Palestine, a Land virtually laid waste with little population

EretzYisroel.org -- excerpt from "From Time Immemorial" ^ | 1984 | Joan Peters

[Sabertooth]

Palestine, a Land virtually laid waste with little population  A review of Palestine, before the era of prosperity began with the late nineteenth-century renewal of Jewish land settlement, shows that periodically Palestine was virtually laid waste, and its population suffered acute decline. An enormous swell of Arab population could only have resulted from immigration and in-migration (from Jordan and the West Bank to the coastal area). It is helpful to see the land that was virtually emptied-and why. Dio Cassius, writing at the time, described the ruin of the land beginning with the destruction of Judah: Of their forts the fifty strongest were razed to the ground. Nine hundred and eighty-five of their best-known villages were destroyed.... Thus the whole of Judea became desert, as indeed had been foretold to the Jews before the war. For the tomb of Solomon, whom these folk celebrate in their sacred rites, fell of its own accord into fragments, and wolves and hyenas, many in number, roamed howling through their cities.1 One historian after another has reported the same findings. In the twelve and a half centuries between the Arab conquest in the seventh century and the beginnings of the Jewish return in the 1880's, Palestine was laid waste. Its ancient canal and irrigation systems were destroyed and the wondrous fertility of which the Bible spoke vanished into desert and desolation... Under the Ottoman empire of the Turks, the policy of disfoliation continued; the hillsides were denuded of trees and the valleys robbed of their topsoil.2 In 1590 a "simple English visitor" to Jerusalem wrote, "Nothing there is to bescene but a little of the old walls, which is yet Remayning and all the rest is grasse, mosse and Weedes much like to a piece of Rank or moist Grounde."3 "While Tiberias was being resettled by Jews from Papal states, whose migration was approved by a papal Bull, Nazareth was continuing its decline." A Franciscan pilgrim translated a Latin Manuscript that reported that " 'A house of robbers, murderers, the inhabitants are Saracens.... It is a lamentable thing to see thus such a town. We saw nothing more stony, full of thorns and desert.'"4  A hundred years afterward, Nazareth was, in 1697, "an inconsiderable village.... Acre a few poor cottages ... nothing here but a vast and spacious ruin." Nablus consisted of two streets with many people, and Jericho was a "poor nasty village."5 In the mid-1700s, British archaeologist Thomas Shaw wrote that the land in Palestine was "lacking in people to till its fertile soil."6 An eighteenth-century French author and historian, Count Constantine Frangois Volney, wrote of Palestine as the "ruined" and "desolate" land. In "Greater Syria," which included Palestine, Many parts ... lost almost all their peasantry. In others.... the recession was great but not so total.7 Count Volney reported that, "In consequence of such wretched government, the greater part of the Pachilics [Provinces] in the empire are impoverished and laid waste." Using one province as an example, Volney reported that ... upwards of three thousand two hundred villages were reckoned; but, at present, the collector can scarcely find four hundred. Such of our merchants as have resided there twenty years have themselves seen the greater part of the environs ... become depopulated. The traveller meets with nothing but houses in ruins, cisterns rendered useless, and fields abandoned. Those who cultivated them have fled... 8 ... And can we hope long to carry on an advantageous commerce with a country which is precipitately hastening to ruin? 9 Another writer, describing "Syria" (and Palestine) some sixty years later in 1843, stated that, in Volney's day, "the land had not fully reached its last prophetic degree of desolation and depopulation." 