By STEVEN GUTKIN
May 9, 2008
JERUSALEM - Israel staged its 60th-birthday bash with fireworks, air-force flyovers and a great sense of pride yesterday, but also with uncertainty about its future and doubts about prospects for peace with the Palestinians.
Across the country, Israelis held barbecues, and were entertained by naval parades, but a clash between Arab protesters and police, and a paratrooper's crash-landing during a ceremonial jump marred the festivities.
PHOTO GALLERY: Israel Celebrates 60 Years
MORE: Columns, History & Photos of Israel's 60 Years
The paratrooper and two bystanders were seriously hurt when he missed his target on a Tel Aviv beach and slammed into a crowd of spectators.
Later, 11 police and protesters were injured during a march by Israeli Arabs.
New Yorkers marked the anniversary with several events held across the city, including a gala concert at Radio City Music Hall, which attracted more than 5,000 people Wednesday night.
"The mood in the hall was electric, with singing and dancing in the aisles and cheering Israel on into the future," said Michael Miller, executive vice president of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, one of the sponsors.
In The Bronx yesterday, 350 first- through fourth-graders from Salanter Akiba Riverdale Academy carried Israeli flags down the block to the Hebrew Home at Riverdale, where the kids sang in Hebrew for about 250 residents, some of them Holocaust survivors.
Israel at 60 is a paradox of exuberance and despair - a country enduring near daily rocket attacks from militants while producing scientists who have pioneered Wi-Fi and instant messaging. Six decades after rising from the ashes of the Holocaust, the Jewish state is still plagued by threats from abroad and an identity crisis at home.
Its 41-year occupation of Palestinian territories has invited international condemnation.
In the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinians staged events to remind the world that Israel's creation has been their "nakba," or catastrophe. Hundreds of thousands were uprooted during the 1948 war over Israel's creation, and some 4.5 million Palestinian refugees and their descendants are scattered across the region.
AP, with Post Wire Services
