Letters to Editor: Debating the Terms “Arab World” and “Arab Country” on Washington Report on Middle East Affairs

Ida Audeh’s response: Gregory DeSylva seems to equate Jewish nationalism/Zionism with references to the Arab world (and use of the term “Arab country”). There is no basis for comparing the two. The former is a discredited supremacist 19th century ideology forged in another continent that can only be maintained through repeated acts of genocide and erasure, as Israel’s 75-year history demonstrates; the latter acknowledges an obvious reality, that Palestinians are part of a region. Because we are indigenous to the region, we have connections to other people in the region; we share history, culture and Arabic as a first language. Historic Palestine is located in the Arab world, a geography that Israelis often refer to as “a dangerous neighborhood,” in the way that colonizers tend to belittle the geographies they descend on. With predatory aspirations, their disdain for their surroundings is a clear indicator that they are alien to it.