Dear Steele,

The Times of Israel, 8 March 2018, had an interesting
article:

Trump The Great!

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lavished praise on
US President Donald J. Trump for amongst other things -
declaring Jerusalem as Israel's capital and in doing so
linked Trump to Cyrus the Great.

What gives with Cyrus?

As Netanyahu explained:

"I want to tell you that the Jewish people have a long
memory, so we remember the proclamation of the great
king Cyrus the Great, the Persian king, 2,500 years ago.
He proclaimed that the Jewish exiles in Babylon could
come back and rebuild our temple in Jerusalem ...
and we remember how a few weeks ago President Donald
J. Trump recognised Jerusalem as Israel's capital.
Mr President, this will be remembered by our people
through the ages."

There were coins printed in Tel Aviv February 28, 2018,
bearing images of US President Trump and King Cyrus to
honour Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's
capital.

And the Times of Israel wrote that Prime Minister
Netanyahu does not need to reconcile a president's
personal behaviour with his policies. Netanyahu just
needs a president who delivers the goods. Comparing
Trump to Cyrus is another way of saying he's just wild
about Donald.

mhaze,
Thanks for posting this and credit to anyone who uses this as a launchpad to further their knowledge of the great civilizations of antiquity – including the Persians. Unfortunately, it seems to be a scourge of pop media – I’m looking especially at the cinematic renditions of ‘300’ – to posit the Persians as analogous to modern Iran and some nebulously defined barbarous East. It’s too unknown these days that the Iranic peoples are a genetic relative to Europeans via the Indo-European umbrella, and more specifically that relations between the Greeks and Persians were not black and white.

But in saying that, yes, Greece and indeed Rome are now sorely undervalued components of the Western psyche. I believe the clown world we now live in coincides with the forgetting the great peoples who built civilization. And some people want it that way.

Here's wishing all of you a very enjoyable
Easter break with your families.
Enjoy and don't eat too much chocolate.

Take care.