A Jewish reader in Canada recently exchanged emails with me about his suggestion that the State of Israel cite the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as a justification for its right to exist as a Jewish nation. Since I lack sufficient knowledge on the topic, I asked Carl in Jerusalem, who blogs at Israel Matzav, to comment on the issue.
The first email from our reader in Canada:
In my opinion, Israel has never had the best possible narrative to justify its existence in the world.
When people think about Israel, they think of Jews who supposedly went into exile, and returned in modern times under the aegis of the Zionist organization. Somehow people get the impression that after two thousand years in exile, the Jews became transformed into a European people, who then took the land from the new indigenous people, the Palestinians.
In fact, the Jews have a record of continuity in the Land of Israel for more than two millennia. And the history of the Jews for the last two thousand years in the Land of Israel can be described as one of continuous exile, where individuals had to leave the land because they could just not attain a minimum quality of life. However, at the same time other Jews were often returning to their homeland.
It is somewhat ironic that Muslims often say Palestine is a Muslim country because the number of Muslims outnumbered the number of Jews. However, it is not often noted, that this was because Muslim rulers were producing the conditions that made it impossible for Jews to continue living in their homeland.
Israeli officials seem to find legality for Israel in the Balfour Declaration, League of Nations decisions, and the UN partition resolution of November 29, 1947. In my opinion, they don’t seem to recognize that the world to a certain extent finds these decisions not completely valid, and regards the Palestinians as indigenous peoples who should have more rights than the supposed colonial Jewish invaders.
I think this situation might be rectified if Israeli officials would de-emphasize the traditional Zionist stories, and begin to find justification for Israel as a Jewish state in the fact that even after the original Jewish state was destroyed in 70 CE, the Jews never abandoned or surrendered their homeland, and so it has remained a Jewish possession ever since.
The UN General Assembly on September 13, 2007 passed the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This gives indigenous peoples of a land 46 rights. If one assumes a history of continuity of the Jewish people as I have described it, then according to the UN’s own rules it is the Jews, as the indigenous people of the Land of Israel, are entitled to all 46 of those rights.
I think if all this was recognized in the world, it could be very helpful for the State of Israel.
The problem that the Israeli government (as well as seemingly anyone else in Israel) is not in the least bit interested in the history of Jews over the last two thousand years in the Land of Israel. Nor does anybody there seem at all aware of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples , and how this might be beneficial for Israel. At least that is my opinion.
I wonder if you might think of looking into this matter, and if you find what I say reasonable, would you consider trying to use your abilities to try to change the Zionist narrative, from one of exile and return, which is out of favour in the world, to that of a people who suffered two thousand years of occupation in its own land.
It should be noted that however good may be your cause, if you don’t plead it properly, then to a certain extent you can’t totally blame the rest of the world.
Carl in Jerusalem responded:
He mostly has it right.
There are four comments I would make.
First: The number of Jews who actually stayed here until the 1880’s was quite small. But there was no one else here either. That’s why Mark Twain described the country as deserted when he came here in the 1860’s.
Second: I don’t believe there was ever a Muslim majority here. Certainly not in Jerusalem. You may want to read a book called From Time Immemorial. It documents how there came to be Muslim Arabs in Israel. For the most part, they followed the Jews seeking better economic opportunities. The book got some scathing reviews, but when you look who is behind them, they are mostly far Left Israeli academics and Benny Morris pre-epiphany. Warning — it’s one of the most boring books on the face of God’s earth. Lots of British government statistics from the mandatory period.
Third: There are a lot of people here who argue that we should use the Bible as the basis for our claims — especially to Judea and Samaria. It’s a very appealing argument but it doesn’t really fly with people who don’t believe in the Bible. I use the argument from time to time myself anyway, but the security argument resonates much more with Western ears.
Fourth: Regardless of what the UN document on indigenous people says, they will never let Israelis or Jews take advantage of it, so I think we’re wasting our time trying to use it.
Our Canadian reader had this to add:
In fact, if we say that the exile is usually considered to have begun in 70 CE with the destruction of the Temple, there is certainly evidence that Jews were in the Land of Israel after that date. There was the revolt of Bar Kochva in 132-135 CE, against which the Romans brought legions from all parts of their Empire to suppress the revolt. And Israeli archeologists find coins and letters from the era of that revolt.
One of the religious books of the Jews is the Mishna, which is said to be compiled about 220 CE in the Land of Israel.
Another religious book is the Talmud, of which there are two different versions. The most studied is the Babylonian Talmud, compiled in what is now Iraq. However, there is also the Jerusalem Talmud, compiled about 400 CE, in the Land of Israel.
