Apology accepted, Don; and I agree with you that it is a great shame that Israeli opinion ever swung Begin-wards & has pretty well consistently remained there since; which accounts for my present attitude of intense disappointment in the way the place hes developed and what it has turned into ~~ an aggressive olive-grove uprooter and hence oppressor of ordinary Arabs just trying to make a decent living with no particular political axe to grind. & note too my disagreements with Keith above as to the extent that actual terrorism was instrumental in bringing about Israel's very existence.

I cannot help feeling even so, however, that the small but intransigent Palestinian element, their equivalent of those erstwhile Stern & Irgun perpetrators, would maintain even after statehood their influence, and their determination to bring about Israel's complete destruction; and most probably would, as Begin's lot were not, be the first government elected for the new state. Statehood would surely constitute, to put it quite mildly, a most extreme danger to Israel, and to the peace of the area and the world?

~M~