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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   29569 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 21, 2025

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2000 year old grievances

There was no conflict until, at the earliest, 140 years ago. Praytell, what "2000 year old grievances" do the Palestinians harbor and wage war over?

Given that Arabic lacks the hard 'P' sound, while the Romans called the area Palestine (and the people have adopted that name in English), in Arabic it comes out sounding a lot like 'Philistine' (which is probably where Rome got the name), a reference to the tribe that frequently warred with the Israelites of the Bible (mostly post-Torah).

I'm not qualified to speak to the the actual ethnic histories on the ground, but "the Israelites and Philistines are going at it again" is a tale as old as David and Samson, which is probably closer to 3000 years. Arguably, modern peoples have decided to adopt the mantle of such an ancient conflict, but they clearly aren't doing it ironically.

I thought there was some scholarly hypothesis that the Philistines were Mycenean Greeks, which helps explain certain things like Samson being a more Herakles-type hero, instead of the more typical "Mouthpiece of God" prophet in the Old Testament.

I suppose that it is possible that the Philistines or their descendants Arabized, but I'd want to see the account of that survival since the connection seems a little dubious to me.

Everyone in the region first Aramaized, then Hellenized, then(Jews excepted) Arabized. Palestinians having some Philistine blood wouldn't be surprising, even if I suspect it's mostly Bedouin and Caananite.

then(Jews excepted) Arabized

Why except them? Palestinians are genetically more Jewish than Ashkenazi Israelis, so while they have some Arab admixture, they are mostly Arabized Jews.

The Arabs and Arabic didn't enter the Levant at scale until the Muslim conquest in the 7th century, right?

"Philistine" comes from Hebrew, originally. If you didn't know, Hebrew is also a Semitic language.

https://www.etymonline.com/word/Philistine

My understanding is that the genetics of Palestinian/Levantine Arabs and ethnic groups that predate the Muslim invasion differ, but there's a lot of admixture due to conversions to Islam.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_the_Palestinians

Long story short, "Palestinians" are not "Philistines" even though it's the same label.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philistines#:~:text=Philistines%20(Hebrew%3A%20%D7%A4%D6%B0%D6%BC%D7%9C%D6%B4%D7%A9%D6%B0%D7%81%D7%AA%D6%B4%D6%BC%D7%99%D7%9D%2C%20romanized,generally%20referred%20to%20as%20Philistia.

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