Arab Semite

MOSCOW (AFP) - Russian archaeologists said Wednesday they had found the long-lost capital of the Khazar kingdom in southern Russia, a breakthrough for research on the ancient Jewish state. "This is a hugely important discovery," expedition organiser Dmitry Vasilyev told AFP by telephone from Astrakhan State University after returning from excavations near the village of Samosdelka, just north of the Caspian Sea . "We can now shed light on one of the most intriguing mysteries of that period -- how the Khazars actually lived. We know very little about the Khazars -- about their traditions, their funerary rites, their culture," he said. The city was the capital of the Khazars, a semi-nomadic Turkic peoples who adopted Judaism as a state religion, from between the 8th and the 10th centuries, when it was captured and sacked by the rulers of ancient Russia.

"In recent years some galleries have refused altogether to accept works in which there are images that evoke Arabs," Halabi says. "The feeling is that people do not want to talk about the conflict, about politics. As though what they want is to curl up in some quiet, comfortable, pretty bubble. Curators are fed up with Palestinians , with the [separation] fence, with the intifada. I think Israeli art is increasingly focused on the aesthetic. The galleries nod to the rich, the bankers, and look for pretty art that the buyers can hang at home."

Israel Versus Africa.