ILLUMINATING

I have already mentioned Greg Sheridan's excellent piece in the Australian Newspaper - DEEP INSIDE THE PLUCKY COUNTRY but I want to mention it again because I re-read the article this morning and found it to be fascinating and insightful as did this reader from San Francisco who wrote the following letter:-

Israel issues illuminated

GREG Sheridan deserves thanks for his impressions of Israel (”Deep inside the plucky country”, Inquirer, 19-20/1.

Sheridan hits the nail on the head in observing that most international reporters “cover the territories and they only cover Israel as a brooding and malign presence in the territories”. The predictable result, he observes, is one-sided reporting that ignores Israel. So he counters this trend with a breathtaking survey of the tiny nation, noting Israel’s great beauty and its remarkable diversity in people, culture, geography and even flora.

He also deserves praise for putting today’s key political issues in context. For instance, he notes that the 1967 war began when “Israel was attacked by a coalition of its Arab neighbours”, and that “every day Qassam rockets are fired from Gaza at nearby Israeli civilian towns, especially Sderot”. And he expresses his hopes for peace, but laments that too many Arab and Palestinian leaders “still believe that in time they will wipe Israel off the map”.

Stephen A. Silver

San Francisco, California, US

Congratulations Mr. Silver for an inspired summation of Sheridan's writing.

[The Australian enables the posting of comments in its on line letters section so sit back and wait for the hysterical yapping of the small army of Israel bashers and anti-Semitic sickos as they froth at the mouth and compete with each other to come up with the usual array of lies to back those Arab and Palestinian leaders who still believe that in time they will wipe Israel off the map and have brought about so much pain and misery for their own people.]