Thursday, November 25, 2004
The second of former Guardian Columnist Julie Burchill's travelogues from Israel. (The first is here.) Don't miss them.
Times Online - My nation of heroes, my chosen people . . .:
And Israel is a country the size of Wales, which within the first 25 years of its re-establishment (remember, the Jews were in the countries of the Middle East some seven centuries before the Muslims even existed) — from the Declaration of Independence in 1948 to the Yom Kippur War of 1973 — single-handedly fought off murderous attacks from such neighbouring dictatorships as Egypt, Jordan and Syria. (The US, surprisingly, did not begin to aid Israel in any major way until the mid-1970s; the country was founded with arms from the Communist bloc, and the first Government comprised a coalition of the majority Socialist Mapai Party with the Stalinist Mapam Party to the Left and religious and liberal groups to the Right. Beat that for pluralism!) ...
(via OceanGuy)