While Pétrement sees the letter as an ironic destruction of the very idea of a Jewish race, Gray sees it as an isolating act of self-loathing.
But with the number of flights and airports on the rise in most parts of the world, it is far from clear whether Prime Minister David Cameron's move will be the start of a broader international effort to curb one of the fastest-growing sources of greenhouse gases, or a symbolic but isolated act.
In Mr. Oren's account, Israel itself, politically isolated, acted neither like a military power nor like a man about to be hanged, but like both, like a character the prime minister, Levi Eshkol, once called "Shimshon der Nebbishdikker" ("Samson the Weakling").
The decisions of the three Republican governors were not isolated acts, but rather a coordinated effort by the Tea Party and its allies to attempt to kill high-speed rail across America.
When they do occur, they are isolated acts committed by a handful of quacks, and unreconstructed bigots, and that state authorities vigorously report and prosecute the perpetrators of these crimes.
