Arab" is a race
Arab is not a race. Arabs are defined by language, not ethnic or racial groupings. Many different peoples, ranging in color from white to brown to black, speak Arabic as their native tongue and are thus, Arabs.
Judaism/Christianity/Islam are religions
Christianity and Islam are both universalist, creedal religions, which anybody may join easily. Judaism, however, is an ethnically based religion. Thus Jews are an ethnicity, not just a religion. The vast majority of Jews are Jews because they are born Jews. Nobody is born a Christian; everybody is baptized a Christian.
As to Palestine, it has always been a country
Nonsense. Read what I posted from Khalil Salibi concerning the formation of modern Arab states.
In Palestine, which was assembled from what was formerly the Sanjak of Jerusalem and the southern parts of the Vilayet of Beirut, the British had deliberately attempted to recreate the Biblical Land of Israel, 'from Dan to Beersheba', where the Jews were to have their national homeland. The immigrant Jews actually called the country Eretz Israel, and looked forward to the day when it would be transformed into a Jewish state. To them, Palestine as a country was meaningful, but only as a prelude to something else: the Zionist concept of a Jewish nationality, reconstituted on what was conceived to be its historical home grounds. To its native Arab population, however, Palestine was no more of a natural country than Lebanon, Syria, Transjordan or Iraq, and might as well have been given another shape or size.
Under the Ottomans, Palestine wasn't even a province, let alone a country. The area was part of three larger provinces: The vilayet of Beirut, the vilayet of Damascus, and the Independent Sanjak of Jerusalem. There is little evidence that the local Arabs even used the word "Filasteen" to describe the region until the later part of the 19th century, and then it was probably due to European influence. |
