WOW, I myself moved to Israel at a much more critical age than your son and I know what that identity crisis is like. Eventually after going through the system here for a while I did go to America for a couple years. If you want i think I maybe able to help out with a couple of ideas for him.
It takes time but eventually he will realize that he has to come to terms that he is American in certain ways and Israeli in others and for me it took going to AMerica for a couple of years to be “proud” of the Israeli side of me, both culturally and value wise.
The reason why i continue to emphasize what I did in the last post isn’t to be annoying and blame you. It is because from my experience with these situations, the fact the someone has this sort of identity issue of American/Israeli is not to be taken lightly; however, usually a person is able to find some type of niche or place and the identity issue becomes stronger and more enhanced usually to other underlying issues. SO while I suggest you believe your son that he resents the fact that he’s neither/or, you should realize that for him to be acting the way he is and to be so stuck in that identity issue must stem from other things and that I humbly suggest you look more deeply into… It could be the points that i was making before. It could be that his way of thinking or specific uniquness were never noticed and appreciated. It could be a million things.
What you should do is think hard about that.
Also I suggest that you should be totally focused with him on trying to find some kind of interest that he can develop. I know you’ve been saying that he”s just interested in smoking and what his friends are doing. I’m sure if he was doing something where he had an edge over his friends be it a job with real money or studying something interesting or other things…. he would probably use that to his advantage.
Does he ever express interest in going to the states? Even though he’s only sixteen there are some ideas for him. if he had to work and be on his own a bit it could work wonders; reality would set in for him… It could be detrimental too and that would depend on where he’s holding and where he would be there. From what I know about Israel though, there aren’t many options. He’s not going to work at a pizza store although if you ask me a job like that wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world for him.
I wish you a restful and peaceful SHabbos