Guide Clearly Using Israeli Reputation For Bluntness As Pretext To Mock Tourists

“Pumpkin spice latte is not part of our local cuisine, and I am aware this is all you know.”

Jerusalem, June 21 – A local entrepreneur who takes overseas visitors, mostly Americans, around the country, likes to exploit the plausible deniability of his nationality’s tendency toward directness to heap insults on those visitors, observers reported Wednesday.

Fellow Israelis told journalists yesterday that Gadi Susi, 50, a registered tour guide with the Ministry of Tourism with a regular gig taking visitors from the US, Canada, and Western Europe to see the ancient land’s sites, appears to enjoy playing the role of the blunt Sabra as an excuse to call his clients fat, clueless, spoiled, ignorant, bigoted, or ugly, among other flaws.

“We will today visit the Western Wall Tunnels,” he announced to the group in the morning. “There is room only for people who fit in the passages, so about half will probably have to stay outside.”

“I hope you enjoyed your hotel breakfast,” he continued, “even though pumpkin spice latte is not part of our local cuisine, and I am aware this is all you know.”

As the group of Christian pilgrims boarded their bus to visit a baptismal site in the Judean Desert, Susi took the opportunity to remark on several participants’ sartorial choices.

“Cargo pants are a very good choice for today’s trip,” he pronounced. “Everyone is knowing how important it is to have space to carry extra charger, extra iPhone, extra iPods, extra wallet in case something is missing and you can’t get from anyone else photos or videos they took of the place because God said, I think in Gospel of Saint Narcissist, that you have small penis or something if you do not document the same thing as everyone else around you and post it on Facebook.”

“If you look out the window on the left side you can see Jericho,” he informed his clients. “This is where Joshua turned water into wine and brought a fish back to life.” The group laughed, misunderstanding his mockery of their religious lore as exaggerated ignorance on his part, and not daring to assume he intended to make fun of them, and besides, one of them almost reasoned, it’s just like Israelis to speak their minds and we appreciate the honesty. We could use more honesty in our country, you know, the thought continued.

The group stopped for lunch at a restaurant on the Jerusalem-Jericho highway on the way back from the holy site; Susi gets kickbacks from the establishment for each time he directs his charges there. He informed them as much, calling them naïve for believing his earlier boast of knowing the best place in the country to get shishlik, even as they laughed and interpreted his disdain as humor.

In the evening, Susi bade goodbye to the group and called them “freierim,” easy marks, which they took as a compliment.

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