Tzfat is a town in the mountains of Galilee. In the 16th century that was a town of extraordinary Jewish learning. The religious guide for Orthodox Jews called the Shulchan Aruch was written by Yoseph Caro in Tzfat at that period.
There were many scholars of Kabbala in Tzfat at that time, the most prominent being Isaac Luria, called the Ari.
Many prayers were written in Tzfat at that that are currently still said in all Jewish communities. In fact, perhaps the best known prayer chanted Friday evening, called Lecha Dodi, was written by a resident of Tzfat during that period.
If one reads of the Crusader conquest of Palestine, one invariably reads how they treated the Jews of Jerusalem. On the internet one finds accounts that the defense of Haifa was primarily carried out by Jews, which sustained a siege of one month in the summer of 1099 CE.
On the website of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs there is in fact a brief history of this epoch of Jewish history entitled “History: Foreign Domination”, where the history of the Jews in the Land of Israel is given for the last two thousand years.
Indeed, in the speech that David Ben-Gurion made on May 14, 1948, known as Israel’s Declaration of Independence, this sentence appears: “Impelled by this historic and traditional attachment, Jews strove in every successive generation to reestablish themselves in their ancient homeland.” This account does not sound like an exile. This document was signed by all the leaders of the Jewish community, religious and non-religious.
Jews do not throw away torn pages of their holy books when they get worn, they are buried instead. In Cairo these pages were not buried but were stored in attics of synagogues, in rooms called genizas. These documents were examined at the beginning of the 20th century, and one can find many letters there from Jews of the 11the CE detailing the affairs of a Yeshiva in Jerusalem.
What I am saying is that it is clear to me that the Jews have a continuity in the Land of Israel that is undeniable, and that I think would be beneficial for Israel if it were known in the world.
Although I was brought up in an Orthodox environment, I still have no idea why Zionists do not bring up this continuity. In fact, it is just never written about, so it is impossible to know why no mention is ever made of it.
As I intimated earlier, Israeli leaders seem to feel that the Balfour Declaration, League of Nations approvals, and the UN partition resolution are all the legitimacy they need. This does not appear true to me.
Certainly if one is having problems, one might think that something different might be useful. Doing the same thing might not seem so wise.
There seems to be a contentment with their history among Israelis, without thinking anything new can be added.
As I said before, I think these possibilities for better Israeli mascara should at least be examined.
I’ll let Carl have the final word:
He’s right about there being a continuous Jewish presence in Israel, but for much of that time it was tiny and the land was mostly deserted. He’s right about the Mishna, He’s right about the Jerusalem Talmud, but it was dwarfed in significance by the Babylonian Talmud (and is to this day). In fact, everything he writes is historically correct, but relates only to a small number of people.
I’m all in favor of asserting biblical claims to ‘Greater Israel’ and have many times myself (see here for example), but those arguments tend to resonate mostly with Orthodox Jews and Christian Zionists. In other words, you’re mostly preaching to the choir.
Regardless of the merits of the case, I agree with Carl that the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples will never be applied to Jews — or to white Europeans, for that matter.
“Indigenous Peoples” are “brown” peoples, especially Muslims, American Indians, Australian Aboriginals, and black Africans. Anything using the term that is passed by the UN will only be allowed to apply to those peoples, and never to Jews or Caucasians.
43 comments:
Baron you are right, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was passed by the Third World nations as a tool to use to beat up on Europe and the US. The Jews will never be accepted as the indigenous people of Israel.
City Journal's Autumn 2010 edition is devoted to important cities all over the world. This particular issue may be their finest edition to date. It is to be heartily recommended not only for the roll of American cities, but also those in Asia...and, also among them, a fine essay on Tel Aviv.
The Baron wasn't aware of the essay when he chose the photo illustration for his post. However, the picture was obviously being described here:
On April 11, 1909, a group of 66 Jews gathered on some barren sand dunes north of the ancient port city of Jaffa for one of history’s most improbable real-estate lotteries. A watchmaker from Lodz, Akiva Weiss, passed around a tin can filled with numbered seashells designating plots on which the participants were expected to build houses. Many were immigrants from Eastern Europe who lived in Jaffa’s crowded, fetid Arab neighborhoods. They were lured to the lottery not only by the promise of garden cottages and sea breezes but also by the dream of national renewal—though the project’s strictly Zionist aspect had to be played down. After all, the land on which the Jews hoped to build was part of the Ottoman Empire. It would have been imprudent to incur the displeasure of the Turkish sultan, claimant for the Muslim caliphate and defender of Islam.
