The debate about what happened at Masada is conducted with such energy and venom in Israel because it symbolises two views of the country and its present policies. These are as relevant in 1997 as when Josephus wrote 2,000 years ago. One is that Israel is a besieged fortress whose defenders must fight to the end against an implacable enemy. The other, upheld by Professor Ben-Yehuda, is that today, as in the past, the refusal to compromise of such extremists as the Sicarii at Masada and the leaders of the doomed revolt against Rome bring only death and destruction to the Jewish people. -- Patrick Cockburn, Independent March 1997