The poor Princess is and the rest of the world isn’t great either. Unless you count
Moldova.
The Middle East is awful. I remember hearing an Irish guy who was with the UN peace keeping force in the Lebannon many years ago blasting the Israelis and their agression and, you know, I read Pity the Nation as a student at the instigation of my then boyfriend (I feel I’ve mentioned this here before, but it was a hard read, alright).
On the other hand, an acquaintance whose sister lives in Israel described to me how driving round in their hired car all the young soldiers kept waving at them from their outposts (apparently you can tell hired cars from their plates – I imagine that this keeps you safer, if you’re a tourist) and I suppose that just makes me see the Israeli soldiers as vulnerable young fellas (and girls, though, I presume, they weren’t doing the waving). I suspect the inhabitants of Beirut have a different view.