The prospectus for the housing development did, however, hint at its historic purpose. It declared that the new neighborhood by the Mediterranean Sea would eventually develop into the “first Hebrew city”—where, by hard work and enterprise, Jews could disprove the anti-Semitic stereotypes that depicted them as urban parasites. This was a controversial undertaking even among Jews living in Palestine. Many worried that the development would become just another vulnerable Jewish ghetto. According to a contemporary account, a Yiddish-speaking kibitzer stood by on the lottery morning, shouting out to his fellow Jews that they were “building on shifting sands.” The prospects became even unlikelier after World War I broke out and the Ottoman authorities evacuated the Jewish residents from the coastal area...
As they say, read the rest. Also look at the essay by Claire Berlinski on Istanbul, in the same issue of CJ.
The Sephardic Jews are brown and the Ethiopian Jews are black! We even have Khaifeng Chinese Jews! So that fulfils the brown, black and any other colour, condition in Carl's piece!!
This is great! I am going to adopt it and bombard various bodies with it!
I think Carl dismisses too easily.
Using the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is a strong argument and should be pushed in my view.
No one should define for an indigenous people their identity except themselves.
Jews fulfill the criteria and this would complement their claims, in my opinion.
If one reads about the genetic blood lines, then there is no doubt at all the Israel is the land of the Jews.
These blood lines can be traced to their origins..Israel.
A great deal of research is being done into this at present and there is an urgency, due to the increased dilution of the blood line, thanks to the large number of people 'marrying out'
Up until the end of the 19th century, basically the Jews of Europe lived in shetls and married within those shetls, so the genetic strain was intact. This can be traced to the ME
http://www.simpletoremember.com/articles/a/jewish-genetics/
I do have more technical information
This next piece I have to post in two parts.
Prof. Karl Skorecki is the Director of Medical and Research Development at Ramban Hospital in Haifa and the Director of the Rappaport Family Institute for Research in the Medical Sciences at the Technion. Together with research groups from the US, Russia, the UK, France, Portugal and Estonia, they have – in recent years – located a series of identical or very similar genetic signatures, i.e. "barcodes", in DNA taken from the blood of Jews in approximately 25 different countries.
These unique genetic markers show considerable genetic closeness between Jews around the world. All of this is in spite of the distances of time and place between them. These "signatures" are common to Jews thousands of miles apart from each other and they are not found among their non-Jewish neighbors, from whom the research group also took DNA samples.
Moreover, the research showed that the genetic "barcodes" common to Jews the world over are indeed different from the "barcodes" of their non-Jewish neighbors in the various countries
In the DNA samples that were taken from Jews around the world, there is also evidence of assimilation and conversion to Judaism in lesser and greater rates: In some countries, there is considerable intrusion by genetic "barcodes" characteristic of the non-Jewish population and vice-versa. And indeed, Jewish sources tell of large-scale conversion to Judaism. For example, the Book of Esther (8:17) says that, "And many from among the peoples of the land became Jews; for the fear of the Jews was fallen upon them."Rabbi Yehuda Halevy's book Kuzari tells of Khazars who converted to Judaism 1,300 years ago (although most researchers believe that the story of the Kuzari has no historical basis and that it was written as a literary device for the philosophic discussion in the book).
Skorecki, a world-class nephrologist, led research teams to cooperate in their work with Prof. Sergio DellaPergola, who is considered the outstanding demographer of the Jewish People, and with history Prof. Theodore Parfitt from the University of London. With their assistance, the geneticists tried to understand the historical significance of their findings.
One of the main historical insights raised by the genetic findings among Ashkenazi Jews was that European Jewry originated in the Middle East.
It is interesting that similar findings were received in a different genetic study issued several years ago by the US National Academy of Sciences.* The genetic "fingerprints" or "barcodes" of Jewish maternal and paternal lines, as found in DNA samples taken from the blood of European Jews, moved apart as far back as 1,300 years ago.
This specific research, which was coordinated by Doron Behar, under Skorecki's guidance, showed that the approximately 3.5 million Ashkenazi Jews are the descendants of four ancestral women. The findings raised by the genetic study of Ashkenazi Jews apparently match the history that we are familiar with: Ashkenazi Jewry originates from Jews who migrated from the Land of Israel to Italy in the first and second centuries; later, in the 12th and 13th centuries, they migrated to central Europe and spread throughout the continent, until reaching approximately ten million people on the eve of World War II.
Why is it that everybody likes to talk about whether Israel has a theoretical , LEGAL right to exist ?
