‘On the night of 15 April 1897, a small, elegant steamer is en route from Egypt’s Port Said to Jaffa.’ ‘At the end of October 1898 the small steamer Rossiya made its way from Alexandria in Egypt, via Port Said, to Jaffa.’ It is unusual, or maybe even unique, for the first chapters of two books published at the same time to open with almost identical sentences.
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Available from the Spectator Bookshop, My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Zionism, £18.00, Herzl: Theodore Herzl and the Foundation of the Jewish State, £16.00, Tel: 08430 600033. Geoffrey Wheatcroft is a former literary editor of The Spectator and the author of The Controversy of Zion.
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