10 From place to place the reporters varied, but not the reports: J. S. Buckingham described his visit of 1816 to Jaffa, which "has all the appearances of a poor village, and every part of it that we saw was of corresponding meanness."11 Buckingham described Ramle, "where, as throughout the greater part of Palestine, the ruined portion seemed more extensive than that which was inhabited."12 After a visit in 1817-1818, travelers reported that there was not "a single boat of any description on the lake [Tiberias]."13 In a German encyclopedia published in 1827, Palestine was depicted as "desolate and roamed through by Arab bands of robbers."14 Throughout the nineteenth century the abandonment and dismal state of the terrain was lamented. In 1840 an observer, who was traveling through, wrote of his admiration for the Syrian "fine spirited race of men" whose "population is on the decline."15 While scorning the idea of Jewish colonization, the writer observed that the once populous area between Hebron and Bethlehem was "now abandoned and desolate" with "dilapidated towns."16 Jerusalem consisted of "a large number of houses ... in a dilapidated and ruinous state," and "the masses really seem to be without any regular employment." The "masses" of Jerusalem were estimated at less than 15,000 inhabitants, of whom more than half the population were Jews.17 The British Consul in Palestine reported in 1857 that The country is in a considerable degree empty of inhabitants and therefore its greatest need is that of a body of population.... 18 In the 1860s, it was reported that "depopulation is even now advancing."19 At the same time, H. B. Tristram noted in his journal that The north and south [of the Sharon plain] land is going out of cultivation and whole villages are rapidly disappearing from the face of the earth. Since the year 1838, no less than 20 villages there have been thus erased from the map [by the Bedouin] and the stationary population extirpated. 20 Mark Twain, in his inimitable fashion, expressed scom for what he called the "romantic" and "prejudiced" accounts of Palestine after he visited the Holy Land in 1867.21 In one location after another, Twain registered gloom at his findings. Stirring scenes ... occur in the valley [Jezreel] no more. There is not a solitary village throughout its whole extent-not for thirty miles in either direction. There are two or three small clusters of Bedouin tents, but not a single permanent habitation. One may ride ten miles hereabouts and not see ten human beings. 22 In fact, according to Twain, even the Bedouin raiders who attacked "so fiercely" had been imported: "provided for the occasion ... shipped from Jerusalem," by the Arabs who guarded each group of pilgrims. They met together in full view of the pilgrims, after the battle, and took lunch, divided the baksheesh extorted in the season of danger and then accompanied the cavalcade home to the city! The nuisance of an Arab guard is one which is created by the sheikhs and the Bedouins together, for mutual profit... 23 To find ". . . the sort of solitude to make one dreary," one must, Twain wrote dramatically, Come to Galilee for that... these unpeopled deserts, these rusty mounds of barrenness, that never, never do shake the glare from their harsh outlines, and fade and faint into vague perspective; that melancholy ruin of Capernaum: this stupid village of Tiberias, slumbering under its six funereal palms.... We reached Tabor safely .... We never saw a human being on the whole route. 24 Nazareth is forlorn .... Jericho the accursed lies a moldering ruin today, even as Joshua's miracle left it more than three thousand years ago: Bethlehem and Bethany, in their poverty and their humiliation, have nothing about them now to remind one that they once knew the high honor of the Savior's presence; the hallowed spot where the shepherds watched their flocks by night, and where the angels sang, "Peace on earth, good will to men," is untenanted by any living creature... Bethsaida and Chorzin have vanished from the earth, and the "desert places" round about them, where thousands of men once listened to the Savior's voice and ate the miraculous bread, sleep in the hush of a solitude that is inhabited only by birds of prey and skulking foxes.25 "Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes.... desolate and unlovely.. . Twain wrote with remone. it is dreamland." 26 Jaffa, a French traveler wrote late in the nineteenth century, was still a ruin27. Haifa, to the north, had 6,000 souls and "nothing remarkable about it," another Frenchman, the author of France's foremost late-nineteenth-century Holy Land guidebook, commented. Haifa "can be crossed in five minutes" on the way to the city of Acre, he judged; that magnificent port was commercially idle. 28 Many writers, such as the Reverend Samuel Manning, mourned the atrophy of the coastal plain, the Sharon Plain, "the exquisite fertility and beauty of which made it to the Hebrew mind a symbol of prosperity." But where were the inhabitants? This fertile plain, which might support an immense population, is almost a solitude.... Day by day we were to learn afresh the lesson now forced upon us, that the denunciations of ancient prophecy have been fulfilled to the very letter -- "the land is left void and desolate and without inhabitants." 