Semites, ‘Arabs’, ‘Jews’, and the invalid term ’Anti-Semitism’
Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
April 23, 2007
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Take the leading economies in terms of GDP and/or industrial production: USA, China, India (absolutely Indo-European in its political establishment with little power share offered to Dravidian populations in the south of Narmada river), Japan, Germany, France, England, Italy, Russia (Slavs are Indo-Europeans too), Brazil, Mexico (case similar to that of Brazil), Canada, South Korea, Spain. Everything corroborates the earlier statement that the entire world is today run by the Indo-Europeans and the Sino-Japanese.
Where are the Semites?
To this question the best answer is another question:
Who are the Semites?
Definitely, as of today we can affirm that the world attested no less than 4700 years of Semitic presence in, and impact on, the History of the Mankind! They left an undeniable and unmatched stamp on the development, the evolution, the intellectual and the material life of the Mankind.
First the Accadians, the ancestors of the Assyrians and the Babylonians, appeared in Mesopotamia as early as 2650 BCE and settled around the yet not identified (let alone unearthed) capital of theirs, Agade.
The division of the Accadians into Assyrians (Northern Mesopotamia) and Babylonians (Southern Mesopotamia) brings about a dialectical opposition at all levels, cultural, religious, ideological, political, social. In a way, we could call Assyrians and Babylonians ‘late Accadians’. Simply they lasted much longer than their Accadian forefathers.
Then, the Amurru, the Amorrites, come out of the Syro-Arabic desert into the confines of Mesopotamia, Syria and Canaan. Highly sophisticated social, intellectual and political structures in the cities - states of Mari and Ebla are due to the intermingling of Assyrians, Babylonians and Amorrites with non-Semitic Sumerians and Hurrians.
Later on, around 1100 BCE, other Semitic populations come out of the same area into the green pasturelands of Mesopotamia and Syria that today look arid and gloomy: the Aramaeans.
Aramaeans intermingle with Babylonians and Elamites in Southern Mesopotamia and Southern Transtigritane; this Latin term is actually a translation of the earlier Greek term ‘Hypertigriane’ and both mean the land beyond the river Tigris, which corresponds mostly to the modern SW Iranian province of Khuzestan. Similarly, Aramaeans intermingle with Amorrites, as well as with Urartu, Neo-Hittites and Lydians - all non-Semitic populations - in Anatolia (the term describes the land of today’s Turkey throughout History). And they also intermingle with Canaanites and Phoenicians.
At a phase covering the end of the 3rd BCE millennium, so definitely 500 years after the appearance of Accadians, we have signs of Semitic presence throughout Canaan, i.e. the Eastern coast of the Mediterranean (today shared by Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Palestine) with a depth of about 100 km in the inland. When we use the term Canaan we cover chronologically the end of the 3rd and all the 2nd millennia BCE, and we mean the inland as far as the line going from Haleb to Damascus and Amman. Canaanites are Semitic people, and they develop great cultural centers and political establishments, particularly in Ugarit (modern Ras Shamra on the Syrian coast 5km before the border with Turkey) and Byblus. In both cities – states, independent systems of scripture are developed, but the Ugaritic Cuneiform is by definition the first exclusively alphabetic system in the world. We use the adverb ‘exclusively’ here because an alphabet had already existed in the Egyptian Hieroglyphic writing since its very establishment at the beginning of the 3rd millennium, but Egyptian Hieroglyphic writing using both, letters and ideograms, was not exclusively based on its alphabet.
The Invasions of the Sea Peoples (term taken out of the Hieroglyphic inscriptions - Annals of Ramses III, who finally vanquished them and dispersed them throughout the Mediterranean) brought a total collapse in the civilized world in Anatolia, Greece and Canaan. The Hittite Anatolian Empire (Hittites are the first Indo-Europeans to have developed writing and civilizations at the area of today’s Central Turkey), its small ally the Mycenaean Achaia, Ugarit, and other Canaanite states disappear from the map, whereas barbarism replaces them (the Sea Peoples, once settled in Ugarit, used clay tablets with inscribed cuneiform texts as bricks for their modest houses! As consequence, Egypt in the aftermath of its victory over the Sea Peoples falls in perennial decay, and Assyria rises as the only Superpower for almost 500 - 600 years. This is the most glorious period of Semite-led Mankind.
