OF THE
TIMES
"When I was commanding a corps in the Golan and Bogie [Ya'alon] was defense minister, we sat with three Syrian activists from the other side, from Syria. They came and Bogie wanted to understand who they were. He asked one of them, 'Tell me, are you a Salafist?' And he said, 'I really don't know what a Salafist is. If it means that I pray more, then yes. Once I would pray once a week, on Fridays, now I pray five times a day. On the other hand, a Salafist isn't meant to cooperate with the Zionists. I'm sitting with the defense minister of the Zionists. So I don't know.' This means that identity components are very fluid. They don't tell you where the person is going."
Well, what really baked my noodle was the part about the rivers. Language and how it morphs over time is a particular interest of mine and Wilkens showed that he knew his stuff. The plains near Cambridge and the Gog Magog Hills is a place where more than 12 rivers mentioned in the Iliad can still be recognised by name even today.And there's the fact that these place names could give clues about the future: England's soggy historical place names could predict future climate
Comment: Less likely Israel did humanitarian aid out of the goodness of its heart than seeking leverage to counter Iranian influence through the rebel faction and improve its public persona.