Thursday, May 08, 2008

Israel at 60

I'm travelling today - Bristol and back - so I've been reading a lot as well as trying to do some work on Virgin Cross Country Trains. There's a lot in the papers about the 60th anniversary of Israel. The best thing I've read is this:

And yet, despite the hostility of so many, Israel at 60 thrives. It has absorbed huge numbers of immigrants from the Middle East and farther afield (indeed it has recently become a magnet for Sudanese refugees), it has enviable indices of human development, contributed a huge amount to science and maintained the only liberal democracy – imperfect, like all others - in the Middle East and all this in a context where it has constantly had to defend itself from attacks designed to be mortal. It therefore deserves the warmest possible congratulations on its 60th birthday and it’s to be hoped that Palestinians will soon be accepting congratulations for the foundation of their own state too.

From today’s Buenos Aires Herald, which you can link to here.

1 comment:

laurawolfe said...

Great post Michael. It's been an emotional week for my family, with one of my nephews just having finished his Israeli national service and the other one, just starting his. He is a wonderful and amazing young man, but the uncertainty of what he will face over the coming months and years weighs heavy on our minds. Let us pray that the region finds peace at last.