There’s a programme on the BBC I am watching, about Operation Shiloh – http://www.opshiloh.com/ – involving American Christians on tour in Israel with former/current Israeli Defense Force commandos, learning hand-to-hand combat, giving them big semi/automatic guns, sleeping on hard ground, keeping all-night watch and barely stopping them shooting each other. Very Boy Scout. Even Girl Scout. Ostensibly they are doing it to learn skills that will “help them deal with terrorism at home, in case they meet one on the street”. They are also learning about how terrible the Palestinians are – but without actually having to meet any of them, which might be embarassing for all concerned. I am just flabbergasted. Is there really a significant population of Americans who are that scared? After spendng my youth in London at a time when sundry Bostonians were funding the IRA (who seemed, of course, suitably oppressed and romantic) to explode bombs every so often, I find the current American attitude towards terrorism rather, well, tragic.