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Emirati astronaut: From space, Jerusalem looks like ‘flower of all flowers’

Sultan Al Neyadi is part of the “longest Arab space mission in history,” per his Twitter handle.

The Nile River, Red Sea and Mediterranean Sea, contrasted by the desert nations of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Jordan, as seen from the International Space Station, June 19, 2019. Credit: NASA.
The Nile River, Red Sea and Mediterranean Sea, contrasted by the desert nations of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Jordan, as seen from the International Space Station, June 19, 2019. Credit: NASA.

Emirati astronaut Sultan Al Neyadi’s Twitter feed is full of photos of different parts of the world taken from the International Space Station.

On June 22, Al Neyadi—whose handle states that he is part of history’s longest Arab space mission—shared an image of Jerusalem at night.

“Jerusalem from space looks like the flower of all flowers,” he tweeted, adding symbols of a rose and a heart.

The astronaut didn’t mention it, but Israel is compared to flowers in the Bible, as in Song of Songs 2:2, which calls Zion “a lily (or rose) among the thorns.”

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