I believe that most people are inherently visual, and even those who are verbal, can comprehend the words of numbers and distances, that they reach this understanding only after internalizing the pictures.
Israel is a very "miniature" country. I used the term "miniature" rather than "small," since in our tiny Land we have so many things that the word "small" is insufficient. In addition, most people who consider themselves qualified to judge our security needs haven't the vaguest idea of the true proportions and distances in this part of the world.
Even in my home, we're not immune. I remember, must have been over 15 years ago, during the massive aliyah from the then USSR, we had a whole clan of new immigrants as guests for the Passover seder. During the seder, family patriarch looked out our large east-facing window. He asked what the distant lights were.
"Jordan," my husband answered. "It's far. It must be at least 15 kilometers (10 miles) away."
"Far?" replied our guest. "In Russia if it's not at least 1,000 kilometers, it's considered close!"
I'm going to copy the maps to here, too, but for his commentary, read this.
2 comments:
Actually, the Russian also added, laughingly, "in Russia, we expectorate that far".
He said "spit," being the blunt, earthy type.
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