Category Archives: Israel

Who Owns the Holy Land?

As another year draws to a close, it is hard not to think in larger terms of the course of the last century. The world has seen two world wars and far too many atrocities to think of our technological and commercially driven age as golden. But in it all there has been humor. The American writer Mark Twain was a humorist with political insight. His greatest books belong to the century before, from the mother of all Holy Land travelogues, Innocents Abroad, to Huckleberry Finn and his adventurous friend Tom Sawyer. Surely one of the greatest humorists ever, Mark Twain did more than tell funny stories. His work survives in part because it uses humor to remind us of the unfairness and unwavering mundaneness of life.

In Tom Sawyer Abroad Twain offers a vivid critique of the kind of Orientalism that Edward Said rightly views as a style for dominating the Orient. Tom is not the ugly American abroad but the naive traveler finding out that the world has problems beyond flooding of the Mississippi. One of the more poignant passages goes straight to the core of the contemporary political crisis over Palestine. Who owns the Holy Land? The dialogue, as is often the case in Twain’s homespun rendering, speaks for itself:

Continue reading Who Owns the Holy Land?

Do Queer Muslims Need Saving?

Image by the anonymous artist Queer Habibi
Disclaimer: This is a reworked paper, originally written for a course called "Post-Colonial Perspectives on Audiovisual Media" at Stockholm University, in which I explore orientalism and pinkwashing in the Israeli film HaBuah [The Bubble], 2006, directed by Eytan Fox.

Edward Said begins his landmark text Orientalism (1978) with a statement on “the Orient” as an invention of European, colonial powers, used to define Europe itself: “The Orient was almost a European invention, and had been since antiquity ‘a place of romance, exotic beings, haunting memories and landscapes, remarkable experiences” (p. 9). One part of Said’s critique against orientalists and their work was the construction of “the Orient” as inherently different, opposite even, of that which was considered European, or “Western”. This forms a dichotomy between “the East” and “the West”, in which West is always seen as superior to East. Oftentimes, this perceived superiority would be legitimised through a linear, evolutionistic, and developmental perspective, in which advancement is represented by European academia, and ideals constructed as western (a concept often overlapping liberal ideals) were considered modern. Since development was seen as linear, it was expected that the rest of the world would follow the same path as Europe and to end up in the same place. In other words, modernisation often translated to westernisation.

Said exemplifies how this schism was upheld, and expand on its colonial consequences, by pointing to one of the earliest works of French impressions of Egypt; Description de l’Égypte. He means to say that this work, despite its name, is not an objective account of Egypt, but a placement of Egypt in the orientalist discourse. This worked to establish the French as the height of civilisation and sophistication, i.e. modern as opposed to traditional (understood in this context as uncivilised, unsophisticated and undeveloped). That way it would be almost an act of charity and humanity to colonise the Egyptians, so that the Europeans can educate them and eventually, if they are susceptible to modernisation, they might one day themselves govern, administer and care for their civilisation and its arts and culture.

Said’s own student and protégé, Joseph Massad, has carried on his legacy, and in the book Desiring Arabs (2007) he explores the “influence and impact that Orientalism has had in shaping the Arabs’ own perceptions of themselves and each other since the Arab Renaissance to the present” (p. 48). Furthermore, the book is an elaboration of an earlier essay, offering a critique of what he calls the “universalisation of gay rights:”

Like the major U.S.-based human rights groups (Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International) and many white Western feminist organizations, the Gay International has reserved a special place for the Muslim world in both its discourse and its advocacy. This orientalist impulse, borrowed from predominant representations of the Arab and Muslim worlds in the United States and Europe, continues to guide all branches of the human rights community. (Massad 2002, p. 362)

Image by the anonymous artist Queer Habibi

While Massad’s work is somewhat controversial and has received plenty of critique, for example by Frances S. Hasso and Dror Ze’evi, it provides a framework and foundation for exploring the intersection of orientalism and sexuality studies. Drawing inspiration from Massad – yet staying away from his more controversial arguments about “the Gay International” – I would here like to explore the topic of how Queer Arabs and Muslims are represented in audio-visual media, especially film, as well as how this representation informs the orientalist trope of a sexually repressive Middle East. This paper focuses particularly on the Israeli film HaBuah [The Bubble], directed by Eytan Fox and released in 2006.

