Jerusalem

Israel today is outwardly a model of business as usual. The cafés are crowded, buses inch nose-to-tail towards the tourist sites, GDP rose 7.8 percent in the last quarter of last year, the Italian writer Umberto Eco is the star at the Jerusalem Book Fair. This determination to be normal is all the more striking now that revolution is spreading throughout the Arab and Muslim world, and the Middle East of the past century appears to be vanishing. The sense of being on one’s own is part and parcel of the Israeli national psyche. The daily news indicates emerging forces, …