Anyone for a drive across Israel?

When preparing his lecture on Israel for our online history course on The Islamist Entanglement, historian Scott Powell discovered an apt way in which to demonstrate just how small Israel is. For a New Zealand audience, it's the size below -- the length of a drive from Dunedin to the Wild Food Festival in Hokitika -- the size of a country that could be overrun in just a few hours by anyone determined enough to 'wipe it off the map.' No wonder it's been tried --and repelled -- so often.


The image comes from the site IRIS.ORG.IL, which also shows the size of Israel in comparison to just a portion of the Arab world.

As Scott wryly says, "No wonder the Arab world has so much trouble accommodating the Palestinian refugees. Where would they all fit?"

NB: If you've missed the nine preceding lectures in Scott's Islamist Entanglement course, then it's not too late to sign up and listen to all the lectures so far at the online archive, and then get the concluding lecture live and online next week.

And if you'd like to sign up for Scott's next history course before it starts -- and I'd urge all of you to give it serious consideration -- he's kicking off his First History for Adults™ (Part 4) on Ancient History shortly. (No previous knowledge of history is required, just some basic native intelligence.)