a startling discovery

It was only after talking about Aliza's plan to visit Israel for Passover (oh wait,the censorship panel that banned Prince of Egypt says i'm supposed to deny that ever happened) that i realized that direct flights to Israel were kept tightly on the down-low here.
So here's the entertaining story.
EgyptAir wants to fly to Telaviv, but for some reason has no balls to announce that. So it creates this other airline - that technically still belongs to Egypt Air - and calls it Air Sinai. Air Sinai has only one plane in its fleet, and only one route. You guessed it: Cairo-Telaviv-Cairo!
On top of all of this, Air Sinai has no website, cannot be booked online from any website (trust me, i just spent the last hour trying) and is not mentioned in any official EgyptAir anything. So to book it you need to get in contact with your Egyptian, or Israeli travel agent and book it the old fashioned way.

Now there's a pathetic side and a somewhat amusing social observation to this whole story.
Let's start with the pathetic side: It's been 20 years and Egypt is still worried about showing open ties with Israel? They have an embassy here for god's sake. So yes, we think they're doing evil evil things but last time i checked there was this thing called Darfur in Sudan that is also quite evil too...
i can't really tell whether the gov is afraid of the reaction of your average mohameds in Egypt or the reaction of the Arab world. Either way it's a clear case of lack of balls on our behalf!
And seriously, it's just a flight, it's not like we're starting NileTV Hebrew! (Funnily enough the egyo radio has a Hebrew channel)

But alas, i will always be baffled by our double standards and our love of that grey area...

So now i turn to the somewhat amusing social observation side. The "kalaam el naas" syndrome that is actually quintessentially Egyptian!
The cleaning lady who tells her neighborhood she works in a factory, because they will think it's "improper" for her to clean houses - even though it pays 3 times as much. The girls who put a full on veil when leaving or entering their house all the while they go wait tables at the Hard Rock. The parents who when abroad or out of town let their kids party out till dawn, but at home give them a curfew of 10:30. The guy who acts all jealous and possessive over his girl even if he doesn't want to coz otherwise everyone will call him a wuss.

I don't know why the force that pushes everyone to conform is so strong it forces people to hide things that they are really convinced of for the fear of being judged by those who aren't convinced.