29 Report followed depressing report, as the economist-historian Professor Fred Gottheil pointed out: "a desolate country"; 30 "wretched desolation and neglect";31 "almost abandoned now"32 "unoccupied";33  "uninhabited";34  "thinly populated."35 In a book called Heth and Moab, Colonel C. R. Conder pronounced the Palestine of the 1880s "a ruined land." According to Conder, so far as the Arab race is concerned, it appears to be decreasing rather than otherwise.36 Conder had also visited Palestine earlier, in 1872, and he commented on the continuing population decline within the nine or ten-year interim between his visits: The Peasantry who are the backbone of the population, have     diminished most sadly in numbers and wealth.37 Pierre Loti, the noted French writer, wrote in 1895 of his visit to the land: "I traveled through sad Galilee in the spring, and I found it silent. . . ." In the vicinity of the Biblical Mount Gilboa, "As elsewhere, as everywhere in Palestine, city and palaces have returned to the dust; This melancholy of abandonment, weighs on all the Holy Land." 38 David Landes summarized the causes of the shriveling number of inhabitants: As a result of centuries of Turkish neglect and misrule, following on the earlier ravages of successive conquerors, the land had been given over to sand, marsh, the anopheles mosquito, clan feuds, and Bedouin marauders. A population of several millions had shrunk to less than one tenth that number-perhaps a quarter of a million around 1800, and 300,000 at mid-century.39 Palestine had indeed become "sackcloth and ashes." 1. Dio Cassius, History of the Romans, lxix, 12-14, cited by de Haas, History, pp. 55-56. De Haas adds: "In the third of the Schweich Lectures of 1922 the late Israel Abrahams ('Campains in Palestine from Alexander the Great' London, 1927) belittles Dio, Cassius' record of this war, and repeats the suggestion that the Jews were influenced by Hadrian 'consent to the rebuilding of the Temple.' This rebuilding myth, depending upon the alleged visit of Hadrian to Palestine on the death of Trajan, has been fully dealt with by Henderson in his biography of Hadrian. All the dimensions of the war, its gravity, and its duration, are fully attested by the inscriptions relating to the legions and by the honors distributed at the end of the campaign. The archeological records, carefully analyzed, support Dio Cassius and not his would-be corrector. 2. Carl Hermann Voss, "The Palestine Problem Today, Israel and Its Neighbors" (Boston, 1953), p. 13.  3. Gunner Edward Webbe, Palestine Exploration Fund, Quarterly Statement, p. 86, cited in de Haas, History, p. 338. 4. De Haas, History, p. 337, citing Palestine Exploration Fund, Quarterly Statement, 1925, p. 197, translation of Latin manuscnpt by a Franciscan pilgrim. 5. Henry Maundrell, The Journal of Henry Maundrellfrom Aleppo to Jerusalem, 1697, Bohn's edition (London, 1848), respectively pp. 477, 428, 450. 6. Thomas Shaw, Travels and Observations Relating to Several Parts of Barbary and the Levant (London, 1767), p. 331ff. De Haas notes: "Hasselquist, the Swedish botanist, munching some roasted ears of' green wheat which a shepherd generously shared with him, in the plain of Acre, reflected that the white bread of his northern homeland and the roasted wheat ears symbolized the difference between the two civilizations' Had he known that Mukaddasi boasted in the tenth century of the excellence Of Palestine's white bread he might have been still more impressed by the low estate to which the country had fallen in seven hundred years.... Hasselquist joined a party of four thousand pilgrims who went to Jericho under an escort of three hundred soldiers. He estimated that four thousand Christians, mostly of the eastern rites, entered Jaffa each year, and as many Jews. The Armenian Convent in Jerusalem alone could accommodate a thousand persons. The botanist viewed the pilgrim tolls as the best resource of an uncultivated and uninhabited country. . ~ . Ramleh was a ruin." (Emphasis added.) De Haas, History, pp. 349, 358, 360, citing Frederich Hasselquist, Reise nach Palastina, etc., 1749-1752, pp. 139, 145-146, 190. 7. Norman Lewis, "The Frontier of Settlement in Syria, 1800-19 50," in Charles Issawi, ed., The Economic History of the Middle East (Chicago, 1966), p. 260. 