Having an interest in the Middle East, and Israel in particular, I was very aware that the 60th anniversary of the declaration of the state of Israel was coming up.  I remember the 50th anniversary ten years ago and was confused because I was aware of Israel of the Bible and wondered how it had only existed for such a short time.  It is a bit like the modern state of Greece having only existed since the nineteenth century.

Anyway, I was rather interested to see that today the BBC website had a section on "Israel at 60".  Having dug a little deeper, it turns out that it is the 60th anniversary, based on the Jewish calendar (which is lunar).  It would naturally fall on Saturday but has been brought forward to today to avoid it being on or immediately before the Sabbath (thanks Wikipedia).  I believe there are also plans for more events on 14 May (the 60th anniversary on the Gregorian calendar).

For those of you into history, you might recognise the significance of 8 May.  It marks VE day in 1945, when victory in Europe was won in World War II, although VJ Day wasn't until 15 August 1945 when Japan surrendered.  My now 86 year old grandfather actually landed on the beaches of Normandy on 6 June 1944.  If things had been rather different, his 61 year marriage to my grandmother might have been over within five months.

While 63 is not a particularly round number, I suspect any mention of commemorations of VE day might have been pushed out by the focus on Israel.

I might not be an expert historian and I know that the Balfour declaration dated from 1917, but nobody would seriously doubt that the events of World War II contributed the impetus in creating Israel.

My views on Israel would probably get me branded "anti-semitic" by some and "zionist" by others.  While I don't agree with certain things that have been done in the past, we can't change that and can only work with the situation as it currently is.  George Bush would like some kind of Middle East peace settlement before he leaves office in January, very much like Bill Clinton wanted to before him.

As this is such an emotive issue; I don't want to start a slanging match, so I will take a lead from tuberider's recent article about gay people and the church.  If you post a comment, please keep it polite; I reserve the right to delete anything that isn't.