http://www.heraldsun.com.au/ipad/in-israel-a-glimpse-of-the-eternal/story-fn6bfkm6-1226230011583
“In Sinai, an Egyptian called Moses once had a vision, and now two thirds of the world’s peoples share some part of it, too, from Reykjavik to Hobart.Whole empires have come and gone in the time between, and the only thing that’s lasted is an idea. In Israel, even this agnostic can glimpse the eternal.”
IT’S CHRISTMAS and I’m in Jerusalem. And already I feel awkward.
See, there aren’t many places where you seem to be making a political statement just by visiting, or a religious one by visiting at the wrong time. Or right.
Visiting China no longer makes you seem a socialist sympathiser. Touring South Africa no longer marks you as a racist or Quisling.
I can even visit Burma again to admire the golden Shwedagon Pagoda or temple city of Pagan without being made to feel I’m a dupe of the junta, lining the pockets of the country’s mad generals. After all, isn’t this the country we’ve now agreed to help come out of the cold?
But Israel is different. It’s so loaded, that my wife felt forced after a while to simply tell friends we were off to “the Middle East”, which at least sounds vaguely exotic and sensual.