Could DNA Testing Solve the Middle East Problem?

8 Responses to Could DNA Testing Solve the Middle East Problem?

1. Chris says:

   Monday, September 29, 2014 at 7:08 pm

   “fictional Palestinians”

   This is disgusting and racist. Palestinians are no more “fictional” than Americans. It doesn’t matter how recently or for what reasons they developed their ethnic/group identity, the fact is that they have it now, and describing them as a “fictional” or “invented” people (as opposed to all the other races, which are, what? based on totally valid scientific distinctions? as if) just reveals so much ignorance about how ethnicity works I can’t even handle it.
2. Dewey says:

   Tuesday, September 30, 2014 at 9:33 am

   That is plain out racism. Also hypocrisy.

   The Palestinians have a right to their religion. They also have a right to be free not under Israeli occupation.

   In fact I think somewhere in the EU the Israeli war crimes are being looked at and there may be charges. I will have to check back on that.

   Also Sheldon Addelson and his Chinese money buys allot of this propaganda stuff.

   One can not be for freedom and partake in religious war.

   Israels RW Foreign Minister is a racist well documented and he is from Russia to start with.

   Funny the Tea Party seems to align with Russia these days, praising Putin, repeating the Israeli racism…want to overthrow the US Gov, not looking like liberty and justice for all.

   The USA and NATO helped make Israel safe. We are protecting them. Now Israel gets to do what Hitler did to Jews to Palestinians? Hypocrisy

   Also it is obvious we were duped on Khorasan….I knew something was up when CIA Used Islamic Myth Name.

   WE are being lied to about everything and I will not tolerate ethnic cleansing.

   Do your DNA genealogy and watch how many ancestors you have.

   All Peaceful religion has a right to exist.

   No Human should be ruled by one religion that has been the problem for years and the basis of many a war.
3. Tina says:

   Tuesday, September 30, 2014 at 9:43 am

   The article is not about situations and conditions today. The article is about the origin of peoples and tribes, how DNA reveals we all spring from the same family, and posits that the tribes are brothers…can’t we all just get along.

   Lefties have taken exception to us as Americans in a way…we stole the land and all that. The truth in it is that many of us are Germans, Italians, French, etc, or some combination thereof, but DNA would show our roots reach back to the ME somewhere.

   Palestinians are Arabs…get over it.

   And lighten the hell up for heavens sake.

   (PC makes people such jerks its impossible to discuss any issue without setting their hair on fire.)
4. Tina says:

   Tuesday, September 30, 2014 at 9:56 am

   Tweedle Dum weighs in.

   The article did not suggest that Palestinians don’t have a right to their religion…or to forming a state. The article is about DNA…and the fact that we are all brothers.

   The radicals that oppress the people in the area and terrorize the region and refuse to say that Israel has the right to exist are another story.

   The Jews were in the region for centuries before Christ and their religion predates the Muslim religion. The argument that they are “occupying” the land is Bogus.

   Are you a Jew hater Dewey?

   If not, please try to focus.
5. Peggy says:

   Tuesday, September 30, 2014 at 1:13 pm

   During WWI an agreement called Sykes-Pitco divided up the land of the middle east.

   Sykes–Picot Agreement:
   “The Sykes–Picot Agreement, officially known as the Asia Minor Agreement, was a secret agreement between the governments of the United Kingdom and France,[1] with the assent of Russia, defining their proposed spheres of influence and control in the Middle East should the Triple Entente succeed in defeating the Ottoman Empire during World War I. The negotiation of the treaty occurred between November 1915 and March 1916.[2] The agreement was concluded on 19 May 1916.[3]

   The agreement effectively divided the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire outside the Arabian peninsula into areas of future British and French control or influence.[4] The terms were negotiated by the French diplomat François Georges-Picot and Briton Sir Mark Sykes. The Russian Tsarist government was a minor party to the Sykes–Picot agreement, and when, following the Russian Revolution of October 1917, the Bolsheviks exposed the agreement, “the British were embarrassed, the Arabs dismayed and the Turks delighted.”[5]

   Territorial allocations[edit]