We cannot afford to use the term Canaan for the first millennium BCE. During that period, in the northern half of Canaan, we have Phoenicians (one could call them ‘Neo-Canaanites’) compressed by Aramaeans in the coastal line (Phoenicians never extended beyond today’s Lebanon - Syria borderline), whereas in the southern half we find Hebrews, also Semitic populations. The latter came out of Egypt accompanied by many monotheistic Egyptians (former followers of the monotheistic Atonic party risen to power by the revolutionary mystic Pharaoh Amenhotep IV - Akhenaten). Perhaps among the fleeing masses of the Exodus, the Khammitic Egyptians outnumbered the Semitic Hebrews, and Moses, as his name clearly suggests, was of Egyptian origin. In the Biblical text, we find references and specifications for the proselytes, and as such non-Hebrew populations may have been called, in this case Egyptians.
It is to be noted that several scholars insist on the historical reconstruction – interpretation that never did all the Hebrews move to Egypt, and that the Dan tribe - in particular - was always present in southern Canaan. As far as the Egyptians are concerned, they certainly are the result of intermingling (occurred at the very end of the 4th millennium BCE) between the local Khammitic substratum and the – not massive – Semitic invaders (before the establishment of a unified country under the first Pharaoh of the first dynasty, Narmer, whose palette bears the earliest found hieroglyphic inscription, the mention of his name).
In later centuries, Israelites (the ten tribes of the northern state with Samaria as capital) have been transported by Sargon of Assyria (722 - 705 BCE) at the north-easternmost confines of Assyria, and in their place Aramaeans have been relocated from Southern Mesopotamia. These Aramaeans have later accepted Judaic religion, but as the Gospels testify to, they were never accepted by the ethnically ‘clean’ Jews of Jerusalem as true, authentic and genuine Jews; they were rather called Samaritans. Jesus expressed deliberated his rejection of the Pharisaic inconsistent and devious attitude.
Assyrians and the ten tribes of Israel cannot be found anymore in the area of Assyria, when Assyria collapses and Babylonian armies invade Northern Mesopotamia to find only a few garrisons of empty cities. The departure of the Assyrians and the Israelites from Assyria had already been prophesied, and we find related approaches in the Coran (surat al Yunus); it remains one of the key mysteries and turning points of the World History.
Philistines, the most outspoken enemy of the ancient Israelites, were not of Semitic origin, but one of the tribes participating in the Sea Peoples. Mentioned as Peleset in the Annals of Ramses III, so impressively carved on the walls of his mortuary temple at Madinat Habou (Thebes West - Luqsor), the Philistines have been identified with the non-Greek, non-Indo-European substratum of the Aegean Sea area that is known through Greek sources as Pelasgoi, Pelasgians.
In later centuries, Babylonians, Phoenicians and Jews, even the Persians who settled in the west of Iran, have all been gradually aramaized, as they lived among the large Aramaic populations that excelled in anything from letters and sciences to trade and agriculture, but not in statehood and in seafaring. Jesus’ was native Aramaean (Aramaized Jew) and that is why Jesus reportedly spoke Aramaic, ‘Ili, ili, lima sabakhtani’ is Aramaic, not Hebrew! Hebrew was by that time already a dead language used for religious purposes by the Jews. Aramaic was spoken as international trade language from NW Africa up to Central Asia and China.
Thanks to the Assyrians and the Aramaeans, the Semitic cultural impact was overwhelming on the Indo-European Iranians; under Assyrian – Babylonian influence, they first adopted Cuneiform for their imperial writing (Old Achemenidian). A few centuries later, they did set up a second, alphabetic writing, using Aramaic characters (Parthian and Middle Persian). Aramaic as scripture was later diffused in Central Asia (Sogdian, Indo-Parthian, Manichaeist Turfanic, etc) and in India (Harosthi system of writing).
The Phoenician expansion in the Mediterranean brought about the establishment of a great number of colonies, the most notable of which proved to be Carthage (Kart Hadasht in Phoenician means ‘New City’). Phoenician and Carthaginian colonial expansion ended up with the expansion / dispersion of large Semitic populations in the Libyan coast, the Aegean Sea and Greece, Sicily, Sardinia, the Northwestern coast of Africa, the Iberian coast of today’s Spain, as well as beyond the Hercules’ Pillars (today’s Gibraltar) in the coast of Africa down to Sierra Leone (attested by the Periplus of Hanno), and in the coasts of today’s Portugal. Perhaps this historical reality has not been properly reflected at the level of the modern Portuguese national conscience but it certainly exists as racial / ethnic background!