HaBuah is a Romeo and Juliet-story (in fact, the original title of the film was Romeo and Julio), depicting the forbidden love between two men: Noam, an Israeli-Jew, and Ashraf, who is Palestinian and Muslim. As such, the forbidden-ness of their relationship is multi-layered, as it deals with forbidden sexuality, religion, nationality, and identity. However, this is in the film made into a point, where Palestine is presented as mostly homophobic, and Ashraf is forced to move to Tel Aviv to live openly. Although it is also made into a point that Ashraf will have to pretend to be Jewish, and flees back to (Palestinian city) Nablus when his true identity is revealed, this is still a typical example of so called “pinkwashing.” This refers to how crimes committed by the Israeli state, as an occupier of the West Bank, are glossed over and justified by portrayal of Israel as a liberal, democratic state and as a sort of safe haven for gays and lesbians. In comparison, Palestinian society is seen as backwards, conservative, and homophobic. This binary portrayal is furthered in HaBuah when Ashraf and Noam are caught kissing by Ashraf’s Islamist brother-in-law, Jihad, who blackmails Ashraf into marrying his cousin. Jihad – now acting as the filmic representation of religious (Muslim) intolerance and homophobia – then plans and executes a bombing in “liberal, gay-friendly” Tel Aviv.

From left to right: Alon Friedmann, Daniela Wircer, Ohad Knoller, & Yousef “Joe” Sweid.

In an Op-Ed in The New York Times, Schulman (2011) writes that pinkwashing is “a deliberate strategy to conceal the continuing violations of Palestinians’ human rights behind an image of modernity signified by Israeli gay life.” This film is a perfect example of this strategy, and also shows its dual functions; on the one hand prop up Israel and the Israeli society as a protector of human rights, rather than a violator, and on the other hand to portray Palestinian society as anti-gay – and thus anti-liberal. As such, it also acts as an ideological justification for Israeli occupation and militarism, since that is portrayed as in defence of “liberal” values. This can be understood in terms of securitisation – a term from the Copenhagen School of International Relations (see Buzan 2015) – whereby Palestinian presence is deemed inherently dangerous.

The myth (in Barthesian terms) of an Arab security threat is so prevalent in HaBuah that not only is Jihad and other Islamist Palestinians portrayed as threats, but, after his sister is killed in a raid by Israeli soldiers, even Ashraf becomes a potential threat, taking the place of Jihad as a suicide bomber. Ashraf kills himself and Noam. While the audience to some extent is invited to empathise with Ashraf, it is clear from the start that Noam, whom is first introduced doing military service at a check-point, is the “proper” protagonist. Ashraf on the other hand is only favourably portrayed when he is in Tel Aviv, living his life as an Israeli Jew, and him returning to Nablus is an upsetting event for the audience, who by now should want Ashraf to stay in Tel Aviv.

This context provides perfect opportunity to reflect Butler’s (2004) book Precarious Life, in which she discusses how only certain lives are considered “grievable.” In the book, Butler examines the ambiguities of terms such as “terrorist” and points out that this is used by “the Israeli state to describe any and all Palestinian acts of resistance, but none of its own practices of state violence” (p. 4). This, she argues, is a means of precluding historical inquiry and to morally justify retaliation. In HaBuah, the death of Ashraf’s sister is portrayed as a direct result of her husband’s involvement in the Tel Aviv-bombing, thus providing a frame in which her death is less grievable. The same goes for the death of Ashraf, in comparison to Noam. While, as mentioned, Ashraf’s decision to take Jihad’s place is somewhat explained with the death of his sister, the audience is not invited to empathise with this decision; it is seen as a tragedy, the final failure of the Palestinian queer to assimilate in liberal Tel Aviv. In a sense, it is the failure of Ashraf’s gayness, in the orientalist discourse understood as Western-aligned/liberal/modern, exactly because of his Palestinian identity, in the orientalist discourse understood as religious, anti-Western, or even inherently violent. Ashraf’s turn to suicide bombing and his subsequent death is inevitable rather than grievable, while Noam has no part in this bombing, and simply becomes a victim.

