IT'S ISRAEL'S BIRTHDAY! LET'S BRING BACK PHOENICIA TOO.

So Israel turns 60 years old now, still a newbie compared to places like China and Greece but older than many of their fellow nations that have sprung up from the ruins of colonialism. Yes, Israel, like many nations in Africa and the Middle East, was created from a former British colony. Before Israeli independence in 1948, that territory was known as The Mandate of Palestine, a British protectorate they wrested from the Ottoman Empire after World War 1. The whole world was feeling guilty over the Holocaust so they figured give the Jewish people the homeland they'd been clamoring for in Palestine for a long time. Usually starting a nation based on religion is a recipe for disaster but other than a few wars here and there Israel's still standing. Things have worked out for them pretty well except for being surrounded by millions and millions of hostile Muslim Arabs sworn to wipe Israel off the face of the earth.

That's got to be a bit traumatic, which probably accounts for Israelis being a pretty hard-nosed bunch. I know a lot of Israelis, and for the most part they're pretty likable people once you get past their aggressive pain in the ass personalities. But they do seem to love their country, and I suppose that's all well and good but it doesn't go that far in explaining why they came to live in Brooklyn instead of staying in the country they love so very much. Hey, I love my country too, but I don't think I'd prove my love for America by moving to a foreign country and bragging about it from very far away. But that's just my take on things. Far be it from me to question somebody who thinks Israel is the 51st American State. It's not and we both know that it's a foreign country given not by God but the British Empire to the Jews and generally I refrain from arguing with delusional people anyway.

There's about 7.5 million people in Israel, 80% of them Jewish. The other 20% are Arabs and are treated pretty much like blacks in America prior to the 1960's. That is to say, as second class citizens with no shot at a full measure of participation in their own society. If that sounds like a racist country, well, yeah, it is. Anyone who claims otherwise will have to come up with a better argument than those I've already heard (see above, delusional people). That always puzzled me about Israeli Jews, their racism. I grew up among Jews in Brooklyn and found them to be among the least racist and most tolerant of Americans. The long and traumatic history of Judaism made them well aware of the end result of racism and they vowed they'd have no more of it, because when you hate another human being, even one who hates you, then nothing separates you from them. A lot of Israeli Jews didn't get that memo and are world class haters that would make a White Supremacist proud.

Which doesn't excuse the surrounding countries from their own crazy murderous bigotry against the Israelites. Their wild theory of Jews running the world and making things hard for Muslims doesn't hold water when you realize that there are only 14 million Jews in the whole world as compared to around a billion Muslims. No, nobody's buying that whole scapegoat deal. If the Muslims want to blame somebody for the general misery in which they seem to live perhaps a mirror is the best place to look. They won't see too many joyful faces looking back at them. Maybe they should tear a page out of Judaism's book and recreate some of their own ancient civilizations to feel better about themselves. They could declare new states of Moab, Canaan, Philistia, Phoenicia and the granddaddy of them all, Babylon.

And if they want to be as successful as Israel they might think of going with a democracy and lose the kings and tribal leaders that have mired the Muslim world in a sort of Middle Ages time warp. Even the oil rich Arab nations are not exactly beacons of joy and decency, especially if one is unfortunate enough to be born a woman in one these places. So maybe if they try to go with the Biblical nations like the Jews did with Israel, they'll enjoy life more and hopefully lose their obsession with destroying Judaism, the faith of Islam's founding father Abraham.

So happy 60th birthday to the neo-Biblical nation of Israel. Better luck this time with keeping your nation intact than in the Biblical era, when they split into two kingdoms of Judea and Israel. After that a long succession of one foreign power after another kept sacking their cities and dragging off the Israelites into slavery, making for some of the great epic dramas in the Bible and creating huge gaps in history when the Israelites were located somewhere else other than Israel. They've done well with their New Jersey-sized oasis of democracy over there in the hostile Middle East, planted trees in the desert and generally prospered. And if it doesn't work out this time there's always Brooklyn to move to where some new chapters to the Bible can be written about the latest Exodus. Meanwhile, keep on keeping on.