8. Count Constantine F. Volney, Travels Through Syria and Egypt in the Years 1783, 1784, 1785 (London, 1788), Vol. 2, p. 147. According to Volney, ". . . we with difficulty recognize Jerusalem.... remote from every road, it seems neither to have been calculated for a considerable mart of commerce, nor the centre of a great consumption.... [the population] is supposed to amount to twelve to fourteen thousand.... The second place deserving notice, is Bait-el-labm, or Bethlehem, ... The soil is the best in all these districts ... but as is the case everywhere else, cultivation is wanting. They reckon about six hundred men in this village capable Of bearing arms.... The third and last place of note is Habroun, or Hebron, the most powerful village in all this quarter, and able to arm eight or nine hundred men . . ." (pp. 303-325). 9. Volney, Travels, Vol. 2, p. 431. 10. A. Keith, The Land of Israel (Edinburgh, 1843), p. 465. "The population (viz., of the whole of Syria), rated by Volney at two million and a half, is now estimated at half that amount." 11. J.S. Buckingham, Travels in Palestine (London, 1821), p. 146.  12. Ibid., p. 162. 13. James Mangles and the Honorable C.L. Irby, Travels in Egypt and Nubia (London, 1823), p. 295. 14. Brockhaus, Alig. deutsch Real-Encyklopaedie, 7th ed. (Leipzig, 1827), Vol. VIII, p. 206. 15. S. Olin, Travels in Egypt, Arabia Petraea and the Holy Land (New York, 1843), Vol. 2, pp. 438-439. 16. Ibid., pp. 77-78. 17. No. 238, "Report of the Commerce of Jerusalem During the Year 1863," F.O. 195/808, May 1864. ". . . The population of the City of Jerusalem is computed at 15,000, of whom about 4,500 Moslem, 8,000 Jews, and the rest Christians of various denominations. . ." From A.H. Hyamson, ed., The British Consulate in Jerusalem, 2 vols. (London, 1939-1941), Vol. 2, p. 331. 18. James Finn to the Earl of Clarendon, Jerusalem, September 15, 1857, F.O. 78/1294 (Pol. No. 36). Finn wrote further that "The result of my observations is, that we have here Jews, who have been to the United States, but have returned to their Holy Land -Jews of Jerusalem do go to Australia and instead of remaining there, do return hither, even without the allurements of agriculture and its concomitants." Ibid., 1, pp. 249-52. 19. J.B. Forsyth, A Few Months in the East (Quebec, 1861), p. 188.  20. H.B. Tristram, The Land of1sraek A Journal of Travels in Palestine (London, 1865), p. 490. 21. Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad, pp. 349, 366, 367.  22. Ibid., p. 349. 23. Ibid., p. 429. 24. Ibid., p. 366, 375. 25. Ibid., pp. 441-442. 26. Ibid. 27. Jules Hoche, Les Pays des croisades (Paris, n.d.), p. 10, cited by David Landes, "Palestine Before the Zionists," Commentary, Feb., 1976, p. 49.  28. Brother Lievin de Hamme, Guide indicateur, Vol. Ill, pp. 163, 190. 29. The Reverend Samuel Manning, Those Holy Fields (London, 1874), pp. 14-17. W.M. Thomson reiterated the Reverend Manning's observations: "How melancholy is this utter desolation! Not a house, not a trace of inhabitants, not even shepherds, seen everywhere else, appear to relieve the dull monotony.... Isaiah says that Sharon shall be wilderness, and the prediction has become a sad and impressive reality." Thomson, The Land and the Book (London: T. Nelsons & Sons, 1866), p. 506ff. 30. W.C. Prime, Tent Life in the Holy Land (New York, 1857), p. 240, cited by Fred Gottheil, "The Population of Palestine, Circa 1875," Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 15, no. 3, October 1979. 31. S.C. Bartlett, From Egypt to Palestine (New York, 1879), p. 409, cited in ibid. 32. Ibid., p. 410. 33. W. Allen, The Dead Sea: A New Route to India (London, 1855), p. 113, cited in ibid. 62), p. 466, 34. W.M. Thomson, The Land and the Book (New York: Harper Bros., 18 cited in ibid. 35. E.L. Wilson, In Scripture Lands (New York, n.d.), p. 316, cited in ibid. 36. Colonel C.R. Conder, Heth and Moab (London, 1883), pp. 380, 376. 37. ibid., p. 366. 38. Pierre Loti, La Galilee (Paris, 1895), pp. 37-41, 69, 85-86, 69, cited by David Landes, "Palestine Before the Zionists," Commentary, February 1976, pp. 48-49. 39. Landes, "Palestine," p. 49. This page was produced by Joseph E. Katz Middle Eastern Political and Religious History Analyst  Brooklyn, New York  E-mail to a friend Source: "From Time Immemorial" by Joan Peters, 1984, a national Portions Copyright © 1984 Joan Peters, Portions Copyright © 2001 Joseph Katz All Rights Reserved

