Maggie's Farm

Back maybe twelve years ago, we decided that the only way for the civilized world to accommodate the Middle East, was to build a half mile high wall around the whole shooting match, and when the blood stopped flowing and a victor country emerged, deal with it and bring it into the 20th century education and religion-wise. I think Israel is the most intelligent country there, because it is the most Westernized [in a good way, naturally]. I've watched it evolve ever since its beginning after WWII. I used to give lifts to the young idealists who were heading out to work in the kibbutzim, and had come to Roosevelt, New Jersey, where I lived, to visit their parents one last time before shipping out. I was lastingly impressed with their 'smarts' and their dedication. They're old now, those who are left after persistent Palestinian bombings and terror attacks, but they built a great small nation which is still a wonder of the world, the only modern nation in the Mid-East.

Marianne

Meta ... thank you. And I neglected to say that the "we" mentioned above were my husband and I, after maybe a few too many of those 'cups that cheer'. But it was also before 9/11 and the frequent public beheadings and "honor killings" by Mid-Easterners of those folks who disagreed with them, which true happenings have given most of us more civilized folks in the rest of the world a disgust of them [not of Israel -- the other Mid-East peoples].

And, yes I can imagine how much Israel could accomplish in surroundings of peace. Sometime in 2007, I think it was, when Major Chuck Zeigenfuss was still on his pain meds from his injuries, he wrote a post on his blog saying what we should do is just pick up all of Israel and all of its people and transfer them to some of the vast empty spaces in Utah and they could peacefully pursue all their great innovations and inventions protected from the primitivism of the Mid-East. I thought it was a great idea and told him so, but suggested gently that the citizens of Utah might not agree, since it was their state first, and therefore their space.

He didn't pursue the matter. But I like the way he thinks.

Marianne