At the same time very few peoble realy wants to know anything about how this existence goes on in its practicality.
Maybee this would interfere with the neutrality of the existence-judging ?
So , I believe we have a misunderstanding here : We do'nt need ANYBODY's permission to live ,exist, defend our selves or even atack our enemies when WE judge that to be necesary.
To claim that person is "indigenous," one should have to possess DNA that correlates to the ancient inhabitants of the land in question.
The DNA matches should be, to a strong degree, pure, to claim "indigenous" status.
In other words, the descendants are of persons who have not intermarried with other peoples.
Both the mtDNA and the Y-DNA should correlate with the ancient, indigenous DNA.
Otherwise, you are a mutt or a hybrid -- not indigenous.
Otherwise, a person could claim that he or she is "indigenous" to multiple lands.
A person who claims to be a descendant of Judah, claiming an indigenous right to Judea, should not be counted as such, if, for example, DNA sequencing substantially matches him or her to, say, northwestern European lineage, and not the Levant. Otherwise, you likely have a dominantly Celtic or Germanic person, claiming to be "indigenous" to Judea on the basis of claims to be "Jewish."
A person who has converted to Judaism, who does not have indigenous Judean DNA, and is primarily of, say, Hunnic stock, then would not have any claim in the Levant.
Likewise, if I have DNA indicating that I am 100% Northern European stock, I could consider myself "indigenous" to that region.
However, if I have DNA indicating mixed stock, such as some fusion of, for example, Irish, German, Malaysian, Chinese and Semitic peoples, then I am not "indigenous stock."
In that case, yes, I might have ancestry in a lot of different geographical locations and over many races, ethnicities and religions, but I have no claim to being "indigenous" to any land.
Otherwise, you have the problem of the hybrids claiming a right to land all over the planet. This would allow some nationalist groups to inflate their tribal numbers, by claiming that everyone on the planet who calls himself "indigenous" to that spot of land, despite tenuous social, religious or ethnic connections to it, and the possibility that that person's ancestors never lived on the "indigenous" land or were a genetic member of the "indigenous" tribe.
The primary method of deconvoluting who is "indigenous" must be by DNA sequencing and genetic genealogical analysis.
If you would like to view a chronological series of maps demonstrating the landpaths of migrations of DNA clusters, I encourage you to become familiar with the Genographic Project of the National Geographic Society.
Clicking on the appropriate era on the timeline, you are taken to a world map with lines linking representative DNA to migration paths.
Everybody has a genetic fingerprint. Genetic fingerprints are not subject to forgery and misinterpretation, as would a stack of documents archived in some religious institution, like a synagogue. Documents can be used to help bolster the case, but it is a people's DNA that carries the true ancestral record.
Get away from politics. Go with your genome. It's your barcode.
(ctd)
Should individuals have a "right" to a piece of land, or just to membership in their genetic "nation" or "tribe"?
One would have to consider if the ancestry was migratory, thus covering large expanses of land, or if DNA analysis indicates that one is a member of a people who occupied a single "indigenous" spot over millenia.
Many interesting questions are raised.
Some people will say that relying upon genetic "purity" to determine "indigenous" status, will "discriminate" against the hybrids. My position is that the "pure" should be the standards for any legal claims. Persons who chose or choose to, or were forced to, sexually mix with persons of widely disparate "foreign peoples," unfortunately chose or are choosing to blend DNA and therefore risk "weakening the trail" of their ancestry, and any ancestral claims. As my father would have said, "That's tough."
However, the consolation prize is that, using genealogical and historical records, one might be able to pin down where the hybridization occurred.
The nice thing about using DNA, is that everybody has it: mtDNA tracks your maternal line, and Y-DNA tracks your paternal line.
Yes, Mother Nature "discriminates." But, fortunately, she kindly gave everybody an ancestral bar code. It is better than being "paperless."
Try this
http://www.khazaria.com/genetics/abstracts.html
Very interesting
For those unfamiliar with the field of genetic genealogy, it must be born in mind that this is a very new field: it is only a decade old.
Thus, the field will need to mature more, in order to help hybrid folks pin down their ancestry with more detail than at the present time. But it will come.
Here is the Wikipedia article on genetic genealogy.
The article will be of great interest to those persons unfamiliar with this young field.
Some good YouTube videos for genetic genealogy beginners are here, and the series that starts here.
Here, I think, the authentically indigenous Jewish peoples, who have suffered the tribulations of time in foreign lands, but have kept their genetic lineage easily traceable, will actually be at a nice advantage. Such folks will have a very solid identity, which will be strengthened by studying genetic genealogy.
