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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 1295 Views
What she has to say about Dreyfus is very interesting. - 06/06/2010 04:48:16 PM 1078 Views
Re: What she has to say about Dreyfus is very interesting. - 06/06/2010 04:56:32 PM 1012 Views
*remains amused at the suggestion of the Dreyfus Affairs "pertinence" to "current" events* - 06/06/2010 05:14:23 PM 1005 Views
I agree in part and (strongly) disagree in part. - 06/06/2010 05:40:26 PM 981 Views
"If it's an eternal struggle, how could there ever be a solution or a peace?" - 06/06/2010 06:20:39 PM 1043 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 899 Views
I second your main point. - 07/06/2010 12:09:42 AM 956 Views
I don't discount that there is Arab blood in many or even most "Arabs". - 07/06/2010 12:18:32 AM 879 Views
Okay, fair enough then. *NM* - 07/06/2010 08:45:19 AM 412 Views
The holiday is centuries old and real, regardless. - 07/06/2010 12:28:59 AM 995 Views
You're still missing the major point here. - 07/06/2010 12:44:08 AM 871 Views
That seems a rather limited view of history. - 07/06/2010 01:10:11 AM 981 Views
What the Hell are you going on about? - 07/06/2010 04:08:19 AM 961 Views
Oooh - 07/06/2010 11:07:43 AM 794 Views
Yeah, to whom was the claim on that land given? - 07/06/2010 10:35:42 PM 924 Views
jeez Joel... - 07/06/2010 04:24:47 AM 914 Views
No, the Persians are not Arabs. - 07/06/2010 10:09:47 PM 1114 Views
I (coincidentally) stumbled across those infamous hadith passages about Jews the other day. - 07/06/2010 09:41:39 AM 1017 Views
So? - 07/06/2010 10:50:49 PM 976 Views
So the relevance of apocalyptic passages is close to zero. - 07/06/2010 11:55:05 PM 911 Views
Not to mention - 08/06/2010 09:09:27 AM 824 Views
Then why are they canon? - 08/06/2010 06:25:09 PM 1121 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 970 Views
*NM* - 08/06/2010 01:16:13 PM 380 Views
well, for me this just proves why we are not supposed to live among non-Jews - 06/06/2010 11:39:45 PM 1087 Views
how so? - 06/06/2010 11:41:18 PM 837 Views
It reminds me of what I kept thinking as I read it. - 07/06/2010 12:51:36 AM 884 Views
couldn't get past the part where anyone who opposes Obama is a racist *NM* - 08/06/2010 01:40:07 AM 575 Views
You hallucinated? *NM* - 08/06/2010 08:39:37 AM 450 Views
No, that would've been one of the places where she should've shut up. *NM* - 08/06/2010 08:58:11 AM 388 Views
No - 08/06/2010 09:08:04 AM 860 Views
I think he's not talking about that bit, but about the very first paragraph. - 08/06/2010 09:30:21 AM 985 Views
If there was more I didn't get far enough to hear it - 08/06/2010 12:09:47 PM 843 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 902 Views
The problem is blatant bias - 08/06/2010 02:24:57 PM 909 Views

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