Isn’t it fascinating that a relatively tiny country called Israel is constantly the focus of international news?

Here in America, we are bordered on two sides by vast oceans, and north and south by Canada and Mexico, respectively. Canada is dominantly French, and therefore nonthreatening. Mexico is really our only sore spot, with another nation and culture. Sadly, we cannot seem to handle that.

Add to the fact that our history is relatively short. Our history covers about 500 years, and here locally, only about 200 years.

We get all excited to pick up an arrowhead or an old mine rail spike. In Israel, archeologists date human activity to around 800,000 years ago. That country is covered with walls, foundations and relics representing an incredible history. You can hardly dig a posthole without consulting an archeologist.

This small land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Dead Sea has been a point of confrontation for many cultures and religions for thousands of years.

The tensions that exist today are incredible and take many forms. Stand on Mount Scopus and see many churches from Catholic to Coptic, to Greek Orthodox and Jewish synagogues. Islamic minarets are many, and their loud calls to prayer are nerve-grinding. This is all dominated by the Al Aksa Mosque and the Islamic Dome of the Rock, built on the former Jewish Temple, which was one of the 10 wonders of the world.

The cultural confrontation has been going on since before Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The Hittites, the Hurrians, the Indo-Iranian, the Egyptians, the Romans, Crusaders, Arabs, Turks, Mongols, British, Marmalukes and Germans — to name a few — have been battling back and forth over the centuries. Each one left its mark in architecture, art and history. A visit to the Holocaust museum drives home the reality of evil that can infect an entire national group.

Now we have the Israelis threatened by the entire Arab nation plus the Russians and others. Even the United Nations has a building on what the locals call “the Mount of Evil Decisions.”

The terrorists launch rockets and suicide bombers. Walls go up and Israelis block their windows to stop Arab sniper fire. Soldiers walk the streets carrying M-16s that are engraved “Property of the U.S. government.”

Large Israeli cemeteries face across the valley to a large Arab cemetery, blocking the temple’s Eastern Gate. Scripture says Jesus will enter by the Eastern Gate to set up his kingdom, so Islam walled it shut and installed the cemetery.

Geologically, the Great Rift valley drops to more than 1,400 feet below sea level and contains an incredible lake of saline water called the Dead Sea.

What an incredible focal point politically, culturally, architecturally and religiously. What unusual geology. What gripping history.

Israel is the birthplace of Christianity that profoundly affected the cultures of the world.

No other place on earth has such explosive potential. Call it the flash point. It is certainly obvious that it could be the focal point for a huge battle that is the culmination of all the power struggles.

Kingdoms have risen and fallen for thousands of years, leaving behind piles of stones.

Could such an incredible place hold the promise of a new eternal kingdom?

I cannot think of any place that needs it more.

Ross L. Talbott lives in New Castle.