Another relevant text here is Boggs’ and Pollard’s (2006) “Hollywood and the Spectacle of Terrorism,” in which they write about portrayals of terrorism in media:

The main political and media discourses stress an epic struggle between (Western, democratic, modern) “civilization” and (Jihadic, Muslim, primitive) “barbarism”—a self- serving, hypocritical grand narrative that frames political violence as a monopoly of cultural/national Others whose modus operandi, mostly local attacks, contrasts with the “legitimate” military actions of powerful governments launching high-tech missile strikes and bombing raids. (Boggs and Pollard 2006, p. 336)

This, in HaBuah, is evident in the contrast between the rationalised, justified, and organised military operations of the Israeli soldiers, as opposed to the emotionally and religiously driven violence of the Palestinian Islamists – whose headbands reveal their association to the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas. It is worth noting that it is Ashraf who is killed off (by the director), rather than Jihad or any of the other members of the Hamas brigade. Thus, in the film universe, the threat is still alive and well, allowing for continued justification of Israeli military securitisation.

Ashraf, as a queer person, is in HaBuah a victim of his own cultural identity, and the plot could be described as revolving around Noam’s failed attempt to “save” Ashraf. But, his being saved then, is reliant upon two orientalist ideas: one is that Ashraf is without agency and thus cannot save himself, and the other is that his very being, as a queer Palestinian, is an unresolvable contradiction, requiring erasure of the (less favourable) national identity in favour of his sexual identity. In this manner, HaBuah symbolically, through the blowing up of Ashraf, promotes the erasure of Palestine. A counterpoint to this argument could be that the protagonist, Noam, is actively engaged in the anti-occupation movement. However, this fact does nothing to promote the actual anti-occupation movement, but rather only acts to show Noam as empathetic, and nonetheless he is still murdered by a Palestinian, thus making his anti-occupation stance portrayed as naïve at best.

Lastly, it must be mentioned, as is emphasized by Shohat and Stam (2014), that Israel is commonly imagined as a Western country (while Turkey, located to the West of Israel, is usually Eastern). This idea is further perpetuated by the type of pinkwashed binary portrayal as can be seen in HaBuah, wherein Israel is portrayed as modern, liberal, free, democratic, gay-friendly, as opposed to Palestine, which is then portrayed as illiberal, unfree, undemocratic, and most importantly, far from gay-friendly.

References

Boggs, Carl, and Tom Pollard. “Hollywood and the Spectacle of Terrorism.” New Political Science, 2006: 335–351.

Butler, Judith. Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence. London: Verso, 2004.

Buzan, Barry. “The English School: A neglected approach to International Security Studies.” Security Dialogue, 2015: 126–143.

Massad, Joseph. Desiring Arabs. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.

Massad, Joseph. “Re-Orienting Desire: The Gay International and the Arab World.” Public Culture, 2002: 361-385.

Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books, 1978.

Schulman, Sarah. “Israel and ‘Pinkwashing’.” International New York Times. November 22, 2011.

Shohat, Ella, and Robert Stam. Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media. London: Routledge, 1994.

If only Abraham had known …


The Sacrifice of Abraham, by Andrea del Sarto, ca. 1527-1528

A fable, dedicated to Mark Twain and all who really understand what it means to suffer

Abraham was sitting in his tent door near the oaks of Mamre. He was getting on in years and his son Ishmael would soon have to take over the family herds. So it was time to think about buying a burial site, perhaps the cave that Hittite had offered over near Hebron. Then he lifted up his eyes and three men stood before him. And though he did not realize it at the time, these were angels sent from God.

“Abraham,” said one of the angels, “God wants you to know what is going to happen to your descendants over the next three or four thousand years. So we are here to tell you. Are you sitting down?” Abraham was used to the flamboyance of this One God, so he made sure he stayed close to the ground.

“First of all,” said another angel, “your wife Sarah is going to have a son. I know she is a hundred years old and will probably think this is some kind of joke, but let me tell you that God doesn’t fool around when it comes to sex. You have to call this son “Isaac” and then just when you think things are going alright, God is going to ask you to take Isaac up on a mountain and kill him as a sacrifice.”

Abraham decided to keep quiet. Maybe there was more. Continue reading If only Abraham had known …

Arabic Dictionaries Online

lisan

In 1981, while visiting Egypt for a consulting assignment with USAID, I purchased the old Cairo edition of the massive dictionary Tāj al-‘Arūs of Murtaḍā al-Zabīdī (d. 1790). This was in about 10 large and heavy volumes. For it and a few other books I bought a cheap suitcase and paid the porter who carried it from the taxi to the airline desk a large baksheesh. When I arrived back in New York, as I was entering the door of our home, the suitcase burst open and Tāj al-‘Arūs was spread on the floor.

