Trees epitomize stasis.

Italy has long had a large Communist Party, and the left may be in power again but there is no gut antagonism to the freedoms that capitalism encourages. Poland is another country in which individual initiative flourishes to the point that the apocryphal Polish plumber came to epitomize the threats posed by globalization in France.

NEW DELHI On the face of it, China s recent declaration of an air defense identification zone (ADIZ) extending to territories that it does not control has nothing in common with America s arrest and strip search of a New York based Indian diplomat for allegedly underpaying a housekeeper she had brought with her from India. In fact, these episodes epitomize both powers unilateralist approach to international law.

Complicating the situation further is the division between secular Israelis and the fanatic Orthodox communities whose rejection of the secular state and yearning for a society based on the strictest interpretation of Halacha (Jewish religious law) epitomize a deep seated fear of Arabs and an uncompromising distrust of gentiles. Such communities, which comprise 30 of Jerusalem s population, make the notion of a united, peaceful Jerusalem farfetched, at best.