>
>The below was posted on another listserve and I am wondering if it is
>a valid claim. My knowledge of history is limited in this department.
>
>****************************
>
>BTW in over 4000 years there has never been an Arab ruled state in the
>Area of Isreali
Tell it to Saladin! Yeah, the Crusaders who tried to take the Holy Land from the Muslims over a period of 400 or so years would have been surprised to hear that. AFter 1450 or so, Palestione was ruled by the Turks, who are not Arabs, but who are of course Muslims (and had excellent relations with the Jews, as did their Arab predecessors--far better than way the Jews were treated in Christian countries).
while there has been atleast 4 Jewish ruled states in that
>time period
Yah, from about 300 BC to 70 AD,a nd them after 1948; in between, the area was ruled by Arabs and Turks, with some brief colonial episodes--the Brits after 1918.
and the word Palestine comes from Philistine who are no
>relations to any existing people in the area
Yeah, the ancient Hebrews exterminated them, along with the Amalakites and the Midianites. However, this is intended to invoke Joan Peter's utterly discredited suggestion that Palestinians did not historically live in Palestine, a notion that may still have some half life in certain subterranean quarters, but which no responsible person repeats anymore/
while Jews have had a
>3000 or
>more history of living in the area without interuption
>--
Well, modern Jews have no relation to the Semitic peoples who settled ancient Palestrine. Ashkenazi Jews like myself are not Semites, but descendents of a tribe of Caucasian mountaineers who converted to Judaism in the 7th century AD or thereabouts. Sephardic and North African Jews are essentially Arabs. ANd the number of Jews in Palestine from 70 AD, when the Romans destroyed the Second Temple and scattered the Jews, to 1948, was insignificant.
The long and short of it is that the comment is utterly ignorant and reactionary.
jks
>**************************
>Marta
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