The first thing Annie De Bruyn noticed about Israel was not the tension. It was the way people kept returning to life. 

When my girlfriend left Los Angeles and arrived in Israel in late April with no return ticket, many people around her could not understand why. For them, Israel only existed through a screen: alerts, protests, war footage, and certainty from people who had never set foot here. 

That distance matters. Pew Research Center found in April that 60% of American adults hold an unfavorable view of Israel, up from 53% last year. Among younger Americans, roughly three-quarters of adults under 30 view Israel unfavorably. For Annie, those numbers became the background noise to what was meant to be an exciting new beginning. 

“When 99% of people you tell immediately ask, ‘What are his views on Palestine?’ ‘Is he a Zionist?’ it’s jarring,” Annie told me. “If he were from any other country, he would never be faced with this kind of blind judgment.” 

I was that “he” – an Israeli, a Jew, and apparently, a political litmus test. 

Still, Annie came. Not because she dismissed the fear, but because she did not want fear to do all her thinking for her. 

“I wanted to see for myself,” she said. 

For much of her first month, what she saw was quieter, warmer, and more ordinary than she had been led to believe. 

“A majority of my time here has been peaceful,” Annie said. “What has surprised me most is how quickly the........

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