[weikel]

Hey Im on your side Im exposing goblins for the liberal/socialist/communist( in my mind their is no diffrence) that he is.

[Light Speed]

Really ..really good info...take a bow..your skills shine brightly today!

Faisal of Saudi Arabia was the prime mover in a seperate state for the Jews...even though under Balfour..Jews could immigrate anywhere in "Transjordan"..the Ruler of Mecca saw that the Muslim people should remain seperate from the Jews.

Sure He signed off on a homeland for the Jews...in his mind..they were not getting much at all...in fact..the reality was one of continued hardship...this reality pleased them...in that the Jews must remain seperate..and they should continue to have ..a hard going of it!

There are many prophetic references to what the conditions of the land would be when the Jews returned..and the narrative of success in transforming it under divine guidance.

Sons of Ishmael have never been anything more than violent men...robbers and cutthroats.

BAKHSHEESH..their code of business..bribery..blackmail and payoff.

When I see Camels (Gamel)..they always have voluminous amounts of white foam issuing from their mouths...clearly a sign of Rabies and madness..incurred from hanging with Ishmaeli for several thousands of years!

To this day..sons of Ishmael remain the same...Liers..theives and murders..it has nothing to do with overexposure to the hot mid-east sun..but everything to do with the spirit of SHIETUN...there lord and master!

[Salem]

Interesting research resource, re: Ezekial 37. FYI.

[Victoria Delsoul]

Dennis's post and Temple Mount pics at #6 kicks some serious booty, don't they?

Yes, they are pretty good.

[beowolf]

Excellent post. History is the prime target of the purveyors of the 'Big Lie'. Until they have to show themselves for the book-burning Nazis that they are, these historical reviews will show their lies for what they are.

Regards,

[Lent]

Good posts!!! Nothing more to add here.

[wooly_mammoth]

Journal axes gene research on Jews and Palestinians

Robin McKie, science editor

Sunday November 25, 2001

The Observer

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.'

[wooly_mammoth]

Thursday, December 06, 2001

World Peace & Genetics:

Why Not?

LOS ANGELES, California—December 6, 2001 (OTVNewswire)— Elsevier Science calls itself the “market leader in the publication and dissemination of literature covering the broad spectrum of scientific endeavors.” It is part of Reed Elsevier, the British/Dutch global information provider and publisher. Last week, Elsevier Science asked libraries and subscribers to its Human Immunology magazine to tear out the pages of a report appearing in its current issue. Under threat of mass resignations by members of its New York staff, publisher Nicole Sucio-Foca, of New York’s Columbia University, agreed to the self-censorship. The research paper, written by Professor Antonio Arnaiz-Villena, is entitled “The Origin of Palestinians and Their Genetic Relatedness With Other Mediterranean Populations.”

According to Robin McKie of The Observer (London), the report showed that Middle Eastern Jews and Palestinians are genetically almost identical: “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.”

By studying genetic similarities among Middle Eastern populations, the report concluded that Palestinians and Jews of the region are closely related. But with bloodshed escalating in the real estate wars of the Middle East, such a theory has geo-political implications insofar as those wars are based, in large part, on Biblical claims of eminent domain.

The report has been yanked from Human Immunology’s website, as well as subsequent runs of hard copy editions. Notices of Retraction have been sent to all websites posting the offending article. The report’s author, Arnaiz-Villena, has been sacked from the journal's editorial board. Arnaiz-Villena, of Complutence University in Madrid, told The Observer, “I am stunned.”

Meanwhile, similar genetic research is being conducted throughout the world, many yielding the same results. Michael Hammer, a University of Arizona associate research scientist in the Arizona Research Laboratory, has been performing studies on the Y chromosome to help answer questions of Biblical significance related to the Jewish Diaspora, or dispersion of the Jewish people.

Hammer said that his research suggests that the world's Jewish populations closely resemble Syrians, Palestinians and Lebanese, indicating a common ancestry originating in the Middle East about 4,000 years ago.

At the University of California School of Medicine, San Francisco, Dr. Joel J. Elias, Professor (Emeritus) takes on the difficult task of presenting more scientific findings in his article The Genetics of Modern Assyrians and their Relationship to Other People of the Middle East.

