We here a lot these days about how Israel being a Jewish state is inherently racist. And yet, Palestine's declaration of independence declares their state to be an "Arab state". How is this not also racist? http://www.al-bab.com/arab/docs/pal/pal3.htm
Abu Mazen is not a man of peace. He is an anti-Semite and at least an accessory to murder. Abu Mazen is a Holocaust denier. He wrote his doctoral thesis in 1982 at the Moscow Institute for Oriental Studies. The heading of his doctoral thesis was: "Zionist leadership and the Nazis."
That's not only about Palestine being an "Arab" state, other Arab countries tend to underline the ethnic origin of the majority of their population. For example Egypt is officially the Arab Republic of Egypt [جمهورية مصر العربي‎], Syria is officially the Arab Republic of Syria [الجمهورية العربية السورية]. So Palestinians follow the fashion ...
Btw. This Arab habit is substantially the main reason why I'm surprised when I hear them complaining about Jews wanting to define Israel a Jewish State. If Egypt is the Arab Republic of Egypt, I don't see why Israel couldn't be the Jewish Republic of Israel.
I thought being Arabic was racial.....and being Jewish was a religion. Never heard of a Jewish Race....except perhaps in a track meet.
Arabic isn't racial but is often thought of as such. There are white arabs from palestine and syria and black arabs from somalia, sudan and chad. Somalia and Sudan are even part of the arab league. Arabic is cultural. Jewish is more than just religion in most cases. It originally meant judean. Now it refers to mostly hebrews living in Israel or the diaspora. It also refers though to converts to the jewish religion of judaism. Arab can have racial and racist undertones. Often mizrahi jews are called 'arab jews' just because we live in arabized countries, but its a nonsensical term. We aren't arabs, we are hebrews. It would be like calling assyrians "arab assyrians" because their (and my) country was colonized by arabs during the arab islamic conquests. Iraqi Jews for instance are more related to Iranian Jews than to arabs. We have lived in Iraq since as early as 722 and 586 BCE. The arabians came in the 7th century CE. One might as well call black african americans 'white africans' for living in a white dominated country like america or england. Sometimes even non-jewish arabized people of the levant, and especially north africa take offence to being called arabs. Berbers are not arabs. Some lebanese people consider themselves phoenician, not arab. Lebanese arabic has aramaic influence anyway. Its sounds quite different from classical arabic of the qur'an.
He hated arab terrorists, not all arabs. Thats why its so silly when people call us 'arab jews'. He was the reshon letzion of israel and cursed the arabs for suicide bomings against jews, he meant hamas, islamic jihad, etc. We def. are not arabs. We don't even gentically cluster with them, but with assyrians, other jews, iranians, and caucasians (azeris, armenians, etc.) We are hebrews of mesopotamia.
We have more in common with european jews (ashkenazi and sefaradi) than we do with arabs according to genetic stuides. We even wrote arabic in hebrew characters, this dialect was called judeo arabic, comparable to yiddish which is judeo-german language. And not all mizrahi jews even come from arab countries, north africa is berber, kurdish areas aren't arab, Iran isn't an arab country, and neither are caucasian countries. A lot mizrahi jews come from azerbaijan, georgia, and dagestan. The mizrahi caucasian mountain jews speak judeo-tat, a persian dialect, because they descend from the jews who settled in persia thousands of years ago. Iraqi jews cluster closest with iranian jews and caucasian mouuntain jews from dagestan and azerbaijan as well as armenia and georgia.. I don't agree with the phrasing of Rabbi Yosef's comments but hey, at least he says loud and clear we are not arabs. I'm sick of others trying to redefine us and strip us of our hebrwe/jewish/israelite roots. The only 'arab jews' are arabians that converted to judaism. Some yemenite jews descend partially from hebrews and arabian converts, but even they themselves are mostly hebrew in origin, they have the oldest pronunciation of hebrew in the world, and identify as israelites, not as arabs in most cases.
