Who are the Palestinians?

[Anonymous]

A great debunk of the claim of "Jews" to Palestine and the genetic ties to ancient Israelites, and sad pathetic control by the establishment to ignore such evidence.

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Who are the Palestinians?

This item was sent to the MEGA (Middle East Geneticists Association) mailing list with subject title "Genetics &  Politics." It is a copy of a letter sent to the Society of Histocompatability & Immunology by Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh, a distinguished Palestinian-American scientist. A response to Dr. Qumsiyeh's article by Dr. Ariella Oppenheim  was also distributed to MEGA members by him. Below we have included the correspondences on this sensitive yet crucial topic. The Ambassadors Magazine invites all scientists to send us their comments on this regard to mazin.qumsiyeh@yale.edu



PART TWO:
Letter from Dr. Qumsiyeh to Dr. Ariella Oppenheim


Dear Ariella,

Sorry for the delay in responding to your letter below.

Yes, Arnaiz-Villena et al. made political commentary not appropriate in a scientific paper. However, you have done the same thing as did Bonne-Tamir so frequently (the dispersion of Jews, the common origin, the religion, the tradition etc).

In articles by those supporting Zionist views, even when their own data conflicted with dogma, the authors made political and religious references especially on the unique and common gene pool for Jews. These were not questioned by editors. I thus stand by my questioning of the differential treatment given to Arnaiz-Villena. As to the pressure exerted on the editorial board of Human Immunology, that is documented by the board itself and by the article in the Observer.

But aside from these issues, can you tell me if Ashkenazi Jews (or Yemeni or Ethiopian) are closer to Sephardic Jews than Sephardic Jews are to Palestinians? Your data I think is clear on this so why the drive to support uniqueness of the Jewish people? Would it not be far more advantageous to peace and coexistence to loudly state the fact of the similarity between true Semitic Jews and Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Palestinians (Western Semites/Canaanites) instead of shoving it under the carpet? After all, showing this similarity could undermine both Palestinian/Arab Nationalism and Zionism/Jewish Nationalism (and other "isms" including racism).

By the way, have you ever asked yourself why the family name/surname of Moien is Kanaan?? Think about that for a moment.

Sincerely,

Mazin Qumsiyeh



PART THREE:
Letter from Dr. Qumsiyeh to Dr. Oppenheim through Dr. Moien Kanaan


> Dr. Moien Kanaan of Bethlehem University has forwarded to me your [Dr. Oppenheim's] letter.
> enclosed a copy of my response letter to him. Let's keep science and
> politics apart, otherwise I can see the end of good science at the
> beginning of this century. Politics has already done too much damage in
> other areas.

Mazin Qumsiyeh



PART FOUR:
Letter from Dr. Ariella Oppenheim to Dr. Moien Kanaan


> Dear Moien:
>
> I have seen the paper. As you know, the scientific findings are in good
> agreement with earlier reports, including studies done in my own lab.
> However, I don't know if you have seen the paper, but it is muddled with
> politics all over. I think we should all agree, politics has absolutely no
> place in a scientific journal. In addition, extensive part is devoted to
> history which is mostly wrong and distorted. Too bad it escaped a proper
> review and was published in the first place.
>
> Someone evil has interpreted the withdrawal of the article by the Editor as
> a pressure because it contradicts Jewish ideology. This is absolute
> nonsense (no-one disagrees with the scientific conclusion of the article!)
> As you know, even the Jewish religion (which I bring as an example of a
> reactionary point of view) views Ismael as the son of Abraham and modern
> Arabs as the sons of Ismael.
>
> Best regards, Ariella
>
> Shalom from,
> Ariella Oppenheim, PhD
> Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School
> Jerusalem, Israel 91120
> Phone: Office: 972-2-6776753; Home: 972-2-6410498
> FAX: 972-2-6423067
> e-mail: mailto:ariella@md.huji.ac.il">ariella@md.huji.ac.il