Prof. L.L. Cavalli-Sforza, senior author of the landmark book "The History and Geography of Human Genes," came to the conclusion "that Jews have maintained considerable genetic similarity among themselves and with people from the Middle East, with whom they have common origins." Cavalli-Sforza is considered one of the preeminent human population geneticists in the world.

Results of direct DNA analysis of the Y chromosome showed that "Despite their long- term residence in different countries and isolation from one another, most Jewish populations were not significantly different from one another at the genetic level" and there was an "extremely close affinity of Jewish and non-Jewish Middle Eastern populations [Palestinians, Syrians, Lebanese, Druze, Saudi Arabians] observed here ...[that] supports the hypothesis of a common Middle Eastern origin" of these populations dating back about 4,000 years."

According to Elias: “The Palestinians and Syrians were so close to the Jews in genetic characteristics that they ‘mapped within the central cluster of Jewish populations.’"

As one of the Israeli scientists on the team said, “Eventually people will realize that they are not that different,” leaving Professor Elias to ponder the notion: “Peace through Genetics?”

Dr. Harry Ostrer, a researcher in the Department of Genetics at New York University Medical School, contends that while the Ashkenazi Jews are not very close genetically to European gentiles, they are genetically close to some Arab groups.

Reinforcing this evidence is a study by Aravinda Chakravarti, director of the McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine at Johns Hopkins University, who found that a certain genetic mutation causing deafness, DFNB1, affects Jews, Palestinians and other groups of the Mediterranean. Recognizing the historical ramifications of this study, Dr. Ostrer pointed out that Jews and Palestinians probably had common ancestors not so long ago. "It's commonly believed among historians that many of the people that became Palestinian Arabs were once Jewish," he said.

According to David Pollack of the Forward, the irony was not lost on Dr. Ostrer: "The Arabs don't happen to 'remember' that anymore," he said, pointing to the hostilities of Arab groups toward Israel. He was also able, however, to see the situation from the opposite perspective. "Conversely, maybe if the Israelis 'remembered' [that the Arabs used to be Jews], they'd be nicer to them."

Indeed, by repressing Arnaiz-Villena’s research paper, Elsevier Science may have deprived the very “science” it promotes from achieving one of science’s more lofty goals -- that of making the world a better place to live.

[Lent]

There is no reason whatsoever that the genetic relationship between Jews and Arabs should be axed or hidden. Indeed, the biggest anti-zionists, the Arabs, have fed on a steady diet of deconstructionist propaganda suggesting that European Jewish immigrants have no semitism in them. This was shown to be false. Then of course there is the 44% of Jews and their decendants who fled Arab Islamic lands which make up Israel these are ones who remained as diaspora Jews largely in isolation from their neighbours for hundreds and even thousands of years. The issue is not the genetic relationship, which is a given. The issue is that the Pan Arabists, who were responsible for the last great diaspora of Jews from Palestine during the Jihads of the 7th century and following, will not accept a non-dhimmiized Jew in their midst since that was the status of the Jew (as dhimmi) ever since Mohammed entered into the dhimma with the Jews at the Khaybar oasis.

[Lent]

---

Published online before print May 9, 2000, 10.1073/pnas.100115997;
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, Vol. 97, Issue 12, 6769-6774, June 6, 2000

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Medical Sciences
Jewish and Middle Eastern non-Jewish populations share a common pool of Y-chromosome biallelic haplotypes

M. F. Hammer^*,,, A. J. Redd^*,, E. T. Wood^*,, M. R. Bonner^*, H. Jarjanazi^*, T. Karafet^*, S. Santachiara-Benerecetti^¶, A. Oppenheim, M. A. Jobling^**, T. Jenkins, H. Ostrer, and B. Bonné-Tamir^§

^* Laboratory of Molecular Systematics and Evolution, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721; ^¶ Department of Genetics, Università degli Studi di Pavia, Pavia 27100, Italy;  Hadassah Medical School, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 91120, Israel; ^** Department of Genetics, University of Leicester, Leicester LE1 7RH, England;  SAMIR, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 2000, South Africa;  Department of Pediatrics, New York University Medical Center, New York, NY 10016; and ^§ Department of Human Genetics, Sackler School of Medicine, Ramat Aviv 69978, Israel

