Hadrian's Curse: The Secret All The Arabs Know

Jewish Press ^ | -22-08 | Tsafrir Ronen

[forkinsocket]

There is no distinct palestinian culture or heritage, distinct from their Arab brothers.

Not very distinct from their fellow Shaami people, but distinct from the rest of the Arab world. This land, Jordan, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, is known as ash-Sham, land of the sun. The Palestinian culture is part of this group of cultures & dialects. Shaami culture is distinct from the other Arab cultures that can be divided into groups like khaleej, maghreb, jazeera. Gulf, North Africa, Peninsula. No one would mistake a Palestinian for a Maghrebi or a Maghrebi for a Khaleeji. The Palestinian would even have real trouble understanding the dialect of the Maghrebi. You can pick out a Palestinian from other Shaami people by their dialect, but their speech is mutually intelligible for the most part.

What this means is that Palestinians need to be expelled into one of the surrounding countries for good & Israel must force the countries to assimilate them. No more refugee camp crap. Expelling them into Kuwait or Qatar will not work as they will stick out & have lots of trouble being assimilated.

[muawiyah]

Good point on the linguistic differences. Even English speaking people can hear the differences between the Arabic spoken in Jerusalem (for example) and that spoken in most of Egypt.

At the same time the people identified as Palestinians are much more interested in higher education than any other Arabic speaking people (with, it turns out, having college educated people at nearly the same rate as the Jewish population in Israel).

The attitude toward education is not a minor difference imho.

[goldstategop]

Samuel Katz was a biographer of Jewish history and the Middle East conflict. He died last week in Israel. We shall not look upon his likes again.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[forkinsocket]

True, Shaami people have always been more advanced than the other Arabs, Palestinians are no exception. Living in UN-funded refugee camps have turned those Palestinians into unwanted criminals & predators, but the other Palestinians still maintain their educational edge over the Arabs.

[SJackson]

You're beyond my knowledge of palestinian, or Shaami, culture. From a practical standpoint, I don't see expulsion as a viable alternative.

Expulsion aside, settling the Shaami currently residing in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Gaza (unless you want Gaza back), would solve about 75% of the problem.

They could simply live where they live.

[Red Badger]

DNA aside, I've heard I'm 93% gorilla, ...

I dunno about you, but my in-laws certainly are........

[Vigilanteman]

Excellent article and quite correct as well. Syria and Egypt actually were merged into one country called the United Arab Republic from 1958 to 1961. Iraq tried to revive the entity as a three member UAR before the six day war. The myth of Palestine dates from that war.

[colorado tanker]

The Ice Age was tough on the Europeans!

Sure was. Britain has had multiple attempts by humans or ancestors to colonize the place, all previous attempts being unsuccessful. For the life of me I can't understand why Europeans are obsessed with trying to bring on another glacial age. Of course, IMHO, humans don't have the ability to significantly influence climate, so they won't succeed. Another is inevitable, eventually, though.

[Jacob Kell]

>Back on the Iranians, there’s a book out showing differences in 6 populations in Iran. Still, the greater part of the people are essentially the same as the Iraqi Arabs in the South. They simply speak a different language.

Could you tell me more? I believe that both Iraqis and Iranians largely belong to the basically same racial type-Irano-Afghan. Maybe the same pre-Indo-European and pre-Arab people(s) lived in both countries.

[Jacob Kell]

>Shaami culture is distinct from the other Arab cultures that can be divided into groups like khaleej, maghreb, jazeera. Gulf, North Africa, Peninsula.

Could you tell me more about the various Arab peoples? Like what non-Arab ancestry each has, and how much it influences them?

[familyop]

"I admit the DNA aspects are fascinating, but imo irrelevant."

Thanks, and thank you for the post. Even the tangent in this thread is interesting, as to how so many of us in the nations (and people in Israel) have wondered (and wandered) so much with various intents and pursuits--some good, some bad--on the topic of the essence of Jewishness. The unexplained (in worldly terms) magnitude of concern around the world about that is fascinating to me in regarding history and pondering the future.

IMUUOO (in my unqualified, unlearned, outsider opinion), the way to get closer to the answer is to listen to Rabbis, to read, and to meditate on the knowledge. ...not to mention that those are very comforting experiences in the search for all kinds of answers.

