A previous writing entitled “Anti-Me” tried to explain how many people could not be anti-Semitic if in fact we all arise from the same gene pool.  The premise being the gene pool leading to Noah was first known as Semites.  Hence, any who claims lineage through Noah (biblically everyone) must be Semite.  It follows that those who claim Abraham as their forefather must also have come from Noah.  What this ultimately means is that most peoples today of several cultures, religions, nationalities and such, whether European, Arab, Palistine, Islam, Jew or such, all claim heritage from Abraham.  So, if we all come through Abraham we all must be descendants of Semites.  So, if you are Semite, you cannot be anti-Semite, unless you are anti-yourself.

The fact is there has been, and is, a political movement to make modern “jews” more special than they are.  Anyone who seems to be contrary to modern “jews” are labeled anti-Semitic.  This is a tactic known as villainization or demonization.  This tactic is intended to draw away attention and redirect it.  So if attention is drawn towards a modern “jew” and the attention is somehow perceived as negative, then attention must be refocused on the perceived attacker, whereby putting them on the defensive.  An example of this might be if someone robs a bank, and when caught or accused of the deed, they claim their accuser is a child molester.  Now the public attention is focused on the allegation of child molestation and the robbery is push out of public concern.

Now I present a scientific genetic study on the matter.

Back in September 2001, the journal of Human Immunology, Volume 62, Issue 9, published a report entitled “The Origin of Palestinians and their Genetic Relatedness with other Mediterranean Populations”.  As soon as the publication hit the stands, librarians and other keepers/sellers of the periodical were instructed to literally rip/cut the OFFENDING report from every copy of the journal.  This made it seemingly impossible to read the report.  I was quite interested in the reports of this article and did some research to find it.

The circulated abstract of the report inspired interest.  It reads --

The usko-Mediterraneans peoples are defined as ancient and present day populations that have lived in the Mediterranean/Middle-East/Caucasus area and have spoken a Basque related language. The present day existing populations show an HLA genetic relatedness which is more or less close according to geographical distance. The Greek sample is an outlying in all genetic analyses, because Greeks have a significant genetic input from sub-Saharan Ethiopians and Blacks. This probably occurred in Pharaonic times. Present day comparisons between genes and languages show a lack of correlation: Macedonian, Palestinians, Kurds, part of Berbers, Armenians, and Turks belong to the old Mediterranean substratum, but they do not speak a language included in the old Mediterranean Dene-Caucasian group. This is due to an "elite"-imposed culture and language. Other ethnic groups speak an "old Mediterranean language" or "usko-Mediterranean language" modified by Roman Latin (i.e., Spanish, Italians), or by other not fully explained processes (Jews). Therefore, the correlation between genes and languages may exist at a macrogeographical level, but not when more precise microgeographical studies are done, as shown in the present "usko-Mediterranean" peoples model.

A keynote research paper showing that Middle Eastern Jews and Palestinians are genetically almost identical has been pulled from a leading journal.

Academics who have already received copies of Human Immunology have been urged to rip out the offending pages and throw them away.

Such a drastic act of self-censorship is unprecedented in research publishing and has created widespread disquiet, generating fears that it may involve the suppression of scientific work that questions Biblical dogma.

'I have authored several hundred scientific papers, some for Nature and Science, and this has never happened to me before,' said the article's lead author, Spanish geneticist Professor Antonio Arnaiz-Villena, of Complutense University in Madrid. 'I am stunned.'

British geneticist Sir Walter Bodmer added: 'If the journal didn't like the paper, they shouldn't have published it in the first place. Why wait until it has appeared before acting like this?'

The journal's editor, Nicole Sucio-Foca, of Columbia University, New York, claims the article provoked such a welter of complaints over its extreme political writing that she was forced to repudiate it. The article has been removed from Human Immunology's website, while letters have been written to libraries and universities throughout the world asking them to ignore or 'preferably to physically remove the relevant pages'. Arnaiz-Villena has been sacked from the journal's editorial board.

Dolly Tyan, president of the American Society of Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics, which runs the journal, told subscribers that the society is 'offended and embarrassed'.

The paper, 'The Origin of Palestinians and their Genetic Relatedness with other Mediterranean Populations', involved studying genetic variations in immune system genes among people in the Middle East.

In common with earlier studies, the team found no data to support the idea that Jewish people were genetically distinct from other people in the region. In doing so, the team's research challenges claims that Jews are a special, chosen people and that Judaism can only be inherited.

