I think you're right, Will, The context is very very important here, and Arab-Americans must tread carefully when it comes to 9/11, terrorism, etc. Yes, the Arab=terrorist equation is wrong, but it's there, so every action must be careful as to not feed into it. It may be the case that people in Dearborn, being aware of the risk of being automatically implicated in an act of terrorism, are the ones who are ultra-sensitive, too, not only xenophobic right-wing fools.

For that reason, I agree with you, Noor, only that the kids in Dearborn didn't say something like "Two down, plenty of towers more to go" whereas the IDF tees explicitly expressed pride in the killing. Also, Noor, what was your point in the third paragraph about political correctness and communism and Zionism. How exactly is PC a communist tool? You sounded there for a minute like Rush Limbaugh. Don't you think that expressing hatred toward a group is an indirect licence to hurt that group? And how exactly is Communism a Zionist disease? That stuff made no sense at all.

I've read the book in Hebrew and agree that it's very interesting. While many of the studies Sand used to propel his thesis are not new, presenting them in a new light was very illuminating. However, some pieces of evidence and studies Sand cites have been refuted or have need not been accepted by the research community, or are skewed. For example, Sand claims that "the Ashkenazi Jews are more genetically similar to the Welsh than to the Arabs." The original research, available at the link below, says that "Two Ashkenazi Jews in our sample were found to share the most common haplotype of the Welsh, a frequent and widespread haplotype in northern Europe." So, a sample of two people. Not very significant. But then Sand doesn't mention other findings in this study, probably because they don't support his thesis, that other chromosomes, like EU9, EU10, Hg26 are most commonly found among... Palestinian Arabs and Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews. Oops, maybe after all we (Jews and Arabs) *are* cousins. Not too bore you with too many details, this is just one example for some methodological problems Sand's study has, and so take what you read there with a grain of salt. That said, it's a fascinating book. I just hope the superficial, automatic and brainless troopers that incite hate and maintain the conflict don't use it to claim that "here, this is why you Jews should get the hell out of here, because it's not your land and has never been." (Or, on the Israeli side, the perennial "this is an anti-Semitic book" or something bogus like this.) Because this is not going to help us solve this conflict.

A link to the genetic study: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/tcga/tcgapdf/Nebel-HG-00-IPA...