What is very nice about getting one's genetic DNA tested, is that once a person sees this physical evidence of who he or she is, it becomes much easier to jettison warped and unhealthy ideologies from one's psyche.
All the layers of Marxist-Leninism and its pathological descendents can be excised.
Once you know your genetic inheritance, it becomes easier to relate to folks of very different genetic paths.
Hitler and the Nazis might have been brutal. But they were, in the end, correct in their belief that what they called "race" (and what I call "genetic inheritance"), does, indeed exist. The discovery of DNA, and the development of genetic genealogy, is physical proof.
Rather than just deny this scientific evidence, like the Marxists-Leninists and their progeny determined to destroy everything in order to equalize all (controlled, of course, by some oppressive, multi-cultural "politically-correct" elite as we are suffering from today), the indigenous Jewish peoples can rejoice at the genetic confirmation that they truly are cousins, and that they have proof of the land of their origination.
Descendants of indigenous Europeans, too, who jettison multi-culti political correctness and embrace genetic genealogy, can rejoice similarly.
In fact, everybody on the planet can rejoice. Everyone is carrying around with him or her a physical record of his or her previous incarnations. Each is unique, and also connected.
Everyone has a genetic barcode. And it is a beautiful thing! No one can ever rob you of it. No amount of ideological glue dumped into your head can, realistically, take all the DNA out of your cells.
Take steps to preserve your DNA and your sequencing for posterity, and you can even cheat death.
Each and every individual on the planet possess both mitochondrial and nuclear DNA. This is Mother Nature's most beautiful gift. It is her way of making us all "equal." No one can ever deny anyone an identity. Even if they steal your "dog tags" and all your documents from you.
Humans have always been moving from one region to another.The claim that, because some Jews have a continuous lineage in what is now Israel,all Jews have a right of 'return' is simply Zionist chauvinsim.
As an ethnic 'European' it's as preposterous as if I claimed on, linguistic grounds my 'homeland' north of the Black Sea or, on a genetic basis, demanded a return to my Anatolian 'heimat'.
I'll bet many Palestinians have a long lineage in the area as well.
Mace, Not as many "Palestinians" as you might think the and was extremely empty before the Zionist Project started. Many moved in as Mexicans move into the US, for better economic opportunity. Dr. Shalit
Spot on urah2222
In 1890 my grandparents escaped the rape, torture, forced armed service etc of the Ukraine and went to England.
My grandfather was an ardent Zionist, in fact our family still have the title deeds to land in what is now the West Bank
In early 1920, when my father was a couple of months old, they packed up their 10 children and left for Palestine.
I can tell you that there were very few people in Palestine, the land was dry, barren desert, which would sustain little or no life.
You can download free of charge, Mark Twain's " Innocence Abroad" You will see what it was like
There were no more than a handful of Arab farmers, trying to eke out a meagre existence on the land. There were also Bedouin camel herders
It was until the new settlers from the old Soviet bloc countries arrived and turned the land green did the Arabs start arriving
There are NO SUCH PEOPLE AS PALESTINIANS ( caps for stress, not shouting)
There never was, not has there ever been, a country called Palestine.
The name Filastin, was the name given to the region by the Romans, to rid the land of it's Jewish entity. It was Canaan, Judea, it was known as Israel, hence in the OT the Children of Israel, Israelites
Palestine is the area which now encompasses, Israel, Gaza, The West Bank and Jordan.
All known buildings in the Israel pre-date Arab arrival.
Jews have been the main occupants of Jerusalem for over 3000 years, since it was captured by King David
Your so-called Palestinians are Arabs, they are the people of Arabia.
I see this has devolved into a discussion on who is or is not indigenous people. I stick by my first post, this resolution was passed as a way to beat the Europeans and the US over the head.
Richard that's the joys of on-line discussions
urah2222,Shirl in Oz,
The empty land or 'terra nullius' doctrine has a long and squalid history as a justification for colonialism. Another morally bankrupt argument is that the 'natives' were not developing the land,it was all going to waste.
I'd recommend that you read 'The Arabs' by Eugene Rogan,particularly chapters-
"The British Empire in the Middle East" and "The Palestinian Disaster and its Consequences".
Rogan debunks some cherished and self-serving myths.
There's nothing unusual in these repellent Zionist justifications for the colonization of Palestine, apart from the fact the whole enterprise started in the middle of the 20th century when the West should have known better.
Richard,
Perhaps the resolution might have actually been passed to protect the rights of indigenous people.