Jews and Palestinians in the Middle East share a very similar gene pool and must be considered closely related and not genetically separate, the authors state. Rivalry between the two races is therefore based 'in cultural and religious, but not in genetic differences', they conclude.

But the journal, having accepted the paper earlier this year, now claims the article was politically biased and was written using 'inappropriate' remarks about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Its editor told the journal Nature last week that she was threatened by mass resignations from members if she did not retract the article.

Arnaiz-Villena says he has not seen a single one of the accusations made against him, despite being promised the opportunity to look at the letters sent to the journal.

He accepts he used terms in the article that laid him open to criticism. There is one reference to Jewish 'colonists' living in the Gaza strip, and another that refers to Palestinian people living in 'concentration' camps.

'Perhaps I should have used the words settlers instead of colonists, but really, what is the difference?' he said.

'And clearly, I should have said refugee, not concentration, camps, but given that I was referring to settlements outside of Israel - in Syria and Lebanon - that scarcely makes me anti-Jewish. References to the history of the region, the ones that are supposed to be politically offensive, were taken from the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and other text books.'

In the wake of the journal's actions, and claims of mass protests about the article, several scientists have now written to the society to support Arnaiz-Villena and to protest about their heavy-handedness.

One of them said: 'If Arnaiz-Villena had found evidence that Jewish people were genetically very special, instead of ordinary, you can be sure no one would have objected to the phrases he used in his article. This is a very sad business.'

By Robin McKie, science editor Sunday November 25, 2001 The Observer

“It is just a scientific paper based on genetics and computer statistics that has historical and anthropological statements and was included in the special issue "Anthropology and genetic markers" of Human Immunology. It was written in March-April 2001.

Some wording may be wrong ("concentration camps" could be "refugee camps" and the meaning is not altered within the context). The paper authors, the reviewers and the editors were not English-speaking born. Some phrases taken out of the context may be transformed in an altogether different meaning. The historical statements of the introduction and discussion are fully referenced and taken from recognised authors.

I am only a scientist who never belong to a political party or has a political view of genetic anthropology. I wrote more than 250 papers in Immunogenetics, Immunology, and bird taxonomy. Also, 40 of them are on genetic anthropology.

We are interested in Caucasian and Mediterranean genetic anthropology. We wrote a similar paper about Jews five years ago ("HLA DR and DQ polymorphism in Ashkenazi and non-Ashkenazi Jews: comparison with other Mediterraneans", Tissue Antigens 1996; 47: 63-71) and was praised and I was invited to give a conference about it in Jerusalem. You can see my curriculum vitae in http://chopo.pntic.mec.es/biolmol.

I find surprising and unwise the withdrawal of the paper.

Thank you for your interest,”

It is quite technical, but the DISCUSSION section reads as follows –

DISCUSSION
Palestinians and Jews
The genetic identity of Ashkenazi and non-Ashkenazi Jews who now lives in Israel has already been reported [8]. Babylonian and Roman-induced Diaspora, drove Jews to many parts of Europe, Africa and Asia, which occurred in 587 BC and 70 AD, respectively. Jews started to come back to Palestine during the 19th and 20th centuries [8]. However, religion and close communities have kept Jews relatively isolated from the inhabitants of the countries that hosted them during this long period of time. Jews wrote the Bible, a religious and historical book that is a continuous source of historical Middle East facts, but that only tells the Jewish view [6]. It is now necessary to rely on other sources, such as archaeology, linguistics, etc, to establish a more objective history of Middle East and particularly ancient Canaan [6,9].

Palestinians appeared in the Bible as coming from Crete or its empire [7]. The present day concept based in archaeology is that most original Palestinians were already in Canaan and some tribes were agglutinated by Egyptian garrisons, left to their own fate in Canaan [6]; but the input of one “elite” coming from Crete may not be discarded. Also, the bulk of Jewish people probably came from ancient autochthonous Canaanites [6]; this is compatible with an input of foreign leaders and their groups (Abraham, Moses) as described in the Bible [7].

Both Jews and Palestinians share a very similar HLA genetic pool (Table 3, Figures 4, 5 and 6) that support a common ancient Canaanite origin. Therefore, the origin of the long-lasting Jewish-Palestinian hostility is the fight for land in ancient times. Religious and cultural have enhanced the conflict in the last centuries, together with the massive European, American, Asian and African Jews settlements in the area, which has also caused a massive displacement of Palestinians and wars. A difficult problem has now been created between two communities that are close genetic relatives.

