Flags

The Israeli flag is never far from view. Our visit coincides with Israel's independence day, and in the build up to the celebrations everything is decked with the iconic blue star of David: not just government-sponsored efforts, those on poles bordering every highway like malnourished albino trees; but privately owned car dealerships; ice cream sellers; shopping centres. These flags fly from Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and from the sides of the roads bisecting Palestinian land.

Nationalism is important for Israel because it is still young and because it is at war. Everyone serves in the army and everyone knows the threats. Bumper stickers exhort you to 'Support Israel' on the back of the cars of settlers. If you don't support it fully, you are against them. The lines are clearly drawn. For fundamentalist zionists, to separate religion, race and politics is to equivocate. To be sceptical of Israel's expansion into the West Bank and their treatment of Palestinian people is to be anti-semitic.

One site of nationalist pilgrimage is Masada, the ruin of a fort on top of a desert mountain. When the ancient Roman armies invaded Judea, the men living there made a suicide pact and killed themselves rather than be enslaved. This example was seized as an example of Jewish strength and heroism by the early Israeli youth movement. They were obviously quite desperate. "All the Romans found," states the video introduction in the visitor's centre, "were a few women and children." Noble sacrifice.