Talked to a mortgage banker last night and asked him if he's seeing signs of a housing slowdown. His response: "Absolutely."
More interesting, however, was a conversation with a guy who works for a non-profit that does contracting with USAID. He was a Palestinian who moved to the U.S. at age 12 and now is something of a Middle East expert for his employer, and actually traveled to Lebanon, the West Bank and Iraq earlier this year.
Somewhat jokingly, I asked if other Palestinians consider him a "sell-out" when he travels back there as a U.S. citizen who indirectly works for the U.S. government. He said not at all, adding that most Palestinians would do the same thing and move to the U.S if given the chance. He then said something I found really interesting: the people who have such attitudes -- who would consider him a sell-out -- tend to be Palestinians born in the U.S. He said that these are the people who tend to romantacize Palestine and are much more fervent in their anti-Israel beliefs.
(This, BTW, meshes with my own experience. I once sat on a trans-Atlantic flight next to a student from George Mason University of Palestinian descent who was travelling to Israel to brush up on his Arabic. He spent much of the flight ranting and raving about either how terrible the Israelis are or how too many Palestinian girls at GMU don't dress modestly enough and disrespect their culture -- all this while thumbing through Sports Illustrated and listening to Jay-Z on his headphones)
Palestinians aren't unique in this regard, he pointed out. West Bank settlements are full of American Jews who are there to show their devotion to the state of Israel (Indeed, the previous night an actual Israeli was telling me about how many Israeli soldiers are American Jews). Americans of Irish descent, whose experience with Ireland typically consists of little more than attending a St. Patrick's Day parade, have contributed huge amounts of financial support to the IRA in some misguided attempt to connect with their roots.
A lot of people, he noted, just seem to have a desire to emphasize their ethnic identity to satisfy their sense of belonging.
Again, this strikes me as the price of "keeping it real."
More interesting, however, was a conversation with a guy who works for a non-profit that does contracting with USAID. He was a Palestinian who moved to the U.S. at age 12 and now is something of a Middle East expert for his employer, and actually traveled to Lebanon, the West Bank and Iraq earlier this year.
Somewhat jokingly, I asked if other Palestinians consider him a "sell-out" when he travels back there as a U.S. citizen who indirectly works for the U.S. government. He said not at all, adding that most Palestinians would do the same thing and move to the U.S if given the chance. He then said something I found really interesting: the people who have such attitudes -- who would consider him a sell-out -- tend to be Palestinians born in the U.S. He said that these are the people who tend to romantacize Palestine and are much more fervent in their anti-Israel beliefs.
(This, BTW, meshes with my own experience. I once sat on a trans-Atlantic flight next to a student from George Mason University of Palestinian descent who was travelling to Israel to brush up on his Arabic. He spent much of the flight ranting and raving about either how terrible the Israelis are or how too many Palestinian girls at GMU don't dress modestly enough and disrespect their culture -- all this while thumbing through Sports Illustrated and listening to Jay-Z on his headphones)
Palestinians aren't unique in this regard, he pointed out. West Bank settlements are full of American Jews who are there to show their devotion to the state of Israel (Indeed, the previous night an actual Israeli was telling me about how many Israeli soldiers are American Jews). Americans of Irish descent, whose experience with Ireland typically consists of little more than attending a St. Patrick's Day parade, have contributed huge amounts of financial support to the IRA in some misguided attempt to connect with their roots.
A lot of people, he noted, just seem to have a desire to emphasize their ethnic identity to satisfy their sense of belonging.
Again, this strikes me as the price of "keeping it real."
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