Is there another subject that > would be more appropriate > right now for an intellectual freedom seminar? === There is a new kind of "denial" in the Arab media and texts these days, in addition to Holocaust Denial. This is the new "history" that says the Biblical Israelites were really "Arab tribes" (they spoke Arabic?) and that they have long since "disappeared," that the present day Jews in Israel have no relationship to ancient Israelites but are instead descended from Khazars, that the ancient Temple was built by "Canaanites," not Israelites, and that these Canaanites (or sometimes "Philistines") are the direct ancestors of today's Palestinians. Who can forget Mrs. Ashrawi's description of Jesus: "He was a Palestinian prophet." The problem is that this misinformation/propaganda is now finding its way into mainstream American books, as if there were some scholarly or historical basis for it, as if it were anything other than faslehood intended to serve a certain agenda - just like Holocaust Denial, equally insidious.
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