Friday, December 04, 2009

Best Double Entendre Headline This Week

To BBC goes the adulations.

Here:


No easy settlement for West Bank tensions


And a bonus - he's back!


Alan Johnston makes his first visit to the Palestinian territories since his kidnap two years ago, and finds that the building of Israeli settlements on the West Bank and East Jerusalem is still as contentious as any issue in the Middle East.


And he still hasn't learned his Gaza lessons. Almost gets caught up in a brawl in an Arab village.

But he meets my friend and comrade-in-words, David Ha'Ivri:-

Earlier in the day, up in one of the settlements, I had sat down in the autumn sunshine with David Ha'ivri. He was [was? he is. tzu hundredt un tzveitzig] a large man with a thick, dark beard, but at times he was almost softly spoken. There was no mistaking though the depth of his conviction as he explained the connection he felt with the land around us.

"The hills," he said, "were the heartland of ancient, biblical Israel."

Here he walked in the footsteps of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, founding figures in the faith that filled his life. David saw his presence there as part of his people's near-miraculous redemption of the land that they lost 2,000 years ago.

And to be part of that destiny, he and his eight children had had to risk the threat of attack by armed Palestinians who have targeted settlers. "The Arabs," he said, "simply needed to accept the reality of Israel's control."

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