It seems to me I heard somewhere that Kevin Wayne Williams wrote in
article <10k4luogju5ngca@news.supernews.com>:

>Marc Adler wrote:

>> Kevin Gowen wrote:

>>>I've always thought of "Middle East" as a geographic descriptor rather 
>>>than a demographic one.

>> I bet a whole lot of Israelis would be surprised to find out they're
>> Middle Easterners in Kevin Gowen's Big Book of What's What.

>Are you joshing? When people talk about trouble in the Middle East, you 
>think that Israel *isn't* a part of what they are talking about?

I'd have put Israel, Turkey, Armenia, Syria, Lebanon, and the
Palestinian areas more in the Near East, myself, but East IS East and
West is European, so . . . .  Orientals all, from the viewpoint of the
Greeks and Romans who named 'em.  "Lands of the Rising Sun" indeed!
-- 
Don
Old age is when you start saying "I wish I knew now what I knew then."