[M. Espinola]

We have indeed lost a great Israeli political leader with proven wisdom & keen insight, as well as and one of the founders of modern Israel and a very close friend of Menachem Begin. I met Mr. Shmuel Katz while he was visiting in New York some years ago and we discussed his books & Israel.

Shmuel Katz in 1977

(Shmuel Katz early March 2008)

Description: A celebrated botanist, who had won world fame as the discoverer of “wild wheat,” Aaron Aaronsohn (1876–1919) created the first Jewish Agricultural Experiment Station in Palestine – then under Turkish rule – in 1910. His venture was supported and funded from the u.s. by a group which included Julius Rosenwald, Justices Louis D. Brandeis and Felix Frankfurter (both later on the u.s. Supreme Court), Judah L. Magnes (later President of the Hebrew University), and Henrietta Szold, the founder of Hadassah.

In World War I, reacting against the oppressive Turkish regime, Aaronsohn founded a Jewish spy organization, nili, to help the British in the forthcoming battle for Palestine. Here is told the story of Aaronsohn, who is revealed as a master of strategy, and his sister Sarah, whose self-sacrificing devotion to the cause shows her to be a great historic personality in her own right.

Historian Shmuel Katz here rectifies the absence of a comprehensive biography of Aaronsohn and the nili spy ring. Meticulously researched British War Office intelligence documents and the letters and field reports of nili’s central figures illustrate the crucial contribution made by nili to the British conquest of Palestine.

Powerfully written, with deep sensitivity to the emotional lives of the people portrayed, The Aaronsohn Saga is both solid history and a marvelous read.

About the Author

SHMUEL KATZ was born in South Africa in 1914. He moved to Palestine in 1936 but in 1939, invited by Vladimir Jabotinsky to come to London, he there founded the weekly Jewish Standard to promote the idea of a Jewish national army in the war against Nazi Germany. He returned to Palestine in 1946. A journalist, author, translator, historian, political activist, and book publisher, he has enjoyed a multifaceted career spanning many disciplines. A member of the High Command of the Irgun Zvai Leumi, member of the first Israeli Knesset, and advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in 1977, Katz has been intimately involved in the entire history of the modern State of Israel.

His books, written in both English and Hebrew and translated into other languages as well, include Days of Fire, Battleground: Fact and Fantasy in Palestine, Battletruth: The World and Israel, the Hollow Peace, and Lone Wolf: A Biography of Vladimir Gefen Publishing House (Ze’ev) Jabotinsky.

[Biggirl]

All the British and latter the UN was doing was simply allowing the Jewish people to go home to their homeland. Thus they helped put into reality what Ezekial Chapter 37 spoke about, the famous valley of the dry bones which is said to be about the restoration of the Isreal homeland.

[BroJoeK]

"“The Palestinian people do not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the State of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people"

Thanks for an interesting post. I'm certain a little research could uncover more such quotes.

Of course there was no Arab "Palestine" before recent years. At different times the area was divided up into parts of different provinces of the old Ottoman Turk Empire. Most of it belonged to the province of Syria, but other parts were in other provinces.

Israel exists as a country today because of the British victory in W.W.I, and the associated Balfour Declaration. Note again the unequivocal words:

Balfour Declaration

"His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object,

it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."

[Bringbackthedraft]

The Ice Age was tough on the Europeans! ................. It may be true about most of them, but, it had no effect on those of us who migrated here on the Great Ice Ship. LOL

[SJackson]

Yes, neither the declaration, and more importantly the Mandate accepted by the Brits to create a Jewish State mentions much of anything about Arabs, much less palestinians. In fact the Brits referred to the Jews as palestinians, the Arabs being Arabs.

[muawiyah]

Absolutely. They are all derived from the same basic population that was in the Eastern Mediterranean refugia.

There have been migrations into the region. The people who invented writing (the Sumerians) and also planted civilization along the Euphrates were a migratory people who followed herds from far in the SE all the way to ice sheets in the far North (according to their own records written down thousands of years ago).

[YankeeinOkieville]

mark for future reference - “faked Pali”

[tang-soo]

DNA tests show a different situation. The Jews, per se, are not terribly different from the Arabs in the area.

You mean like Isaac being the half brother of Ishmael and the twin brothers Jacob and Esau, the grandchildren of Abraham? Not a different situation at all.