The industry has joined the list of supplicants hoping for a federal bailout of sorts.

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When she left the dancing-floor on the arm of her partner she became engulfed in a crowd of impatient supplicants who would scarcely give place to any under the rank of a general.

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But instead of pointing out the truth, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his colleagues maintain their posture as supplicants to Washington, making concession after concession in exchange for further abuse in the hopes of avoiding a confrontation.

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Now our cities are largely supplicants, looking to Washington for direction on all manner of municipal life.

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It may have been unauthorised and unsolicited - the creative homework of a junior official - but its indignant tone catches something of the frustrations of a continent weary of expressing gratitude, and increasingly determined to meet the outside world as partners rather than supplicants.

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