The world has changed a great deal since I last departed Jerusalem at the end of the 1980's. It was in the second year of the first Palestinian Resistance called the Intifada, and the contentious relationship between the authorities and the Palestinians was deteriorating rapidly. Some saw the fighting as a security threat to the Jewish state, some the expression of anger at oppression; some saw an opportunity to advance controversial objectives. You could practically hear the policy gears grinding. Almost everyone saw the Resistance as a threat to social order and that nothing would ever be the same again. Everyone was, in this at least, entirely right.
I don't really want to talk about politics or religion in this Blog other than as an oblique reference in context of an observation. Some may consider this a cop-out, but enough has been written about those topics by people far better qualified than I. Rather, this is a sort of meander through one of the most beautiful and complex countries in the world, that has received far too much attention from far too many people that know far too little about its history, people, culture and ambitions.
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