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I second your main point. Legolas Send a noteboard - 07/06/2010 12:09:42 AM
If the truth be told, most of the Arab-speaking world aren't Arabs. They may be called Arabs, yes, but they aren't. Mesopotamia is inhabited by the descendants of the Sumerians, Babylonians and Assyrians. Canaan (I will choose the most neutral term for the land of Syria that is, roughly speaking, south of the Litani) is inhabited by the same people that inhabited it in antiquity. So is Egypt, and so is Turkey.


And I largely agree with the rest too, except that there is some Arab blood in most of those countries, surely. Places like Kufa and Baghdad were newly created under the Arabic regime, and largely peopled by Arabs. In Northern Africa, one would imagine the initial amount of Arabs was rather limited, but there have been migrations of Arab tribes to Egypt and even to the Maghreb in later centuries, such as the famous Banu Hilal.

And in Turkey's case, do the Turkish migrations from the Altaic mountains matter so little in terms of genetic ancestry?
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Jacqueline Rose on the Dreyfus affair and related problems, in the LRB - 06/06/2010 11:28:14 AM 1285 Views
What she has to say about Dreyfus is very interesting. - 06/06/2010 04:48:16 PM 1069 Views
Re: What she has to say about Dreyfus is very interesting. - 06/06/2010 04:56:32 PM 1004 Views
*remains amused at the suggestion of the Dreyfus Affairs "pertinence" to "current" events* - 06/06/2010 05:14:23 PM 997 Views
I agree in part and (strongly) disagree in part. - 06/06/2010 05:40:26 PM 971 Views
"If it's an eternal struggle, how could there ever be a solution or a peace?" - 06/06/2010 06:20:39 PM 1035 Views
Purim may or may not refer to a historic event. Even if it does, Haman was not likely an Arab. - 07/06/2010 12:00:05 AM 888 Views
I second your main point. - 07/06/2010 12:09:42 AM 946 Views
I don't discount that there is Arab blood in many or even most "Arabs". - 07/06/2010 12:18:32 AM 872 Views
Okay, fair enough then. *NM* - 07/06/2010 08:45:19 AM 409 Views
The holiday is centuries old and real, regardless. - 07/06/2010 12:28:59 AM 983 Views
You're still missing the major point here. - 07/06/2010 12:44:08 AM 864 Views
That seems a rather limited view of history. - 07/06/2010 01:10:11 AM 970 Views
What the Hell are you going on about? - 07/06/2010 04:08:19 AM 953 Views
Oooh - 07/06/2010 11:07:43 AM 782 Views
Yeah, to whom was the claim on that land given? - 07/06/2010 10:35:42 PM 916 Views
jeez Joel... - 07/06/2010 04:24:47 AM 907 Views
No, the Persians are not Arabs. - 07/06/2010 10:09:47 PM 1103 Views
I (coincidentally) stumbled across those infamous hadith passages about Jews the other day. - 07/06/2010 09:41:39 AM 1008 Views
So? - 07/06/2010 10:50:49 PM 966 Views
So the relevance of apocalyptic passages is close to zero. - 07/06/2010 11:55:05 PM 902 Views
Not to mention - 08/06/2010 09:09:27 AM 815 Views
Then why are they canon? - 08/06/2010 06:25:09 PM 1109 Views
are you claiming that people would pull some things out of holy text and ignore the rest? - 08/06/2010 12:16:41 PM 962 Views
*NM* - 08/06/2010 01:16:13 PM 376 Views
well, for me this just proves why we are not supposed to live among non-Jews - 06/06/2010 11:39:45 PM 1076 Views
how so? - 06/06/2010 11:41:18 PM 829 Views
It reminds me of what I kept thinking as I read it. - 07/06/2010 12:51:36 AM 871 Views
couldn't get past the part where anyone who opposes Obama is a racist *NM* - 08/06/2010 01:40:07 AM 570 Views
You hallucinated? *NM* - 08/06/2010 08:39:37 AM 448 Views
No, that would've been one of the places where she should've shut up. *NM* - 08/06/2010 08:58:11 AM 386 Views
No - 08/06/2010 09:08:04 AM 848 Views
I think he's not talking about that bit, but about the very first paragraph. - 08/06/2010 09:30:21 AM 973 Views
If there was more I didn't get far enough to hear it - 08/06/2010 12:09:47 PM 836 Views
That's the problem with the speech - the large majority of what she had to say was worthwhile. - 08/06/2010 01:15:39 PM 892 Views
The problem is blatant bias - 08/06/2010 02:24:57 PM 896 Views

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