   Britain was allocated control of areas roughly comprising the coastal strip between the sea and River Jordan, Jordan, southern Iraq, and a small area including the ports of Haifa and Acre, to allow access to the Mediterranean.[6] France was allocated control of south-eastern Turkey, northern Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.[citation needed] Russia was to get Istanbul, the Turkish Straits and the Ottoman Armenian vilayets.[6] The controlling powers were left free to decide on state boundaries within these areas.[6] Further negotiation was expected to determine international administration pending consultations with Russia and other powers, including the Sharif of Mecca.[6]

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sykes%E2%80%93Picot_Agreement

   Maps:
   http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=sykes+picot+map&id=4C6C57CEB3DD02144F32F5A46064425F87E465E9&FORM=IQFRBA

   Taken from below: “The agreement proposed that an “international administration” would be established in an area shaded brown on the agreement’s map, which was later to become Palestine,..”

   Balfour Declaration:

   Sykes–Picot Agreement[edit]:

   “Further information: Sykes–Picot Agreement

   In May 1916 the governments of the United Kingdom, France and Russia signed the Sykes–Picot Agreement, which defined their proposed spheres of influence and control in Western Asia should the Triple Entente succeed in defeating the Ottoman Empire during World War I. The agreement effectively divided the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire outside the Arabian peninsula into areas of future British and French control or influence.

   The agreement proposed that an “international administration” would be established in an area shaded brown on the agreement’s map, which was later to become Palestine, and that the form of the administration would be “decided upon after consultation with Russia, and subsequently in consultation with the other allies, and the representatives of the Sherif of Mecca”.

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration
6. Tina says:

   Tuesday, September 30, 2014 at 2:18 pm

   Very good historical background in the Jewish Virtual Library about the controversial British agreement. the following is of note:

   The negotiations for a Jewish entity were carried out by Weizmann, who greatly impressed Balfour and maintained important links with the British media. In support of the Zionist cause, his protracted and skillful negotiations with the Foreign Office were climaxed on November 2, 1917, by the letter from the foreign secretary to Lord Rothschild, which became known as the Balfour Declaration. This document declared the British government’s “sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations,” viewed with favor “the establishment in Palestine of a National Home for the Jewish People,” and announced an intent to facilitate the achievement of this objective. The letter added the provision of “it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

   The Balfour Declaration radically changed the status of the Zionist movement. It promised support from a major world power and gave the Zionists international recognition. Zionism was transformed by the British pledge from a quixotic dream into a legitimate and achievable undertaking. For these reasons, the Balfour Declaration was widely criticized throughout the Arab world, and especially in Palestine, as contrary to the spirit of British pledges contained in the Husayn-McMahon correspondence. The wording of the document itself, although painstakingly devised, was interpreted differently by different people, according to their interests. Ultimately, it was found to contain two incompatible undertakings: establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jews and preservation of the rights of existing non-Jewish communities, i.e., the Arabs. The incompatibility sharpened over the succeeding years and became irreconcilable.

   On December 9, 1917, five weeks after the Balfour Declaration, British troops led by General Sir Edmund Allenby took Jerusalem from the Turks; Turkish forces in Syria were subsequently defeated; an armistice was concluded with Turkey on October 31, 1918; and all of Palestine came under British military rule. British policy in the Arab lands of the now moribund Ottoman Empire was guided by a need to reduce military commitments, hold down expenditures, prevent a renewal of Turkish hegemony in the region, and safeguard Britain’s strategic interest in the Suez Canal. The conflicting promises issued between 1915 and 1918 complicated the attainment of these objectives.

   Between January 1919 and January 1920, the Allied Powers met in Paris to negotiate peace treaties with the Central Powers. At the conference, Amir Faysal, representing the Arabs, and Weizmann, representing the Zionists, presented their cases. Although Weizmann and Faysal reached a separate agreement on January 3, 1919, pledging the two parties to cordial cooperation, the latter wrote a proviso on the document in Arabic that his signature was tied to Allied war pledges regarding Arab independence. Since these pledges were not fulfilled to Arab satisfaction after the war, most Arab leaders and spokesmen have not considered the Faysal-Weizmann agreement as binding.