Communicated by Arno G. Motulsky, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, March 15, 2000 (received for review November 17, 1999)

	Abstract

	Top Abstract Introduction Subjects and Methods Results Discussion References

Haplotypes constructed from Y-chromosome markers were used to trace the paternal origins of the Jewish Diaspora. A set of 18 biallelic polymorphisms was genotyped in 1,371 males from 29 populations, including 7 Jewish (Ashkenazi, Roman, North African, Kurdish, Near Eastern, Yemenite, and Ethiopian) and 16 non-Jewish groups from similar geographic locations. The Jewish populations were characterized by a diverse set of 13 haplotypes that were also present in non-Jewish populations from Africa, Asia, and Europe. A series of analyses was performed to address whether modern Jewish Y-chromosome diversity derives mainly from a common Middle Eastern source population or from admixture with neighboring non-Jewish populations during and after the Diaspora. Despite their long-term residence in different countries and isolation from one another, most Jewish populations were not significantly different from one another at the genetic level. Admixture estimates suggested low levels of European Y-chromosome gene flow into Ashkenazi and Roman Jewish communities. A multidimensional scaling plot placed six of the seven Jewish populations in a relatively tight cluster that was interspersed with Middle Eastern non-Jewish populations, including Palestinians and Syrians. Pairwise differentiation tests further indicated that these Jewish and Middle Eastern non-Jewish populations were not statistically different. The results support the hypothesis that the paternal gene pools of Jewish communities from Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East descended from a common Middle Eastern ancestral population, and suggest that most Jewish communities have remained relatively isolated from neighboring non-Jewish communities during and after the Diaspora.

	Introduction

	Top Abstract Introduction Subjects and Methods Results Discussion References

Jewish religion and culture can be traced back to Semitic tribes that lived in the Middle East approximately 4,000 years ago. The Babylonian exile in 586 B.C. marked the beginning of major dispersals of Jewish populations from the Middle East and the development of various Jewish communities outside of present-day Israel (1). Today, Jews belong to several communities that can be classified according to the location where each community developed. Among others, these include the Middle Eastern communities of former Babylonia and Palestine, the Jewish communities of North Africa and the Mediterranean Basin, and Ashkenazi communities of central and eastern Europe. The history of the Jewish Diasporathe numerous migrations of Jewish populations and their subsequent residence in various countries in Europe, North Africa, and West Asiahas resulted in a complex set of genetic relationships among Jewish populations and their non-Jewish neighbors. Several studies have attempted to describe these genetic relationships and to unravel the numerous evolutionary factors that have come into play during the Diaspora (2-11). Some of the key arguments in the literature concern the relative contributions of common ancestry, genetic drift, natural selection, and admixture leading to the observed similarities and differences among Jewish and non-Jewish communities.

Given the complex history of migration, can Jews be traced to a single Middle Eastern ancestry, or are present-day Jewish communities more closely related to non-Jewish populations from the same geographic area? Some genetic studies suggest that Jewish populations show substantial non-Jewish admixture and the occurrence of mass conversion of non-Jews to Judaism (2, 3, 10, 12). In contrast, other research points to considerably greater genetic similarity among Jewish communities with only slight gene flow from their respective host populations (5, 7, 9, 11, 13). Furthermore, it has been demonstrated that the degree of genetic similarity among Jewish communities and between Jewish and non-Jewish populations depends on the particular locus that is being investigated (4, 8, 11). This observation raises the possibility that variation associated with a given locus has been influenced by natural selection.

All of the aforementioned investigations used "classical" genetic markers such as blood groups, enzymes, and serum proteins, as well as immunoglobulins and the HLA system. More recently, restriction fragment length polymorphism studies were initiated by using mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), the nonrecombining portion of the Y chromosome (NRY), and other nuclear loci (14-20). An advantage of nucleotide-level studies is that they circumvent some of the complications associated with selection; however, these studies have not fully resolved many of the key issues in the earlier literature.

