What An Idiot
Resentment is an ugly emotion. It eats you up from the inside, transforming inadvertent slights into full-blown insults and innocous discussions into dark conspiracies. Political movements founded on resentment tend to fail miserably, and to look ridiculous in the process. Take, for example, this gem from Washington Post contributer Diana Abu-Jaber, who believes that everybody is out to get the Palestinians:
The word "philistine" means "boorish and backward"; it comes from the word for "Palestinian." It is a derogatory word that demeans an entire culture, and it is used with relative impunity in this country.
In case you were wondering, the word philistine actually refers to the 12th century BC inhabitants of ancient Philistia (which you can read about in the Bible - which, among other things, describes an era that took place before the creation of Islam). According to my American Heritage Dictionary, it first appears in English some time around 1325 AD. It gains its pejorative connotations as early as the 17th century, when it appears in literary criticism. The 17th century, of course, was also a little before "Palestinians" meant "people kept in refugee camps by cynical Arab governments in order to put pressure on Israel" - that is, before it took on its modern definition.
The word "philistine" means "boorish and backward"; it comes from the word for "Palestinian." It is a derogatory word that demeans an entire culture, and it is used with relative impunity in this country.
In case you were wondering, the word philistine actually refers to the 12th century BC inhabitants of ancient Philistia (which you can read about in the Bible - which, among other things, describes an era that took place before the creation of Islam). According to my American Heritage Dictionary, it first appears in English some time around 1325 AD. It gains its pejorative connotations as early as the 17th century, when it appears in literary criticism. The 17th century, of course, was also a little before "Palestinians" meant "people kept in refugee camps by cynical Arab governments in order to put pressure on Israel" - that is, before it took on its modern definition.
