Texas: The goyish Israel

Having returned from my last business trip to south/west Texas and the Hill country, my final observations:

Texas is the goyish version of Israel.


For one thing, the landscape is eerily similar, at least in the vcinity of San Antonio and surroundings. It is the boundary between "the desert and the sown," and it's basically a limestone plateau with some fault escarpments. True, Texas doesn't have the Jordan Rift, but
otherwise the similarities are striking. The San Antonio area is reminiscent of the Galilee, with dusty forests and prickly pear cactus in the undergrowth. As you go west, it get's drier and drier, until, by the time you get to the Pecos River, 40 or 50 miles west of Del Rio, it looks like the Judaean desert. And the grey and tan limestone rock outcroppings are eroded and wethered the same way in both countries.

Socially, there are also many similarities.

• Israel consists mostly of people whose lives are driven almost entirely by secular values, but for some reason they defer to (and give political power to) religious extremists. So, too with Texas.
• Israel consists of many people who have very progressive ideas, yet the general political atmosphere is that of paranoia and borderline racism. So, too, with Texas.
• Israel has Moroccans, who are second-class citizens, and Arabs, who are many classes below that. Texas has Mexicans (Tejanos) and schvartzes (sometimes referred to by the "n" word, though, thankfully, people don't use that in public much anymore.) (Check out the Website of Amir Peretz, an Israeli politician of Moroccan descent -- He even looks like a Mexican, and many redneck Israeli voters react to him about the same way redneck Texans would react to a Tejano politican.)
• In Israel, the Ashkenazi white-bread ruling class chows down on Arab and mizrachi cuisine. In Texas, the red-neck Anglo ruling class chows down on mexican food.
• Arab and Mizrachi cuisine relies heavily on hot chili peppers. So does Mexican and "Tex-Mex" food.
• Israel has a heavily guarded border, with the security forces creating "drags" in the dirt, sand or gravel, to detect the footprints of people who have entered the country illegally. The border regions of Texas are similar.
• You can buy kiddush wine and yartzeit candles in the supermarket in Tel Aviv. You can also buy kiddush wine and yartzeit candles at the supermarkets in San Antonio, Del Rio, Uvalde, and Laredo.
  

Perhaps you, my loyal readers can find other similarities ebtween these two great nations.