Endlessly tickled by trivia researching my family history book. Today I learned that my friend Yasmina Keynes is related to me via an ancestor Ismail Mazhar, Darwin’s first Arabic translator. Her daughter is a descendant of Darwin himself as well as his first Arabic translator

— Hussein A H Omar (@chebhocine) July 13, 2021

It brings me no joy to say this, but I think my sample size is large enough at this point: Israeli restaurants do hummus better than Arabic restaurants. I can’t exactly figure out why though. Part of it is that Israeli restaurants make hummus the centerpiece instead of a side

— Shadi Hamid (@shadihamid) July 16, 2021

Hamid is a putz. For the rest it's the radical international hereditary PMC, with no sense of self-awareness.  I don't want to have to fucking add this: Bella Freud is the daughter of Lucian Freud and the great granddaughter of Sigmund. 

Omar's review of the Said biography, and of Said, is good, but again, blind. And now that he's at UCD Omar gets to indulge a romantic, aestheticized, mix of anti-colonial nationalisms and leftism. It's all very 20th century. Focusing on Israel, US and UK makes it easy. He doesn't say much about Iran, Lebanon or Syria, where romance fails. If I choose Assad over Saudi there's nothing romantic about it.