be central in the World-Island, then the hill citadel of Jerusalem has a strategical position with reference to world-realities not differing essentially from its ideal position in the perspective of the Middle Ages, or its strategical position between ancient Babylon and Egypt. As the War has shown, the Suez Canal carries the rich traffic between the Indies and Europe to within striking distance of an army based on Palestine, and already 
Fig. 21—A mediæval Wheel-map.the trunk railway is being built through the coastal plain by Jaffa, which will connect the Southern with the Northern Heartland. Who owns Damascus, moreover, will have flank access to the alternative route between the oceans down the Euphrates Valley. It cannot be wholly a coincidence that in the self-same region should be the starting point of History and the crossing point of the most vital of modern highways.
In the dawn of History we find the children of Shem, the Semites, conquering the cultivated margins of the Arabian deserts; there is no small similarity between the ring of their settlements round the sea of sand, and
