The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #93525 Message #1801244
Posted By: Paul Burke
04-Aug-06 - 05:28 AM
Thread Name: BS: Who came first, the Arab or the Jew?
Subject: RE: BS: Who came first, the Arab or the Jew?
Not at all. IIRC Herod was of Arab (Idumaean or Edomite) descent. They were excluded (ethnically- cleansed) from the newly- independent Israel by the Maccabees after they revolted from the Seleucid successor of Alexander the Great. They would have had full access to Palestine during the Roman period, and of course thereafter when the Jews were dispersed following the revolts of the first and second centuries (some Jews still remained in Palestine).
In 634AD Palestine was seized from the (Christian) Byzantines by the invading Moslem army. Many of the inhabitants- Christians, Pagans and Jews alike- converted to Islam thereafter, and became, along with immigrants from other parts of the Moslem world, the ancestors of the modern Palestinians, and Arabic became the language in the place of Aramaic, Greek, Latin etc.