, they were under arrest for defying or being a threat to the state security as prosecutors used to claim. Some though were accused directly for being involved in terrorists attacks, especially the ones that took place in the 1990s. Abe still would look at me with suspicion not believing that a “criminal” as he would describe them, would run and could win. I dropped by the other day and there were two of them, Abe-Abraham- and his co worker Magdi, and both just started to say that they went and voted at the Egyptian Embassy but emphatically refused to say for whom they voted. I’m personally glad that they voted, and that is the bottom line, in my opinion, to vote.
