A Friend Gets BBC Mentioned

In Tim Franks' goodbye piece, he mentions my friend from Kedumim:

So yes, this place is unique. But does that mean it demands different rules?

One of the most telling comments I heard was uttered on a hilltop settlement by Shoshanna Shilo.

She was a grandmother, with twinkling eyes, whom I had first met as she was carried away, rigid with fury, by four Israeli military policemen, from an impromptu protest in the West Bank.

I met her again, a few weeks later, at her own settlement. It wasn't, she said, just that this land which the rest of the world wants for a Palestinian state belongs to the Jews. It was also what she saw as the delusion that the other side wants peace.

"This is the Middle East," she told me. "It's not Europe. We live," she said, "by another code."

Well, yes, it is the Middle East but, no, it is not the Middle Ages.

These days, we should all try to live by a different code. Shouldn't we?