I have heard other arabs say that as well. But you have to admit that people like Tony Shalhoub, Casey Kasem, Ralph Nader, and Helen Thomas look different than those who live in the true arabian countries like the gulf. They look nothing like the arabians peoples Kuwait, Oman, UAE, Yemen, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar etc. And they certainly don't look like the average gazan or egyptian. Not all lebanese have the same origins. Nasrallah is a sayyid so is arab, as are many shia muslims and even sunnis. The maronite lebanese and greek orthodox lebanese population is likely of mainly phonecian origin, with caananite and aramean influences as well. Similar to how the Assyrians of norther iraq are not arabs even though Saddam Hussein attempted to arabize them. Also, the lebanese dialect is very different from standard arabic, its heavily influenced by a dialect of aramaic called syriac. Spoken lebanese sounds completely different than msa/classical arabic. Lebanese sounds so different words like batrajak for please? It sounds very clipped. I'm just used to min faDlak. Even Egyptian 3amiyah sounds different than msa, izayyak? (In Iraq its shlonak/shlonich) How are you? lamu'akhza (excuse me) in maSriyyah. In Iraq there are other sounds (ch, p, and we have no emphatic Daa sound, we replace it with emphatic Zhaa) Iraqis call a dog "cheleb" And lets not even get into moroccan darija. la bas? Darija is so different its often called just 'moroccan' and not arabic. Its so berber and french influenced. And they take out nearly all the vowels leaving consonant clusters which is berber feature. I even heard an algerian professor say darija is not arabic, he was half joking of course, but its really its own language. I can't understand any of it.
They may not look like Arabian Arabs, but the Lebanese are- overall- ethnically (and to some extent culturally) Arab. Their language is Arabic, after all. They can understand what other Arabs say (dialect can a bit confusing at first) and write. Language brings unity between a peoples like nothing else. But that's just my opinion. A professor of mine believes they are Mediterranean. He has somewhat of a point. In a cultural sense, the Lebanese do share a lot of similarities with the Greeks and Italians, just as they do with the Arabs. They don't have to be genetically equal to "Arabian Arabs" to be Arabs. Actually, almost one third of Lebanese have Phoenician roots. But having the gene does not make them full-blown Phoenician. And religion is irrelevant: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7791389.stm They were conquered numerous times by different peoples. Their genes are a mix of European, Arabian, Turkish, Phoenician, etc.... They are not Phoenician (lol). Well, spoken Arabic (whether Syrian, Egyptian, or Lebanese) is pretty different from Classical Arabic. But no Arab speaks Classical Arabic; it would be like English speakers speaking Shakespeareian. But I do agree that spoken Lebanese Arabic is rather unique, in that it has been somewhat influenced by other languages.
Well technically arabs speak MSA on television news broadcasts and in many interviews, and its used for speeches, educated arabs know MSA, which is essentially classical arabic, just not always pronounced with the case endings as it is in the Qur'an or Hadeeth. The only other real difference between MSA and classical is that MSA has added foreign words and tends to use less 'flowery' or 'poetic' language in media speech, it also drops archaic words and vocabulary. My algerian professor I knew said that MSA and Classical are the same language. He can understand it when spoken and speak it, its just not used in informal situations. MSA is comparable to modern hebrew. A common myth is that hebrew died as a spoken language thousands of years ago and was only used in prayer and religious functions. But its not true. When yemenite jews make aliyah to israel for instance, they understand other israelis and speak hebrew fluently, not having to attend classes for immigrants. The only thing that Ben Yehuda added to Hebrew in making Modern Israeli Hebrew was a new modernized vocabulary which is exactly wheat MSA has done over the years. And ironically he used arabic as a base language to draw new roots from to form new words to the modern hebrew speech. Hebrew is easier than arabic, there are no 'dialects' only different accents which can sound quite different. A german hebrew accent will sound vastly different in consonants to a yemenite hebrew accent but the vowels are closer to each other than they are to standard israeli or (sefaradi hebrew). But hebrew speakers from almost any diaspora community can understand each other, they just might have trouble with the accent at first. Another interesting thing is the modern hebrew 'resh' or 'r' which isn't trilled (except by the older generation of most mizrahi jews), its pronounced like french, or the arabic 'ghayn'. People mistakenly think this is a european invention, and not semitic, but its not. The mosul dialect of iraqi arabic pronounces 'raa' ' the same way, in the back of the throat. I can't understand any darija really, which I prefer to just call 'moroccan' because its practically its own language and more berber-french influenced and also has borrowings from spanish. I wish I could speak moroccan because it sounds the best, they have the strongest 3yn, and still keep the Qaaf in everyday speech, while palestinian, lebanese, egyptian, and other dialects in the gulf have either dropped Qaaf, pronouncing it like a hamza, or changing it to an egyptian 'geem' sound. Moroccans also have a sound like hebrew 'tsade' or 'ts' as in "matza" or the english word "thats". Egyptians sound so strange, pronouncing 'jaraa'id' as 'garaa'id' and replacing the qaaf with hamza.