That was some 35 years ago, but now I have pdf files of the entire modern Kuwaiti edition courtesy of archive.org. While a scholar of Arabic used to either buy the physical book (I purchased a set of Lisān al-‘Arab in Baghdad in 1979) or be based near a major library (I had the advantage of the Oriental Room of the New York Public Library), now all it takes is a click of a mouse and many megabytes of space to build up a library of Arabic dictionaries.

For those who are looking for Arabic dictionaries available online or in pdf format, here is a list. Others are welcome to suggest sources they know.

Online Arabic Dictionaries

• The first place to go for classical Arabic is al-Bāḥith al-‘Arabī (http://www.baheth.info/), which is searchable by word in Arabic for the following dictionaries:
Lisān al-‘Arab of Ibn Manẓūr (d. 1311 CE); Maqāyyis al-lugha of Aḥmad ibn Fāris (d. 1004) ; al-Siḥāḥ fī al-lugha of Ismā‘īl ibn Ḥammād al-Jawharī (d. 1003); al-Qāmūs al-muḥīṭ of al-Fīrūzābādī (d. 1329); and, al-‘Ubāb al-zākhir of al-Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad al-Ṣaghānī (d. 1252).

• The Arabic website al-Ma‘ānī (http://www.almaany.com/) is an excellent source for Arabic definitions of Arabic terms.

• For Arabic to English, the original text of Edward Lane’s (1863) An Arabic-English Lexicon is available as an online pdf at http://www.tyndalearchive.com/TABS/Lane/. It is also available as a download at archive.org and at http://www.studyquran.co.uk/LLhome.htm

Arabic Dictionaries in PDF

• Al-Fayrūzābādī’s al-Qāmūs al-muḥīṭ is at https://archive.org/details/QamusMuhit
• Ibn Manẓūr’s Lisān al-‘Arab is at https://archive.org/details/lisan.al.arab
• Al-Ṣaghānī’s al-Takmila wa-al-dhayl is at https://archive.org/details/TKMLH
• Al-Zabīdī’s massive Tāj al-‘arūs (Kuwaiti version) is at https://archive.org/details/taga07

• see also Dozy, R. (1881) Supplement aux Dictionnaires Arabes. Leiden Brill. at http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6254645z

Arabic/English, English/Arabic, etc.

• Baretto, Joseph (1804) A Dictionary of the Persian and Arabic Languages. Calcutta : S. Greenway, India Gazette Press. Vol. 2 at https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofpers02barriala

• Johnson, Francis (1852) A Dictionary, Persian, Arabic and English. London: W.H. Allen. at https://archive.org/details/b22651366

• Penrice, John (1873) A Dictionary and Glossary of the Kor-ân. London: Henry S. King. at https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_QYwq3ylpv6kC

• Richardson, John (1810) A Vocabulary, Persian, Arabic, and English; abridged from the quarto edition of Richardson’s dictionary is at https://archive.org/details/vocabularypersia00richiala

• Steingass, Francis Joseph (1882) English-Arabic Dictionary: For the Use of Both Travellers and Students. London: W. H. Allen and Co. at https://archive.org/details/englisharabicdi00steigoog

• Steingass, Francis Joseph (1884) The Student’s Arabic-English Dictionary. London: Crosby, Lockwood and Son at https://archive.org/details/cu31924026873194

• Wehr, Hans (1960) Arabic-English Dictionary is available as a pdf at https://archive.org/details/Arabic-englsihDictionary

• Wortabet, William Thomson Arabic-English Dictionary is available as a pdf at https://archive.org/details/WortabetsArabic-englishDictionary

Arabic Dialect Dictionaries

• Ben Sedirah, Belkassam (1910) Petit dictionnaire arabe-français de la langue parlée en Algérie, contenant les mots et les formules employés dans les lettres et les actes judiciaires. Alger: Jourdan. at https://archive.org/details/petitdictionnair00abaluoft

