This is about identity. This picture from Jerusalem (courtesy of Elena), shows how people can formulate their identity in isolation, or even in contradiction, of their social contexts. It is brave to do this, especially in a social structure so indoctrinated with the identity created by institutions of the state.

In yesterdays newpaper, which I was reading today, an article ended with "One place, Sarah, will protect us from all of this fear, forever, it is Palestine."

You could have read this same sentence exactly a hundred years ago (or up to 60 years back), published in a Jewish paper (if any existed then) in Europe. Even the names could have been the same, Sarah is as Jewish as it is Arab, and Palestine was still then (and now), the name that refers to that piece of land of which everyone wants a grab.

Max Hastings, in todays The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1801398,00.html) believes that the days are gone when Israel could intimidate others out of criticising it by anti-semitism accusations. Indeed, the world is a different place than it was say in the early fifties in regards to this matter. However, it is more polarised than ever. You get the total zionist freaks who are unwilling to look at what others have to say. You also get the total anti-zionists, myself included, who can recognise the fact that "Palestine can protect Sarah from all this fear", but also recognise that Sarah can be anyone, Jew or Arab or maybe an Armenian or a Bosniak for we know that these nationalities also found refuge in Palestine at the begining of the previous century. And in contradiction with the Zionist argument they could integrate in the society and did not find it necessary to create a parallel society instead.