Archived copy of a scientific paper showing that Middle Eastern Jewish people and Palestinians are genetically indistinguishable. The paper was censored from the journal which originally published it, Human Immunology, despite it not being scientifically refuted.
Libcom introduction
Critics of the article complained that it was politically "extreme", and the journal, Human Immunology, caved in and removed it from their website. They also wrote to libraries and universities asking them to physically rip out the pages containing the article. More information is here in the Guardian.
Abstract
The genetic profile of Palestinians has, for the first time, been studied by using human leukocyte antigen (HLA) gene variability and haplotypes. The comparison with other Mediterranean populations by using neighbor-joining dendrograms and correspondence analyses reveal that Palestinians are genetically very close to Jews and other Middle East populations, including Turks (Anatolians), Lebanese, Egyptians, Armenians and Iranians. Archaeologic and genetic data support that both Jews and Palestinians came from the ancient Canaanites, who extensively mixed with Egyptians, Mesopotamian and Anatolian peoples in ancient times. Thus, Palestinian Jewish rivalry is based in cultural and religious, but not in genetic, differences. The relatively close relatedness of both Jews and Palestinians to western Mediterranean populations reflects the continuous circum-Mediterranean cultural and gene flow that have occurred in prehistoric and historic times. This flow overtly contradicts the demic diffusion model of western Mediterranean populations substitution by agriculturalists coming from the Middle East in the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition.
Comments
"[This scientific research…
"[This scientific research has been removed from all archives for obvious reasons, yet no one has refuted its content.]"
I am unclear what these "obvious" reasons are and it is simply not true that this piece "has been removed from all archives".
It appears that it was pulled from Human Immunology in 2001:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/nov/25/medicalscience.genetics
A quick google suggest that this paper is available at several sites online.
I am also unclear what relevance this has for Libcom. My assumption is that there are a variety of views by contributors and content here on the reasons for the conflict in Palestine, but that none of them would ascribe it to genetics.
There is a sober and…
There is a sober and unsensationalist article about the withdrawl of the paper here if people are interested:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1126131/
I think it's sort of…
I think it's sort of nationalist nonsense, sort of like speaking of the genetic origin of Ukrainians, Americans, etc. I don't think you really need to dive into genetics to know that the Arabs who originally lived in Palestine were driven out by Zionists from Europe and elsewhere and that this displacement was bad. It's also worth noting that there was not really a distinct "Palestinian" identity when the Zionist movement was first taking root; this only developed over time in the twentieth century. Nationalist thinking itself is also a historically recent phenomenon that started to develop around the late eighteenth century.
Fozzie wrote: A quick google…
* yes, this paper is still available on several sites, though it can no longer be used as a credible academic reference, so in effect it has been discredited.
* That said, articles like this one in genetics, archaeology, etc. highlight the shared origins of the populations in that region. In other words, there is no “chosen” or “special” tribe, contrary to certain claims, and the evidence points to modern Palestinians being connected to the ancient Philistine populations. The notion of a “return to the land” is therefore a myth.
I agree this article doesn’t speak directly to class struggle, but it does represent a scientific attempt to cut through the ideological distortions we are constantly fed in the media.
The Jewish right of return…
The Jewish right of return enshrined by the State of Israel is determined by spurious genetic considerations of what constitutes being Jewish similar to those considerations adopted by the German National Socialist government. I don't see how an article dispelling these falsehoods is irrelevant to myth busting the states' ideological formulations. Equally, research demonstrating that the Palestinian population is largely composed of Jews converted to Islam is important in busting the ideology of Zionism, and the equally disgusting ideological formulations of the Islamist nationalist factions in the war on the working class in Palestine/Israel.
There is a connection between the identification of being Jewish and the matter of class, it is "its dirty-judaical manifestation." (Marx, Thesis I On Feuerbach)
These are all good…
These are all good clarifications, thanks. Maybe they could have been in the article itself, but here is fine too.