As stated in a previous thread, I'm currently reading "Flying Dutchmen" by Frank Clune 1953 . Clune was an Aussie writer who, among other things, wrote travelogue type books where he takes a trip and tells you all about it. In this one he's traveling from Australia to Holland by KLM. (Is KLM still around?) Anyways one of his stops along the way is in a little town known as Baghdad, you may have heard of it. His insight to the area circa 1953 is most interesting and I'm posting it because I find it so utterly prophetic.
And remember, this is not ME saying this it's Frank Clune and he's syaing it ~53 YEARS ago!
Two a.m. at the "City of the Waving Palms", on the banks of the Tigris, but now I hear most of the 100,000 Jews who formerly lived here have migrated to Israel, a wise thing for them to do, as the Arabs of Iraq feel rather annoyed at the expulsion of Arabs from Palestine--to them also, as to the Jews, an ancestral land. Whether the Jews and the Arabs will settle their disputes amicably, or fight for possesion of the site of Solomon's Temple, at Jerusalem--very sacred to to both Arabs and Jews--is a question that only history will be able to answer. Both sides are inclined to be trigger happy, and there is no doubt that the State of Israel has produced a state of tension in the Middle East that could at any time burst into a conflagration, especially as there is so much oil in that vicinity.
So is history repeating itself or just continuing as it always has?