Regarding Palestinian population identity, it is clear that they spoke a language different to Arab or Jewish in ancient times and only a few words have been preserved. Palestinians named their leaders or princes as “seren” (Basque, Zar = old man, en = the most important) [7]. The study of this and other words suggests that they spoke a Dene-Caucasian language like other Mediterranean populations [30,31]. The typical Philistine crest-hut already appeared in the Cretan Phaistos Disk (1600 BC) and in the Ramses III-Medinet Habu temple, Egypt (1200 BC, [5]).

The Eurocentric confusion “Arab = Muslim” has also lowered the Palestinian identity by identifying the country were Mohammed was born (Saudi Arabia) with the Muslim religion; it also has artificially divided peoples both coming from ancient Canaanites (Jews and Palestinians).

Palestinians and Other Middle East and European People
Palestinians are close to Egyptians, Lebanese, Iranians, Cretans, Macedonians and Sardinians, and also to Algerians, Spaniards, French, Italians and Basques (Table 3, Figures 4, 5, and 6). DRB1 genetic distances (Table 1) are probably the most reliable ones due to the higher polymorphism detected in this locus. The western and eastern Mediteranean populations are intermingled in this case; it supports the long-standing prehistoric and historic circum-Mediteranean gene flow [32]. Jews, Cretans, Egyptians, Iranians, Turks and Armenians are probably the closest relatives to Palestinians and this favors the hypothesis that most of the HLA Palestinian genetic background comes from the Middle East (ancient Canaan, [6]), ancient stock, i.e.: ancient Canaanites. Canaan had received gene and cultural flow from Mesopotamia, Anatolia and Egypt [6].

Palestinians, Cretans and Greeks
The Biblical origin for Palestinians (Crete) cannot be disregarded [7] because an “elite” group could have joined to Canaanite proto-Palestinian tribes and made themselves noticeable; this is supported by the ancient Palestinians high war technology and the many confrontations with the Jews after 1500 BC [6,7].

It is very unlikely that a massive immigration of Palestinians came from Crete [6]. Egyptian garrisons in Canaan abandoned to their fate by the Egyptian Kingdom weakness may have catalyzed the union of some Canaanite tribes to become the historical Palestinians, according to Amelie Kuhrt [6].

By 1500-1200 BC the Greek presence was very scarce in Canaan, according to archaeologic records [6]. In fact, the “Mycaenian” Greeks attacked Crete by 1450 BC after rendering tributes to Cretans by a relatively long period. The Cretan Aegean Sea empire was destroyed and continued by the Mycaenians. Greeks are found to have a substantial HLA gene flow from sub-Saharan Ethiopian and Black people [3,20]. This is why Greeks are Mediterranean outliers in all kind of analyses [19-21,28]. This African genetic and cultural input was documented by Herodotus [33] who states that the daughters of Danaus (who were black) came from Egypt in great numbers to settle in Greece. Also, ancient Greeks believed that their religion and culture came from Egypt [33]. An explanation of the Egypt-to-Greece migration may be that a densely populated Sahara (before 5000 BC) may have contained an admixture of Negroid and Caucasoid populations, and some of the Negroid populations may have migrated by chance or unknown causes towards present day Greece [19,34-36].

This could have occurred when hyperarid Saharan condition become established and large-scale migration occurred in all directions out from the desert. In this case, the most ancient Greek Pelasgian substratum would come from a Negroid stock. A more likely explanation is that at an undetermined time during Egyptian pharaonic times a Black dynasty with their followers were expelled and went towards Greece where they settled [20, 30].

Once an African input to the ancient Greek genetic pool is established, it remains to be determined what the cultural importance of this input is for constructing the classical Hellenistic culture. The reason why a sub- Saharan admixture is not seen in Crete is unclear but may be related to the influential and strong Minoan empire, which hindered foreigners establishment if the African invasion occurred in Minoan times [19, 20].”

There is considerable debate regarding who, today, inhabits the Middle East lands.  The official party line of those modern “jews” claim

"STRICTLY SPEAKING IT IS INCORRECT TO CALL AN ANCIENT ISRAELITE A 'JEW' OR TO CALL A CONTEMPORARY JEW AN ISREALITE OR A HEBREW." (1980 Jewish Almanac, p. 3) (Under the heading of "A brief History of the Terms for Jew")

If this is accurate, then the general populace of the modern “jew” knows they are not Semite.  Hence, if you declare something contrary to a modern “jew”, you cannot be anti-Semitic.

(article in HTML and PDF formats, available for a limited time at http://scriptural.home.att.net/Genes_in_Palestinians/Genes_in_Palestinians.html)
 

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