   The conferees faced the nearly impossible task of finding a compromise between the generally accepted idea of self- determination, wartime promises, and plans for a division of the spoils. They ultimately decided upon a mandate system whose details were laid out at the San Remo Conference of April 1920. The terms of the British Mandate were approved by the League of Nations Council on July 24, 1922, although they were technically not official until September 29, 1923. The United States was not a member of the League of Nations, but a joint resolution of the United States Congress on June 30, 1922, endorsed the concept of the Jewish national home.

   The Mandate’s terms recognized the “historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine,” called upon the mandatory power to “secure establishment of the Jewish National Home,” and recognized “an appropriate Jewish agency” for advice and cooperation to that end. The WZO, which was specifically recognized as the appropriate vehicle, formally established the Jewish Agency in 1929. Jewish immigration was to be facilitated, while ensuring that the “rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced.” English, Arabic, and Hebrew were all to be official languages. At the San Remo Conference, the French also were assured of a mandate over Syria. They drove Faysal out of Damascus in the summer; the British provided him with a throne in Iraq a year later. In March 1921, Winston Churchill, then colonial secretary, established Abdullah as ruler of Transjordan under a separate British mandate.

   To the WZO, which by 1921 had a worldwide membership of about 770,000, the recognition in the Mandate was seen as a welcome first step. Although not all Zionists and not all Jews were committed at that time to conversion of the Jewish national home into a separate political state, this conversion became firm Zionist policy during the next twenty-five years. The patterns developed during these years strongly influenced the State of Israel proclaimed in 1948.

   Arab spokesmen, such as Husayn and his sons, opposed the Mandate’s terms because the Covenant of the League of Nations had endorsed popular determination and thereby, they maintained, supported the cause of the Arab majority in Palestine. Further, the covenant specifically declared that all other obligations and understandings inconsistent with it were abrogated. Therefore, Arab argument held that both the Balfour Declaration and the Sykes-Picot Agreement were null and void. Arab leaders particularly objected to the Mandate’s numerous references to the “Jewish community,” whereas the Arab people, then constituting about 88 percent of the Palestinian population, were acknowledged only as “the other sections.”

   Prior to the Paris Peace Conference, Palestinian Arab nationalists had worked for a Greater Syria under Faysal. The British military occupation authority in Palestine, fearing an Arab rebellion, published an Anglo-French Joint Declaration, issued after the armistice with Turkey in November 1918, which called for self-determination for the indigenous people of the region. By the end of 1919, the British had withdrawn from Syria (exclusive of Palestine), but the French had not yet entered (except in Lebanon) and Faysal had not been explicitly repudiated by Britain. In March 1920, a General Syrian Congress meeting in Damascus elected Faysal king of a united Syria, which included Palestine. This raised the hope of the Palestinian Arab population that the Balfour Declaration would be rescinded, setting off a feverish series of demonstrations in Palestine in the spring of 1920. From April 4 to 8, Arab rioters attacked the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem. Faysal’s ouster by the French in the summer of 1920 led to further rioting in Jaffa (contemporary Yafo) as a large number of Palestinian Arabs who had been with Faysal returned to Palestine to fight against the establishment of a Jewish nation.

   The end of Faysal’s Greater Syria experiment and the application of the mandate system, which artificially carved up the Arab East into new nation-states, had a profound effect on the history of the region in general and Palestine in particular. The mandate system created an identity crisis among Arab nationalists that led to the growth of competing nationalisms: Arab versus Islamic versus the more parochial nationalisms of the newly created states. It also created a serious legitimacy problem for the new Arab elites, whose authority ultimately rested with their European benefactors. The combination of narrowly based leadership and the emergence of competing nationalisms stymied the Arab response to the Zionist challenge in Palestine.