It's too bad anyone would want to prove anything to the UN in order to be allowed to live where they live. There's only one thing that gives Jews the right to Israel: the IDF. No one will ever be able to prove Jews or anyone else are pure or from this or that place.
I love studying ancient history and genetic geneology, but the farther back in time you go, the less clear things are. There is also no such thing as pure European DNA, as it seems the Indo-Europeans, who probably weren't as white as todays Europeans, contributed the most Y-DNA to Europe.
I'm pro-white, but White Nationalists will have to at some point make peace with the fact that they have significant Middle Eastern and other Eastern ancestry. Being a hybrid, as we all are, doesn't negate anyone's rights. One can say, Jews are a mixed people, but they have the right to hold the land they hold as long as they can. The same is true for all ethnic groups, including European groups.
mace: Oh, really?! Just curious, but WHO is protecting the rights of indigenous WHITE people in Europe?!
Also, just because migratory tribal people formerly used to pass over vast swaths of land, what logic gives the ancestors of those tribal people the right to "own" that land in all perpetuity to the exclusion of all other people?
To me, the "ownership" situation is a fundamentally an ongoing conflict between hunter/gatherers and farmer/settlers - otherwise recognized as a conflict between primitive and civilized peoples....
Interestingly, modern countries where the land has been "given" back to indigenous peoples have quickly fallen into disrepair because the land itself CANNOT support modern hunter/gatherer societies. Thus, the indigenous hunter/gatherers either 1) become inadequate subsistence farmers/settlers who exhibit primitive social behavior and rudimentary civilizational skills, or 2) rely on aid (often Western aid) from highly civilized countries to supply food and other benefits that enable non-working aid receivers to live at a much higher standard of living than these people would merit based on their primitive social behavior and rudimentary civilizational skills.
Both scenarios ultimately move human civilization backwards from a more to a less civilized state.
WHY is the world determined to take highly civilized countries and "give" them to primitive people who then destroy a higher state of civilization in a poorly executed attempt to re-create a civilization that mimics the very civilization that has just been destroyed? By re-create the higher state of civilization, I mean the basics of civilization like the ability to feed the indigenous population, provide security via police, repair roadways, generate electricity, conduct fair trade, etc.
I have heard US American Indian chiefs complain bitterly that the reason that the Indians fail on their reservations is that the "white" man only allows them to live on the land - versus the Indians "owning" the land so that Indians may sell the land.
So, the American Indians lay "claim" to the land based on communal ownership of primitive peoples - BUT, upon possession of the land, the American Indians want to convert communal ownership to classic individual ownership of more civilized peoples. Hmmm.
How wrong you are.
The genetic research, along with the DNA research shows that Jews originate form that region. Arabs however have a different genetic code, which shows they don't
There is even a Y chromosone which can identify two specific tribes. Cohen and Levites
I have a huge amount of infromation, but you are a scientist you wouldn't be ablt to understand it.
Jews up unitlt he end of the 1800s were almost 100% pure blood lines as there was little or no intermarriage
My family came from Russia and Spain and thanks ot gentics it is traed right back to Israel. I have no mixed blood at all, neither does my husband, nor anyone I know.
Who were the Israelites before Moses? Do we stop looking, just because the trail ends? How many mummies do we have from all these peoples, to get samples of DNA? And can we be sure they were "real" Jews or "real" Europeans? Maybe the DNA was from someone who was adopted or kidnapped.
Judaism used to be more like Christianity, in that it was open to converts, depending on what was going on at the time, and many people who would swear they are 100% Jewish are actually descended from non-Israelite converts.
And what with matrilineal descent, who's to say who the father was? And even if the father was a Cohen or Levi from way back when, who had that haplotype before them? What about their rights? What if it's someone we don't like? We give them our house anyway, to make the UN happy?
Science is one thing, politics another. There's no point in basing anyone's rights on a new science that is probably going to surprise and shock everyone, if it goes back far enough. I'm bracing myself for when I find out I'm related to Oprah.
BTW, the Taliban is from one of the lost tribes of Israel, and they know it, too. Fascinating, but do we really want this to be politically significant?
Hittites out of Italy!
Euclid
In the entire written history of the world, the rule of conquest.
The owner of any country in the world today is as a result of conquest by war, and with few exceptions like the US not taking the lands conquered in WW1 and WW2, the people who occupy the land at this time are the legal owners.
The only way Islam can take another people's country is to go to war and take the land of Israel for themselves.
That is the law that has existed since time was first recorded.
I realized the people who refer to all these pure bloodlines must only be referring to Y-DNA and Mt-DNA. Those are markers for the male and female line. But they are only markers that indicate where the founders of that lineage are from (as far back as the researchers can go, which is not very far at this time).
