You know you’re an Israeli when..

You earn an above-average salary, spend wisely, and you still can’t make ends meet or close out the month;

You can’t save a cent;

You can’t buy a home;

Your parents are your children’s babysitters;

Your parents give you money they saved up for their retirements;

Your parents start their second careers in their 60′s and find it tough to break into the job market;

You do mandatory military service, mandatory reserve duty, pay your taxes, and be a good citizen in every way – but increasingly, you can’t shake the feeling that you’re being a total sucker, that you’re being taken for a massive ride;

You pay 40 per cent more and earn 40% less than many people in other so-called developed nations;

You pay much more for made-in-Israel products in Israel than others pay for the very same products overseas;

Your government keeps on telling you that the economy is going from strength to strength, but all you see around you are striking firemen, striking doctors, striking teachers, striking social workers, striking lifeguards, striking dockworkers; increased gas prices, increased electricity prices, increased education prices, increased food prices; and decreased wages;

You subsidize the education of hundreds of thousands of children every year who will never learn anything in their schools that will allow them to enter the job market, and who grow up to call your policemen and soldiers Nazis, never perform military or national service, and who demand more and more of your tax money so that they can do less and less – all in the name of God, tradition, and culture;

No matter which government you vote in, they invariably make a political coalition with a party which makes it impossible for them to deliver on their pre-election promises;

The only way you can get decent service from any satellite TV, cellular phone, insurance agency or any other service provider is to scream and threaten to leave;

You have absolutely no trust in municipal authorities or the police to enforce even the simplest laws designed to protect your health and the health of your loved ones, like the non-enforcement of the no smoking ban in public places, bars and restaurants

You don’t understand why police officers are sent to jail for threatening a mobster after the latter threatened to kill their wives and children, and the police bosses did nothing;

You want to serve your country, say, by being a policeman, a career soldier, a fireman, a teacher, a social worker, or a public health worker – but know that you cannot eek out a decent living in any one of those civil service positions;

You know you’re an Israeli when you know all of this, you feel things will never change, but you still stay here, and you still hope…