Analyses of mtDNA and the NRY are especially relevant to studies of Jewish origins because, according to ancient Jewish law, Jewish religious affiliation is assigned maternally (1). In particular, studies of paternally inherited variation provide the opportunity to assess the genetic contribution of non-Jewish males to present-day Jewish genetic diversity. This research represents one of the first comparisons of biallelic variation on the NRY in Jewish and non-Jewish populations from similar geographic areas. We surveyed 18 biallelic polymorphisms in 7 Jewish and 22 non-Jewish populations from Europe, the Middle East, and Africa to assess the relative contributions of common ancestry, gene flow, and genetic drift in shaping patterns of NRY variation in populations of the Jewish Diaspora.

Jewish and Middle Eastern non-Jewish populations share a common pool of Y-chromosome biallelic haplotypes

[wooly_mammoth]

I didn't know that. Radical Islam is dangerous and virulent. The best defense against it is probably a good dose of Western Philosophy. Descartes, Bertrand Russell, and, to really finish off their weird verbal pathology, Language, Truth and Logic by Alfred Ayer. It wouldn't hurt to throw in some arabic translations of Deridda.

[Lent]

I didn't know that. Radical Islam is dangerous and virulent. The best defense against it is probably a good dose of Western Philosophy. Descartes, Bertrand Russell, and, to really finish off their weird verbal pathology, Language, Truth and Logic by Alfred Ayer. It wouldn't hurt to throw in some arabic translations of Deridda.

Ahhh, rationalism, logical empiricism, etc., yes definitely. However, here's the problem with Islam in general, historically, with respect to Western ideas from Bernard Lewis in his book, The Arabs In History,p. 139:

The acceptance of the Greek heritage by Islam gave rise to a struggle between the scientific rationalist tendency of the new learning on the one hand, and the atomistic and intuituve quality of Islamic thought on the other. During the period of struggle Muslims of both schools created a rich and varied culture, much of which is of permanent importance in the history of mankind. The struggle ended in the victory of the more purely Islamic point of view. Islam, a religiously conditioned society, rejected values that challenged its fundamental postulates, while accepting their results, and even developing them by experiment and observation. Ismailism - the revolution marquee of Islam - might have ushered in a full acceptance of Hellenistic values, heralding a humanist renaissance of the Western type, overcoming the resistance of the Quaran by the device of esoteric interpretation, of the Shari'a by the unbounded discretion of the infallible Imam. But the forces supporting the Ismaili revolution were not strong enough, and it failed in the very moment of its greatest success.

:

[wooly_mammoth]

The best way to teach western philosophy (in order to kill radical islam) is to have people read it in the original. Read it 4-6 times and discuss it in detail. Have it as a requirement in University. Of course, nobody should be forced to believe in it. But they should be encouraged to at least understand it if they want a University degree.

[Sabertooth]

I'm not sure what you want me to conclude from this post. This caught my eye...

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.

The Bible doesn't claim that the Jews are genetically distinct from the surrounding neighbors. Lot was Abraham's nephew, Ishamel was Abraham's son, and Esau was Jacob's brother who married a daughter of Ishmael. These are just a few of the forerunners of the Semitic non-Israelites mentioned in the Bible.

How would this study undermine the idea that the Jews are God's Chosen People, if it only confirms what the Bible concedes? Seems to me, if anything, it would be the other way around... Science confirming yet again some aspect of what the Bible says about Israel.

[dennisw]

Rave on nutter! You are some kinda wonerful. What kind no one knows.

[week 71]

Hey, thanks for the heads up! Very illuminating, and informative thread. I'll read Ezekiel 37 tonight.

[wooly_mammoth]

What's 'wonerful'?

But, yeah, for an ignoramus like you who probably never even finished high school, references to famous western philosophers of the 20th century must seem like the ravings of a nutter.

[anapikoros]

This book was discredited shortly after it was printed and was a total embarrassment to the author.

Says who? ... Edward Said?

The embarrassment was to the Palestinian propaganda machine which made a feeble and totally unconvincing attempt at discrediting it.

[Southern Federalist]

You got links to reviews in genuine scholarly publications that back up your claims? Otherwise, your remarks are totally without interest.

[anapikoros]

Unfortunately for the palestinian arabs God hasn't seen fit to give then a homeland of their own that they can make a break for

But the British did so in 1922 - today its called Jordan but it comprises 78% of historic Palestine and >90% of the population are "Palestinians".

In 1948 the UN divided what was left (UN Resolution 181) of Palestine between Arabs and Jews but the Arabs rejected it and went to war instead.