But those are only two markers. What about all the other genes? It's easy to imagine, and this is probably the case with the overwhelming majority of humanity, people who have both Y and M-DNA from, let's say, Europe, or Israel, or wherever, and still have a lot of other genes from other ethnic groups.
For instance: Hans from Germany goes to live in Polynesia. He marries a native. If he is the only German in that lineage, all his male descendants will have that impeccable Y-chromosome to show they are Germans. Except after a couple generations, they'll look like Polynesians.
Now, if you can imagine that at the same time, Elsa from Germany goes to another Polynesian island and marries a native. All the female children of that line will be Polynesian in appearance and have mostly Polynesian genes, after a couple generations. But they still belong to the German lineage.
Now, what happens if a male descendant of Hans marries a female descendant of Elsa? They have a 100% pure German lineage, according to the Y and Mt markers, but they are Polynesians to anyone with common sense.
This is why I'm a bit skeptical of any European or Jewish claims to ethnic purity. All our ancestors have been around the block a few thousand times.
I'm not trying to insult anyone. I'm an ethno-nationalist, but we do need to keep politics and science separate for the time being. Maybe someday the science will be such that we will all truly know who our ancestors were, but until then, no one should think they're pure anything.
latté island
You have to realise that the Jewish people have very close blood lines. They lived in small communities and married in the main within those communities. As far as "marrying out" is concerned, that a very modern occurence and that's why the rush now to do the studying.
"DNA samples from Falasha Jews and Ethiopians were studied with the Y-chromosome-specific DNA probe p49a to screen for TaqI restriction polymorphisms and haplotypes. Two haplotypes (V and XI) are the most widespread in Falashas and Ethiopians, representing about 70% of the total number of haplotypes in Ethiopia. Because the Jewish haplotypes VII and VIII are not represented in the Falasha population, we conclude that the Falasha people descended from ancient inhabitants of Ethiopia who converted to Judaism."
There are a few links here that could be of interest to you
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10592688
"The Sephardic Jews are brown and the Ethiopian Jews are black! We even have Khaifeng Chinese Jews! So that fulfils the brown, black and any other colour, condition in Carl's piece"
It doesn't matter. PC MC does not operate by coherent rules of reason, only by the incoherent logical rules of its paradigm. Thus, according to that paradigm, brown Sephardic Jews, black Ethiopian Jews and yellow Khaifeng Chinese Jews are all Honorary Whites -- simply by virtue of the fact that they are supported by the evil white West (though that is coming under terrible strain) and more importantly, because they "oppress" the most precious Ethnic People in the world today -- Muslims.
The Hesperado
The Canadian reader wrote:
Israeli officials seem to find legality for Israel in the Balfour Declaration, League of Nations decisions, and the UN partition resolution of November 29, 1947. In my opinion, they don’t seem to recognize that the world to a certain extent finds these decisions not completely valid, and regards the Palestinians as indigenous peoples who should have more rights than the supposed colonial Jewish invaders.
The problem is larger than this. Hugh Fitzgerald likes to present the same evidence to support Israel -- the Mandate and all the attendant decisions, policies and paperwork that went with it. While Hugh is correct in principle that the Mandate is sufficient to defend Israel's right, the problem is that in the meantime, PC MC has become dominant and mainstream, and according to its paradigm, any and all decisions made by the West after WWI, then after WWII, to carve up areas of the non-West which the West had colonized, are wicked colonialist and neo-colonialist actions. The fact that the League of Nations granted Jews a homeland would therefore tend to have little worth, since the League of Nations was beholden to the wicked Imperial West.
The fact that these same PC MCs tend to support the United Nations, heir to the League of Nations and similarly guarantor of Israel's right, means nothing, since PC MCs don't think coherently. They can simultaneously support the U.N. -- particularly when it forms internal hegemonic blocs (whether Communist or Muslim) that are anti-Great Satan (America) -- whilst opposing major elements of the U.N. that derive directly from the West's colonial heritage.
Thus, the West's monumental dismantling of its own colonial holdings (a project coincident with the solidification of the U.N.) was itself a condescending colonialist act -- "We superior white Westerners will grant you inferior backward primitive natives your little lands back, as long as we can draw the lines and keep you in economic and political dependence with your White Daddies": but instead of appreciating the paradox this embodies, the PC MCs simply embrace a contradictory mush by which they continue to hate and undermine their own civilization whilst condescendingly and quasi-Wilsonianly "helping" the precious, poor Noble Savage whose pathologies are transmuted into cosmic suffering which forever arouses the PC MC's eternal White Guilt.
