The Guardian is running an interesting story today on what appears to be a fairly significant stance in the academic world against Israeli academics who support the atrocities of the Israeli government. Polly Curtis writes

Nearly 300 academics from around the world have published an open letter calling for leaders of Israeli universities to lay their political cards on the table and reveal whether they support the government's policies on the border conflict. One Israeli academic said the move echoed the days of "McCarthyism" in America. The letter, which is addressed to Professor Menachem Magidor, president of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and "members of Israel's forum to combat the academic boycott", says that Palestinian universities are being severely compromised. "Harassment, arrests, random shootings and assaults" are carried out regularly by Israeli troops on Palestinian campuses, it claims.

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Samuel Huntington, the Harvard academic and author of the much popularised essay 'The Clash of Civilisations' in which he identified Islam, with its population bulge and transnational appeal, as the most likely source of this conflict has now turned on the Hispanic community in his recent book, Who Are We? The Challenges to America's National Identity. Dan Glaister of the Sydney Morning Herald writes:

It is clear who the "we" of the title are: Americans, principally white Americans, the dominant majority, glorying in Old Glory, basking in the heritage of the Founding Fathers and the superiority of white, Protestant culture. "But Huntington has a shock for them: the Latinos are coming. In fact, the Latinos are already in the US, 'washing your dishes, looking after your children' and denuding a once proud, unified country of everything that held it together. 'Will the US remain a country with a single national language and a core Anglo-Protestant culture?' he asks in an essay, The Hispanic Challenge, published in the journal Foreign Policy. 'By ignoring this question, Americans acquiesce to their eventual transformation into two peoples with two cultures and two languages.' Welcome to Amexica.

In today's The Miami Herald Carlos Fuente hits back with the following:

To us Mexicans, Spaniards and Hispanic Americans, our language is a reason for pride and unity. The fact is that 500 million men and women throughout the world speak it. But it is not a factor of fear or threat. While Huntington fears a Hispanic balkanization and alleges that Latin America has minimal aptitude for democratic government and economic development, we have coexisted without nationalistic separatism since the dawn of independence.Perhaps we're united by what Huntington sees as a source of disunity: the multiculturalism of the Castilian tongue. We Hispanic Americans are Indo-Europeans and Afro-Americans, as well as Spanish-speakers. And we descend from a nation, Spain, that would be incomprehensible were it not for its racial and linguistic multiplicity, going back to the Celts, the Iberians, the Greeks, the Phoenicians, the Romans, the Arabs, the Jews and the Goths. We speak a tongue with Celt-Iberian roots that later became Latin, was enriched with a large portion of Arab words and was fixed by the Jews in the 13th century court of Alfonso the Wise.

Rediscovering the Language Jesus Spoke - Christian History: Mel Gibson's recent film 'The Passion of the Christ' has triggered renewed interest in Aramaic, the language supposedly spoken by Jesus. According to The Passion website Aramaic was the dominant Semitic language of Jesus' time. Emerging around 1000 B.C. in several Aramean kingdoms (biblical Damascus, for example), Aramaic spread through the conquests of the Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian empires to encompass the entire Middle East, stretching from Egypt to Pakistan. What worries me though is how Arabic is being set up as the rival 'other'. Instead of exploring the obviously striking similarities between Arabic and Aramaic, Arabic and the rise of Islam are being blamed for the decline in Aramaic in the Middle East. Steven Gertz of ChristianityToday writes:

"So why do we hear so little about Aramaic today? To put it simply, the rise of Islam and the spread of Arabic radically changed the face of the Middle East. By the ninth century, Aramaic had virtually disappeared in the Holy Land. In Syria and Persia, where Aramaic was stronger to begin with, Christians continued to speak the language in monasteries and churches even as Arabic became the "language of the street." But Islamic persecution, especially in the twentieth century, has significantly reduced the number of Christians speaking Aramaic in Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey. The language has all but disappeared in the land of its birth."

The real question is if Aramaic is putative language of Jesus why has the Catholic church for the past 2000 years been conducting liturgical services in Latin (and more recently Italian)?

Shakespeare's Globe Investigates the Bard's Muslim Links: "Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London is marking the 400th anniversary of Othello with a series of lectures, staged readings and courses investigating Elizabethan and Jacobean attitudes to Islam. In a press statement, Shiban Akbar from the Muslim Council of Great Britain said, "This is an ideal opportunity to explore the historic relationship between Shakespeare's England and the world of Islam."

McDonald's Confirms 'No Arabic' policy at its restaurants in Israel Of all places a new linguistic wall has emerged at McDonald's chain of restaurants in Israel....

McDonald's Corporation today confirmed that it has a policy banning its employees from speaking Arabic in its restaurants in Israel, despite the fact that Palestinian citizens of Israel form 20% of its workforce, and Arabic is one of the two official languages of Israel. The Corporation denied, however, that Abeer Zinaty, a former "Excellent Worker 2003 -- McDonald's Israel," was fired because she spoke Arabic on the job.

Saudi clerics bash US funded Arabic television channel: "Al Hurra is the latest US government effort to reach out to Arabs. The others include the Arabic-language Radio Sawa, also overseen by the Broadcasting Board of Governors that runs Al Hurra, and "Hi," a slick Arabic-English cultural and lifestyle magazine for youth."

Al-Ahram Weekly: No Arabic at McDonald's Israel: "A photograph of Abeer Zinaty shows the 20- year-old student from the mixed Arab and Jewish city of Ramle in central Israel wearing a T- shirt branded with the logo 'Excellent Worker 2003 -- McDonald's Israel'. Less than a year later she is unemployed, fired by the world's most famous fast food company. Her crime, according to the branch manager, is that she was caught speaking Arabic to another Arab employee."

Kurdish in the new Iraq constitution: "The charter has a 13-article bill of rights, including protections for free speech, religious expression, assembly and due process. It enshrines Islam as the state religion, but not the sole basis for law. The Kurdish language becomes an official language alongside Arabic. "

KoreaTimes: "I know a Canadian who teaches English very skillfully and sincerely on an Internet site, where students can speak with native speakers. Some students and the teacher talked about cultural difference between the East and the West, which later led to discussion about racism. Since I know that he taught English in Taiwan, I asked him if he had been discriminated against there. He said, ``On the contrary, I was looked up to because I am a white person.'' And he added, ``It is very, very difficult for a black person to be an English instructor.'' In general, people of Asian countries with a comparatively high standard of living tend to have an inferiority complex about people of European origin whereas they tend to have a superiority complex about people of African origin and developing Asian countries."