View from Netanya

I was at the Dead Sea last week. Israel is an amazing and beautiful country. Contemplating the Mountains of Moab I had a feeling of direct connection with the Exodus, as if from my balcony I could see Moses leading the Children of Israel towards the Promised Land.

Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. It is the only place in the area where Muslims are not persecuted by other Muslims, where Christians are not threatened and persecuted, where women are free to develop their skills and personalities without being subservient to men. In the whole Middle East it is actually the only tolerant place across the whole gamut of modern behaviour.

And yet the State of Israel, and Jews all over the world, are regarded in the media as if we are the most evil nation on earth.

There are however ways of bypassing such media. On my iPhone are “The Jerusalem Post” app, most articles being free; the “Haaretz” app, which has very good news bulletins, and the brilliant “The Times of Israel”, which is a first-class Internet daily newspaper with extremely good and fair coverage of everything. In the UK “We Believe in Israel” is also a very good website.

In the meantime Israel is waiting cynically to see whether the latest ceasefire proposals will be accepted, and more important will hold. The weather is seasonably hot. At the Dead Sea the temperature was 47° so I waited until it dropped to 39° before I went swimming.

I believe that the temperature in England was also around 47° that afternoon!