Misread handwriting

While David Newman is correct in pointing out the obsolescence of the term “Middle East,” he falls short in his attempt at a meta-analysis of what is happening in our region, and where Israel fits into the “shatterbelt” picture that he describes. (“Israel between East and West,” Borderline Views, Comment and Features, April 12)

In today’s world, geographic contiguousness is hardly the factor it once was. And, for that matter, perceiving Israel as an outpost of Europe is equally anachronistic.

Both Israel’s immediate neighbors and the European continent are in terminal decline. The neighboring Muslim tribes – for the most part can hardly be called nations or countries. As oil becomes increasingly unimportant, the desert sands will once again blow over the endless flow of Muslim vs Muslim blood.

Europe, too, is tottering on the brink of disintegration, having lost its Christian spiritual anchor and rejected the driving energies of unique national identities and cultures. As such, it is sinking in a quagmire of post-modern, mutli-culti ennui that renders it terminally vulnerable to the barbarians who have long since passed the gate.

The big news for the future is not in geographic connectivity, but rather in civilizational affinity. From China at the Eastern end to Israel at the Western end, ancient civilizations that had seemed dormant if not dead for centuries are roaring back to life at a velocity so extreme that we have yet to take stock of it.

Hence, any attempt to pigeonhole Israel into either the Levant or Western Europe is not only to do ourselves an injustice, but to misread the handwriting on the wall.

JJ GROSS Jerusalem