Semitic cultural impact was absolute in the case of the Greek and Roman adoption of the Phoenician alphabet and many other cultural and social trends, and more particularly the democratic system of ruling. Democracy is particularly relevant to Semitic - preponderantly Phoenician / Carthaginian - inspiration, not Greek - Roman - Indo-European political phenomenon.
Two centuries of Orientalist misconceptions and sophisticated alterations of the World History, and of Colonial perverted propaganda and ideology failed to keep this secret and unknown, and now it is up to the Oriental peoples to prove publicly and at a global level the inconsistencies, the inaccuracies and the mendacities of the French - British fake, pseudo-democratic ideology.
At the southeastern confines of the then known world, the Ancient Yemenites manifested high civilization standards already at the end of the second millennium BCE, and in later period they expanded in Africa (Axumite Abyssinia, Eritrean coast, Yemenite colonies in Azania). Arabs in Hedjaz were also a Semitic population that did not achieve anything important before the advent of Muhammad and Islam, limited as they were between the Aramaeans and the Yemenites.
Ethnic – linguistic subdivisions of the Semites
Linguistically speaking, the Semites are divided into three groups:
1. Oriental Semites: Accadians, Assyrians, Babylonians
2. Northwestern Semites
a. Amorrites, Canaanites, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Hebrews, Edomites, Moabites
b. Aramaeans
3. Southern Semites
a. Yemenites, Abyssinians
b. Arabs
Semitic presence today
In our present world, Semitic populations are attested in
1. SE Turkey, SW Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Emirates, Israel, Palestine. These are the linguistically arabized Aramaeans of the Late Antiquity, either they speak Arabic or Syriac Aramaic. Kurds and modern Israelis are excluded.
2. Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania (the linguistically arabized Semito-Khammitic - Berberic / Phoenician / Carthaginian mixture of the Late Antiquity) whereby the Semitic element is scarce among the overwhelming Khammitic – Berberic majority (either Arabic or Berberic speaking).
3. Abyssinia and Eritrea (in minority; here are included those who spoke Gueze in the past, and those who speak presently Amharic/Amarinya, Tigrinya, and Tigre).
4. Yemen and Oman. The linguistically arabized Yemenites and Dhofarites, plus the populations that preserved languages originating from Ancient Yemenite languages: Mahrani, Soqotri, Jebeli.
5. Semitic substratum can be found in many other countries without however being reflected at the linguistic level – due to various linguistic assimilations.
It is to be underscored that Arabic speaking Egyptians and Sudanese are predominantly Khammitic (the former) and absolutely Khammitic (the latter), with strong intermingling with Nilo-Saharic Nubians.
Furthermore, the ethnic / linguistic mixture that occurred in Hedjaz for many long centuries with Turks, Iranians, Central Asiatic, Indian and African populations settling there at different moments (usually after the performance of Hadj) was so extensive that we truly cannot afford to take these populations as a genuinely Semitic ethnic entity, despite the fact that Arabic is native to all – due to religious reasons.
Are all the Jews really Semitic?
As far as most of the Jewish citizens of Israel are concerned, it must be noted that those among them who originate from the Middle East, where Jews had intermingled with Semitic populations, can be taken as Semitic; these are mostly the Sephardic Jews.
However, the Ashkenazim Jewry from Eastern, Northern, Western Europe and Northern America that for centuries intermingled with Indo-Europeans, and lost its Hebrew language, forming and practicing composite idioms like Yiddisch (in Central Europe) and Ladino (in Spain), cannot seriously be taken of Semitic origin.
Modern Hebrew language whatsoever has a purely Indo-European Grammar that has nothing to do with Ancient Hebrew, which had a typically Semitic Grammar. Being mostly a modern Ashkenazim construction, Modern Hebrew Grammarians used Ancient Hebrew Semitic vocabulary mixed with an Indo-European grammatical structure to form a language – tool that would serve the Zionist purpose; yet, this purpose was and still is rejected by the Orthodox Jewish Rabbis.
