ABSTRACT
The Arabic language links 250 million people inhabiting a belt that runs from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean. Most Arabs are Muslims (though there are large Christian communities in Egypt and Lebanon), and Mecca, Islam’s holiest place, is in Arabia; politicians and rulers seeking pan-Arab support often exploit Islamic feeling. But when a sense of Arab unity has been strong it has been a reaction against alien rule – first by Turkey and then by west Europeans (27) – and, more recently, against the creation of the Jewish state of Israel near the centre of the Arab world. Reaction to the latter included persecution of the region’s large Jewish communities, and Arabic-speaking refugees from North Africa, Iraq, Syria and Yemen formed a large part of Israel’s population by 1960.
