>>Ishmael was half Arab. Abraham was his father, Hagar his mother. One Jew, one Arab. He is important in both traditions so it makes the Arab/Israeli conflict even sadder.
In the story, Hagar was an Egyptian slave, not an Arab per se. However, the parallelism of Isaac and Ishmael, both of whom received God's blessing in Genesis, is seen as an ethnographic myth.
What makes the Arab/Israeli conflict sadder is that -- every single day -- little kids are being taught the glory of suicide jihad for Allah. There's your brewing nightmare of the future ... and no one bothers to shut it down.
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