Courtesy Charley Reese of the Sentinel Staff The Orlando Sentinel, Sunday Feb. 8, 1998

Just so you can keep up with the perpetual crisis in the Middle East, I have a little quiz for you.

Question: Which country alone in the Middle East has nuclear weapons? Answer: Israel.

Q: Which country in the Middle East refuses to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and bars international inspections? A: Israel.

Q: Which country in the Middle East seized the sovereign territory of other nations by military force and continues to occupy it in defiance of United Nations Security Council resolutions? A: Israel.

Q: Which country in the Middle East routinely violates the inter-national borders of another sovereign state with warplanes and artillery and naval gunfire? A: Israel.

Q: What American ally in the Middle East has for years sent assassins into other countries to kill its political enemies (a practice sometimes called exporting terrorism)? A: Israel.

Q: In which country in the Middle East have high-ranking military officers admitted publicly that unarmed prisoners of war were executed? A: Israel.

Q: What country in the Middle East refuses to prosecute its soldiers who have acknowledged executing prisoners of war? A: Israel.

Q: What country in the Middle East created 762,000 refugees and refuses to allow them to return to their homes, farms and businesses? A: Israel.

Q: What country in the Middle East refuses to pay compensation to people whose land, bank accounts and businesses it confiscated? A: Israel. Q: In what country in the Middle East was a high-ranking United Nations diplomat assassinated? A: Israel.

Q: In what country in the Middle East did the man who ordered the assassination of a high-ranking U.N. diplomat become prime minister? A: Israel.

Q: What country in the Middle East blew up an American diplomatic facility in Egypt and attacked a U.S. ship in international waters, killing 33 and wounding 177 American sailors? A: Israel.

Q: What country in the Middle East employed a spy, Jonathan Pollard, to steal classified documents and then gave some of them to the Soviet Union? A: Israel.

Q: What country at first denied any official connection to Pollard, then voted to make him a citizen and has continuously demanded that the American president grant Pollard a full pardon? A: Israel.

Q: What country on Planet Earth has the second most powerful lobby in the United States, according to a recent Fortne magazine survey of Washington insiders? A: Israel.

Q: Which country in the Middle East is in defiance of 69 United Nations Security Council resolutions and has been protected from 29 more by U.S. vetoes? A: Israel.

Q: What country is the United States threatening to bomb because "U.N. Security Council resolutions must be obeyed?" A: Iraq.