• Biberstein-Kazimirski, Albert de (1860) Dictionnaire arabe-francais contenant toutes les racines de la langue arabe : leurs dérivés, tant dans l’idiome vulgaire que dans l’idiome littéral, ainsi que les dialectes d’Alger et de Maroc. Paris: Maisonneuve: Éditeurs pour les langues orientales, Européenes et comparées. at https://archive.org/details/dictionnairearab02bibeuoft

• Cameron, Donald Andreas (1892) An Arabic-English vocabulary for the use of English students of modern Egyptian Arabic. London: Bernard Quaritch. at https://archive.org/details/arabicenglishvoc00cameuoft

• Crow, Francis Edward (1901) Arabic manual. A colloquial handbook in the Syrian dialect, for the use of visitors to Syria and Palestine, containing a simplified grammar, a comprehensive English and Arabic vocabulary and dialogues. London: Luzac and co.
at https://archive.org/details/arabicmanualcoll00crow

• Hinds, Martin and el-Said Badawi (1986) A Dictionary of Egyptian Arabic is available as a pdf at https://archive.org/details/ADictionaryOfEgyptianArabicArabicEnglish

• Landberg, Carlo (1901) Études sur les dialectes de l’Arabie méridionale. I: ḤaḍramoÅ«t. Leiden: Brill. at https://archive.org/details/tudessurlesdial00unkngoog

• Landberg, Carlo (1909) Études sur les dialectes de l’Arabie méridionale. Datina. Leiden: Brill. https://archive.org/details/p2tudessurlesdia02landuoft

• Nishio, Tetsuo (1992) A Basic Vocabulary of the Bedouin Arabic Dialect of the Jbāli tribe (Southern Sinai). Tokyo : Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa. https://archive.org/details/basicvocabularyo00nish

• Rhodokanakis, Nikolaus (1908) Der vulgärarabische Dialekt im Dofâr (Zfâr). Vienna: Alfred Hölder. at https://archive.org/details/dervulgrarabis10rhod

Arabic Thesaurus

• Ibn Qutayba Adab al-kātib. Beirut: Mu’assisa al-Risāla. at https://archive.org/details/tanmawia.com_15789

• Ibn Sīda, Al-Mukhaṣṣāṣ. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyya. at https://archive.org/details/mukhsasmukhsas

• Khuwārizmī, Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad (1866-1903) Liber Mafâtîh al-olûm: explicans vocabula technica scientiarum tam Arabum quam peregrinorum. Edited by G. Voten. Lugduni Batavorum: Brill. [in Arabic] at https://archive.org/details/b29006247

Specialized Arabic Terms

•Al-Damīrī (1908) Ad-Damîrî’s Ḥayât al-Ḥayawān (A Zoological Lexicon). Translated by A. S. G. Jayakar. London: Luzac. Vol. 2, Part 1. at https://archive.org/details/addamrsaytalaya00damgoog

• Al-Damīrī Ḥayāt al-ḥayawān ms. at https://al-mostafa.info/data/arabic/depot/gap.php?file=m013645.pdf

• Fleury, V and Muammad Souhlal (1915) L’arabe pratique et commercial à l’usage des établissements d’instruction et des commerçants, lecture, écriture, grammaire, syntaxe, exercices d’application, conversation, lexiques, dictionnaire commercial. Alger: Jourdan.
at https://archive.org/details/larabepratiqueet00fleuuoft

• Dozy, Renard (1845) Dictionnaire Détaillé des noms des vêtements chez les Arabes. Amsterdam: Jean Müller. at https://archive.org/details/dictionnairedt00dozyuoft

• Fonahn, A. (1922) Arabic and Latin Anatomical Terminology. Kristiania: Jacob Dybwad. at https://archive.org/details/arabiclatinanat00fona

• Ibrāhīm, Rajab (2002) al-Mu‘jam al-‘Arabī li-asmā’ al-malābis. Cairo: Dār al-Mufāq. at https://archive.org/stream/FP56847/56847#page/n0/mode/2up

• Mu‘jam muṣṭlaḥāt al-‘ulūm al-shar‘īyya. Saudi Arabia, 2017. Vol. 1 at https://archive.org/details/momsolshPDF

• Siddiqi, Abdussattar (1919) Studien über die Persischen Fremdwörter im klassischen Arabisch. Göttingen, Vandenhoeck. at https://archive.org/details/studienberdiep00sidd

• Yāqūt, Mu‘jam al-buldan. at https://www.4shared.com

Exploring Arabic Texts:

