Just to be honest. Have you heard anyone say in recent weeks that if Israel had exterminated the nations of ancient Canaan, there would be no war with the Palestinians today?

"May Allah grant success to the brave Palestinian resistance." "We congratulate from the bottom of our hearts the brotherly Muslim Palestinian people for their effort to liberate their holy ground, and we console them with their honourable fallen martyrs."

It already caused schisms in Paul's time, and it is no different today. The question of whether the world is rapidly coming to its end rears its head today, perhaps more strongly and widely than ever before.

Two sad anniversaries were commemorated last week. The first is that the United States, under President George W. Bush invaded Iraq 20 years ago, after which the country sank into chaos, from which it has still not recovered. The second is that the Syrian civil war began 12 years ago last week - a war that continues in parts of the country to this day.

Apart from expertise, you need to have a thick skin if you interpret the war in Ukraine at this time. Because no matter what your interpretation is, there will always be people who disagree with you and prefer to pick at you.

Now that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has been going on for one year, Ukraine is demanding –and receiving– more and more weapons from the West.

Whoever says NATO thinks of a western military alliance against Russian threats. That is what NATO was created for, and today more than ever, countering that specific threat is the thing NATO is known for.

A decade ago, if you started taking stock of which politicians were threatened and by whom, it quickly became clear where the greatest danger came from: from Islamic extremists.

One of the most significant social schisms of today, and possibly of the years to come, is the climate. Now, you could easily fill a whole series of episodes of this column on that because the topic is, after all, broad. But it is always good to make big problems small by focusing on one sub-theme.

"Kick out Black Pete", a club of Dutch demonstrators called themselves. They protested against the black skin of the Dutch helper of the white Saint Nicholas. However, supporters of Black Pete turned that around and changed the name to "Kick out Black Pete." And so it happened, with national upheaval as a result.