What's the difference between a trendy, expensive hair salon in Tel Aviv and a trendy, expensive hair salon in Manhattan? Both have banks of televisions tuned to Fashion Television or the equivalent; both have beautiful, edgily-coiffed young assistants wandering around, offering you espresso or water to drink; both feature ultra-cool modern interior design. But if you arrive 10 minutes late for your appointment in Manhattan, the stylist throws a hissy fit and tells you he can't do your hair because you'll throw his schedule off. When you arrive 30 minutes late in Tel Aviv the stylist kiss-kisses you, nods for you to have a seat on the mock Le Corbusier black leather couch, tells his assistant to get you a coffee and then lets you wait for another 30 minutes while he simultaneously cuts another client's hair and fields personal calls on his mobile phone.

Today I was sitting with my freshly highlighted hair wrapped in a towel while Amir, my stylist, was chatting with a client who had just returned from India. Ah, said Amir, I could never go to India - too dangerous.

In response to which we all chorused, "And what about Sinai?"

Which reminded me of the time one of my colleagues at the Tel Aviv high-tech company that was my former employer returned from a business trip to Mexico City and regaled us with tales of upper-class housewives who drove armor-plated cars to the supermarket. It seems that the fear of car hijackings is so great in Mexico City that many of the plutocrats have armed bodyguards as well. Wow, we said, how can anyone live in such a dangerous place?

During the height of the suicide bombings in 2002-2003, a lot of people had this idea that some places were more dangerous than others. Many of my Tel Aviv friends refused to go to Jerusalem after the Sbarro pizza branch was bombed. I wouldn't sit at Cafe Joe on Dizengoff at the corner of Gordon Street - a place I referred to as a "pigua [terrorist attack] waiting to happen." Once a guy I met for coffee at a popular cafe refused to sit near the windows. Other people wouldn't go to Netanya, which was the scene of several brutal attacks.

And yet I can count, off the top of my head, 7 terrorist attacks that took place within a 10-minute walk of my apartment during that period. Once I was talking to my mother on the phone when a loud boom shook the windows of my apartment, and it was a bombing that killed two people just down my street. Another time I was watching television while a bunch of people eating dinner at a restaurant just a few minutes' walk away got picked off by a shooter. I could go on, but I won't.

Meanwhile, there has been one horrible terrorist attack in Sinai in 22 years. One.

I'm not trying to be disingenuous when I point out that there are always warnings of imminent terrorist attacks in Israel. Or when I ask where, really, is safe?

There are terrorist fanatics everywhere: in Bali, Madrid, New York and Casablanca; in Buenos Aires, Kenya and Southern Russia. And in Egypt. I have no plans to stop living my life, because that is really the definition of "giving in to terror."

And let us remember that the most dangerous place in Israel is - still - a moving car.