Genesis Vol 3.pdf - College Press

THE SON OF THE BONDWOMAN 16:l-16
name for Hagar. Indeed, El Hejar, an important Arabian
road junction, may preserve the name of the Hagrites.
Their earlier habitat may have been more westerly. That;
Hagar is ‘Egyptian’ suggests residence in the north Sinaitic
area” (Kraeling, BA, 69). It would be well for the stu-
dent to familiarize himself with the archaeological dis-
coveries at Petra: it is one of the most important historical
centers of the ancient Near East.
We cannot close this phase of our study without re-
marking that the age-long conflict between the sons of
Isaac and the sons of Ishmael has reached fever heat in our
own time, following the establishment of the Jewish state
of Israeli, and threatens to plunge the world into another
global war. One of the anomalies of the present situation
is the collusion of the Arab world under Nasser the Egyp-
tian dictator, a Mohammedan, with the atheistic totalitarian
state of the Russian Leninists, particularly in view of the
fact that Islamism is the most rigidly monotheistic “re-
ligion” in the world. Even in our day, moreover, the Arab
political regimes are despotisms in the true sense of the
term: they have none of the characteristics of a democracy.
It is interesting too that the Turks, although Mohammedans
also, are of Mongolian extraction and hence do not aline
themselves with the Arab world. These various facts call
for an examination of the term “anti-Semitic,” which is
bandied about so loosely, as meaning only “anti- Jew.”
But the Arabs are also Semitic, as are the Egyptians, the
Ethiopians, and other peoples of the same part of the
world. The languages usually classified as Semitic are the
Phoenician, Hebrew, Aramaic, Ethiopic, and Arabic. Thus
it will be seen that “anti-Semitism” is a term which cannot
be used rightly to designate only those who are opposed
to Jews. It is time for these “weighted” terms, phrases,
and cliches, to be stripped of their overtones and used in
their true signification,
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