The impossibility of an imaginative Anti-Semitism
Taking into consideration the vast expasion of the Semitic peoples and their determinant, unmatched and unequaled contribution to the World’s civilization, we cannot afford to employ a term like ‘anti-Semitism’ for any Semite taking a firm stand against another Semitic people. Many times throughout History, one Semitic people made a war upon another Semitic people. Sometimes the hatred lasted centuries. How could we therefore characterize those cases if we take the modern term ‘Anti-Semitism’ for granted? It makes non sense! Retrograding in History, we should ask ourselves the key question in this regard:
Who were Anti-Semitic?
The Assyrians fighting the Babylonians and considering themselves as the proper inheritors of Agade and the ideal Empire of Sargon I?
Or the Babylonians, who rejected that Assyrian assertion, sticking to the concept of Holiness of their capital, Bab-ili (lit. in Babylonian the name of Babylon means the ‘Gate of God’, as Semitic translation of the original Sumerian name of that place, which was KA.DINGIR.RA.KI)?
Who would stand up to accuse of anti-Semitism the top Semitic ruler of the post-Assurbanipal times, namely Nebukadnezzar (Nabuchodonosor in Greek, Bukhtanassar in Arabic), the king of Babylon, who represented two millennia of the most authentic, genuine and world-leading Semitic civilization, culture, and tradition, when shattering Judah and taking the Jews to their Babylonian exile?
Who could characterize the Christian Aramaeans, who fought against Muslim Aramaeans, Yemenites, and Arabs (all Semites), as Anti-Semitic?
And the Semite Abyssinian king Kaleb, fighting against the Semitic Yemenites for the purpose of the anti-Iranian aspirations of the Eastern Roman Empire, was he an anti-Semite too?
One could go on and on, and on! The truth is very simple; Aramaeans of Dimashq fighting against Phoenicians of Tyre are – in the most maximizing expression – ‘anti-Phoenicians’. And the same concerns all!
The Greeks of Sicily fighting against the Carthaginian colons in the Mediterranean island were simply ‘anti-Carthaginian’, not anti-Semitic!
And the Semitic, Axumite Abyssinians of king Kaleb, who fought so fiercely against the Jews of Yemen were simply ‘anti-Judaic’, not anti-Semitic!
Those opposing, criticizing, denouncing practices of the state of Israel are not anti-Semitic! They could eventually be called ‘anti-Judaic’, ‘anti-Jewish’, ‘anti-Israeli’.
But they can be reproached as anti-Jewish, because the majority of the Jewry did not aspire to such a state, and even now rejects its deeply anti-Jewish character.
It is only normal to accept that those opposing, criticizing, denouncing practices of the state of Israel are not anti-Israelite (they are not directed against the Ten Lost Tribes) or anti-Hebrew (even if they were anti-Jewish, the Jews cannot be taken a representing entirely the Hebrews, as they are the descendents of only two of the twelve tribes of Israel)
The truth is that Jews are oppressed in Israel, and many of them abandon this state to return home! ‘Yerida’ (search in Google!) is the opposite of Aliya, and consists in an absolutely ominous event for the Zionist state!
Pan-Arabism: the real brother of Zionism
Only the Colonial powers, France and England, and their methodic and perverse work to misinform, disorient, and ultimately disfigure the average Middle Eastern populations that although Arabic speaking are purely Aramaeans, and to engulf them in a bogus-historical, culturally debased Pan-Arabism managed to ‘save’ Israel. Imposing their false trickeries son the America establishment, they had the global Zionist mass media focusing on the so-called Arab – Israeli wars.
However, if common sense and real wisdom prevailed, there would not be wars, and the inner problems of that country, namely the oppression of the Jews, would come to surface. The international community would then learn more about the anti-Jewish policies of the Zionist state, and question the purpose of its unnecessary (to the real Jews) existence. People allover the world would then castigate the oppression of Jews in this falsely named country whereby the social and professional success and rise of the Jews is permanently procrastinated and conditioned to a dictatorially imposed de-Judaisation and Zionistification process.
After all, the only real anti-Semites are the anti-Jewish Zionists.
In the picture: Was Assyrian Emperor Assurbanipal, venerated in Esdras, anti-Semitic too?