Misreading.

I misread things all the time and have to go back and read them again. But that's because I have sex daily! Ooops, sorry, that should be I have dyslexia! See what I did there? As it happens I do have dyslexia, and it's been a bit of a pain all my life having to read everything twice to make sure my brain hasn't misinterpreted what I've just read, and popped up the wrong word.

 

Maybe they can't spell Middle East?

 

We can, but usually do not usually, read every word. Most peoples' minds, most of the time, processes words expected to be there, rather than the ones that actually are there. We skim, rather than read, and we're wrong some of the time.

If you are a professional writer proofreading your own work, you pay attention. Your editor certainly pays attention. Your casual reader skims.

Consequently, in the interest of time and in haste, we see things that aren't on the page or screen, and we miss much of what actually is there.

In the specific case of "culturally European," it may be more of a matter of valid interpretation than misreading. A huge component of culture is language. Russian, English, and Yiddish, (European languages), are widely spoken in Israel, but they aren't dominant. The substantially dominant first languages of Hebrew (Israel's official language) and Arabic (a semi-official language) are Afro-Asiatic languages, not Indo-European, not European.

If someone saw your reference to "culturally" and objected based on language, that's entirely reasonable. It doesn't mean that they were debating whether Israel is physically located in Europe or Asia. Assigning European culture to a population that speaks Afro-Asiatic languages is a stretch.

Europeans who do not speak either Hebrew or Arabic would have a difficult time with checkpoints and road signs there, especially if they intend to visit the West Bank in addition to Israel. They are best off taking a guided tour. Many aspects of culture, other than language, would be very unfamiliar to Europeans in Israel. I'd discourage jogging in most parts of Israel, not because it's dangerous, but because it simply feels culturally inappropriate, a violation of the norms of residents. I wouldn't say that about anywhere in Europe.

 

I love the ones about us leaving Europe. Perhaps we are going to pull the anchors up and float out across the north Atlantic.

Knowing our disorganised government, we would probably end up at the north pole.