   To British authorities, burdened with heavy responsibilities and commitments after World War I, the objective of the Mandate administration was peaceful accommodation and development of Palestine by Arabs and Jews under British control. Sir Herbert Samuels, the first high commissioner of Palestine, was responsible for keeping some semblance of order between the two antagonistic communities. In pursuit of this goal, Samuels, a Jew, was guided by two contradictory principles: liberalism and Zionism. He called for open Jewish immigration and land acquisition, which enabled thousands of highly committed and well-trained socialist Zionists to enter Palestine between 1919 and 1923. The Third Aliyah, as it was called, made important contributions to the development of Jewish agriculture, especially collective farming. Samuels, however, also promised representative institutions, which, if they had emerged in the 1920s, would have had as their first objective the curtailment of Jewish immigration. According to the census of 1922, the Jews numbered only 84,000, or 11 percent of the population of Palestine. The Zionists, moreover, could not openly oppose the establishment of democratic structures, which was clearly in accordance with the Covenant of the League of Nations and the mandatory system.

   The Arabs of Palestine, however, believing that participation in Mandate-sanctioned institutions would signify their acquiescence to the Mandate and thus to the Balfour Declaration, refused to participate. As a result, Samuels’s proposals for a legislative council, an advisory council, and an Arab agency envisioned as similar to the Jewish Agency, were all rejected by the Arabs. After the collapse of the bid for representative institutions, any possibility of joint consultation between the two communities ended.
7. Chris says:

   Tuesday, September 30, 2014 at 8:31 pm

   Do you actually think people aren’t already aware that Jews and Arabs share a close ethnic history? Do you actually think pointing this out to radicals like Hamas will make them reconsider their blind hatred and self-sabotage, or that it will make the government of Israel stop the settlements?

   This is not a solution, and the dismissive language–defining the Palestinians as a “fictional” people–clearly shows that it’s not about please for equality and tolerance either. Quite the opposite: it’s a way to further marginalize Palestinians by claiming they have no right to a unique cultural identity, while the Jews do.

   That is not just “politically incorrect.” That is racist.
8. Tina says:

   Friday, October 3, 2014 at 10:40 am

   Do you actually think pointing this out to radicals like Hamas will make them reconsider their blind hatred and self-sabotage, or that it will make the government of Israel stop the settlements?

   No! I just think it is another example of the members of terrorist groups like Hamas being hypocrites and liars. I do think it might do some good with young people that are vulnerable to propaganda, indoctrination and recruitment.

   “This is not a solution”

   It could be a tool.

   “…the dismissive language–defining the Palestinians as a “fictional” people–clearly shows that it’s not about please for equality and tolerance either.”

   It is a counter to mythical indoctrination about the “settlements” and the Palestinian claim that The Jews are dogs and should be driven into the sea.

   Jewish Virtual Library:

   MYTH: “Israeli settlements are illegal.”

   FACT: Jews have lived in Judea and Samaria—the West Bank—since ancient times. The only time Jews have been prohibited from living in the territories in recent decades was during Jordan’s rule from 1948 to 1967.

   Numerous legal authorities dispute the charge that settlements are “illegal.” Stephen Schwebel, formerly President of the International Court of Justice, notes that a country acting in self-defense may seize and occupy territory when necessary to protect itself. Schwebel also observes that a state may require, as a condition for its withdrawal, security measures designed to ensure its citizens are not menaced again from that territory. 1

   According to Eugene Rostow, a former Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs in the Johnson Administration, Resolution 242 gives Israel a legal right to be in the West Bank. The resolution, Rostow noted, “Israel is entitled to administer the territories” it won in 1967 until ‘‘a just and lasting peace in the Middle East’’ is achieved. 2 Though critical of Israeli policy, the United States does not consider settlements illegal.

   “it’s a way to further marginalize Palestinians by claiming they have no right to a unique cultural identity, while the Jews do.”

   That is a stupid statement for several reasons. The “Palestinians” are Arab nomads. Arafat, for instance, was an Egyptian. His father lived in Gaza but his mother was an Egyptian; he was expelled from Egypt. Secondly Israel has acknowledged the right and worked toward a Palestinian state making incredible efforts to solve the problem. The terrorists and bigots that are in leadership for the Palestinians have broken numerous agreements…they refuse to recognize Israel!

   “That is racist.”

   “Racism” is very subjective and conditional term for you of the PC crowd. Your view is upside down and backwards!

   And you are taking this post MUCH too seriously.

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