First Person Global.(comparing Israeli and American fears of terrorist action)(Brief Article)

I nearly stepped into Sbarro Pizza, just out of patriotism. A suicide bomber killed 15 people last August in the Sbarro near where I live. Once the bloodstains were cleaned up, eating there became a statement of national determination. The pizza is political.

But my impulse was all out of place: the Sbarro I was passing was in Manhattan, not on Jaffa Road in Jerusalem. It stood for nothing but fast food. I'd been granted a two-week furlough from the war, I reminded myself. Let go of your Mideastern edginess.

Wrong again. Last time I'd been in the United States was early 2001, and in the meantime they'd installed a different country in place of the one I knew. Similar scenery, different people. Edgy people. At home, I'm used to opening my backpack every time I enter a bank or movie theater to let the guard see I'm not carrying a bomb. Lately, Jerusalem cafes have hired guards; patrons pay a surcharge on coffee for reduced odds of blowing up. It's a way of life. And in the United States right now, there's a nervousness more Israeli than American. Not quite the real thing, you'll excuse me for saying, with no belittlement intended of the very real fear Americans have felt since 9-11. Some new measures resemble wildly swinging a baseball bat at a noise in the night. Airport security often appears to be contracted out to the Keystone Cops. Nonetheless, that muscle in my neck tensed up, as it often does back home.

I didn't mind waiting in various Manhattan lobbies for the people I was meeting--though I've never been asked to do that in Israel, not even at the Defense Ministry. In San Francisco, while I met with an editor, a staffer handed out pamphlets on how to respond to telephone bomb threats. "Make sure to ask when the ...