Fri, Jul 25, 2008

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I'm a fool to take the bait,

I'm a fool to take the bait, but here I go anyway:

"There has never been a Palestinian country, people, culture or language."

Well, all the world referred to that chunk of real estate roughly between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean as "Palestine" for quite a while. I guess you could say that they were all deluded....

A Palestinian people? This is a question of philosophy rather than demographics. I'd say that if a group of people with similar customs, language, geographic location and similar attributes call themselves a people, that pretty much closes the deal.

No Palestinian culture? Demonstrably, howlingly false. Palestinian ceremonial dress, particularly the embroidery patterns of the women's clothing, is distinctive. My Lebanese mother would turn up her nose at Palestinian cuisine, although her cooking and a Palestinian's would probably appear identical to a Dane or Thai. These are precisely the sorts of things that anthropologists advise us constitute culture.

No Palestinian language? Hey, genius, is there an Egyptian language? Syrian? Saudi? No? I guess there are no Egyptians, Syrians or Saudis, then. Fucking dope.

I know, I know, why bother addressing this lunatic. Sorry. Carry on. 





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