There are many more sources available at archive.org if you put “Arabic language” in the search bar. Important sources for links to pdfs of Arabic language texts include the following:

• Arabic Collections Online (NYU Aby Dhabi): http://dlib.nyu.edu/aco/
• 4shared.com: https://www.4shared.com/
• Al-Madinah Inernational University Digital Library: http://dlibrary.mediu.edu
• al-Maktaba al-Shāmila: http://shamela.ws/
• Mawqa‘ al-ḍīyā‘: http://www.aldhiaa.com/arabic/book.php?sort=all
• al-Mostafa: https://www.al-mostafa.com/
• Waqfeya: http://waqfeya.com/category.php?cid=6

• See the list of sites at https://digitalorientalist.com/2015/01/16/full-text-online-arabic-sources-a-preliminary-list/

Open Access to Middle East Journals and Newspapers

For anyone doing research on the Middle East for the past two centuries, there is an incredible archive online. Details below:

Alphabetical List of Open Access Historical Newspapers and Other Periodicals in Middle East & Islamic Studies

Below is a list of Open Access historical newspapers and other periodicals in Middle Eastern Studies.
Most titles on the list have been digitized by independent projects across the globe and may not have been fully cataloged. It is often difficult to find and access them on the web or through catalogs such as HathiTrust, AMEEL, Gallica, Revues, WorldCat, etc.
We welcome your comments and suggestions of additional titles to include. Please use the comment feature at the bottom of the page.

For the list of active Open Access journals follow this link:
Alphabetical List of Open Access Journals in Middle Eastern Studies

132 titles as of May 14, 2015.

Bedouin Women with Cameras…



“Photography has brought us closer, it’s enabled us to find a common language.” Photo by Ilan Assayag

The reality exposed by Bedouin women armed with cameras

Mothers and daughters from unrecognized villages empowered through photography.
By Vered Lee, Haaretz,| May 13, 2015

Mahadia Abu-Joda, 53, a mother of 13 and resident of the unrecognized Bedouin village of Za’arura, cradles a red digital camera in her hand. “The first time in my life that I held a camera and prepared to take a picture, about a year and a half ago, I held it upside down and in the wrong direction,” she says through the hijab that conceals her hair and frames her face.

Abu-Joda’s photographs appear in one of the four recently published photography books that document life in four unrecognized Bedouin villages in the Negev from a feminine point of view: Za’arura, Atir, Wadi al-Na’am and Alsra. The books, which are accompanied by an exhibition on display at present at Multaka-Mifgash, a Jewish-Arab cultural center in Be’er Sheva, were produced by the Negev Coexistence Forum and created during a project operated by the organization Human Rights Defenders, in which about 30 Bedouin women from the unrecognized villages participated. Continue reading Bedouin Women with Cameras…

Huckabeeswax

The Republican Party, inebriated with tea partisanship, seems to shoot itself in its elephantine trunk in attracting presidential candidates. This certainly worked to Romney’s favor last time around, as he certainly looked far more presidential than “what-was-the-third-one” Rick Perry, Call 999 and pay your taxes Mr. Cain, Sarah “I can see Alaska from my bedroom” Palin, Ron “I will run even when I am in my grave” Paul and the other circus acts that paraded through the primaries in 2012. Once again we are seeing a run (at the mouth some times) of former Governor and Fox News celebrity Mike Huckabee. He is apparently willing to overlook the fact that having two presidents from the state of Arkansas within only a couple of decades is going against Las Vegas odds. But here he is again, hitting the mash potato and Bible verse quoting circuit and about as Iowa bound as a candidate can get.

The latest bit of Huckabeeswax has a nasty sting to it. Echoing the Gold Meir canard that there are no “Palestinians” on his most recent Bible Land tour (I suspect that Huckabee is guilty of not reading Twain’s Innocents Abroad), the Arkansas traveler said that there aint no such thing (well he is reported to have said “is” no such thing but who knows what the meaning of “is” really is) as a Palestinian. “The idea that they have a long history, dating back hundreds or thousands of years, is not true,” Huckabee said.

So if there are no “Palestinians” but only “Arabs” who made up the term to spite Israel and drive them into the sea, who exactly was living in Eretz Israel before 1948. Here are some scenarios. Continue reading Huckabeeswax