The Hesperado
Egghead,
I'm not denying that there's often cynical manipulation by some indigenous elites for their own personal advantage.
Shirl in Oz,
Claims that genetics allow one group to claim other peoples' land have a rather sinister and tragic history,don't they?
Ah,the Falashas are descended from converts.
Is that the reason that Falasha blood was rejected as not being suitable for tranfusions to other Jews and dumped?
Oh my goodness Mace, where did you get such nonsense from?
Shirl in oz,
From the Israeli media and from a relative who was living in Israel at the time.I'll be charitable and assume you really didn't know.
This is probably a waste of time-
http://www.afgen.com/eth_jews.html
http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/34013
There are many more links,but the URLs are long and I can't be bothered compressing them.
Don't automatically assume the moral high ground.
The links don't appear to be active so I presume I've made a mistake.
There's not much typing required, enjoy!
Mace: What a shame you choose to obtain your information from less than reliable sources.
Yes the blood of the Ethiopians WAS rejected for use by ANYONE, but for good reason. Shame your “reliable” sources leave out half the picture
Anything here come to mind
HIV-Aids
Trypanosomiasis
Onchocerciasis
Lympatic Filariasis
Podoconoisis
Leishmaniasis
Yellow Fever
& other Arboviral Diseases
Here in the US, potential blood donors are routinely rejected if they have traveled to sub-saharan Africa in the past ~20 years. For even the shortest visits. Shirl (above) provides a few reasons why.
That is why Ethiopian Jews are often rejected as blood donors.
BTW, there are other "danger zones" outside of Africa that disqualify a blood donor.
Jewish Odysseus unfortunately when one takes reference from less than reliable sources, one comes up with inaccuracies
Par example..The Green Left in Australia - no less.
Thankd the joke of the century
They are a bunch of evil people, who at this point in time, I and others, are in battle with.
Jewish Odysseus I just subscribed to your blog.
Check this one out. She's a good friend. Jewish/aussie. A writer, her husband is a Prof. of History at Aberystwyth university
http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/
Shirl in Oz
yes,the only reliable sources are Zionist, of course.
Salaam.
Oh dear Mace!!
We are showing our true colours now , aren’t we ?
Rather typical of you and your ilk. Something doesn’t go the way you want it to, so you insult, or think you do. You just show yourself up as an ignorant antisemite.
Ignorance has nothing on you mate !! Prepare to apologise, but then the Religion of Peace won’t allow it !!
http://www.ethiodemographyandhealth.org/TableOfContents.html
Aynalem Adugna who is Ethiopian has degrees from…
Addis Ababa University - B.A (Geography)
University of Durham - M.A (Population Studies)
University of London - Ph.D (Demography).
Dr. Aynalem Adugna
• Lecturer
• Ph.D. University of London, 1991
• aynalemadugna@aol.com
• Areas of Specialization
• Population Geography
• Medical Geography
• Class Web Pages
• Geog 496: Population Geography
• Geog 496: Medical Geography
Shirl: The Falashas are an example of what can go wrong when you put too much emphasis on the haplotype. The Falashas have very little to do with the Jewish people. A long time ago, some Jew went and fathered some children in Ethiopia and converted some to Judaism. They are Ethiopians, with the typical low IQ.
But because the Israelis overestimated the importance of the haplotype, ignoring the fact that the majority of their other genes are foreign to Jews, they invited them to Israel, where they now are a low-IQ, underproducing, resentful minority group. This is not going to change until the Falashas intermarry with some people with a higher IQ. Then they will be able to join Israeli society in a productive way.
Israel, and really no society, can afford this type of folly. A haplotype is a marker of the origin of the group's founder; it does not create the whole ethnicity. All of a person's genes make them what they are. Only looking at one gene from the founder and saying that's all that matters is politics, not science.
@ latte island
You're right in that there's more to genetic genealogy than haplotype.
It's a new science. It will take awhile to work out the details.
Now the thinking is along the lines of genes and chromosones, in particular the Y-chromosome markers, from which they can identify Cohanim and Levites
Shirl in Oz,
There seems to be an assumption that Zionists get a free ticket to defame critics of Israel by accusing them of 'anti-semitism',well there isn't. You're the person who is obsessed with genetics, not me, and you are the person whose prejudices have been exposed. I didn't make any anti-semitic statements,however your attitude towards Arabs is obvious and shameless.
Accusations of 'anti-semitism' no longer deter critics of
Zionist ideology, as accusations of 'Islamophobia' don't deter critics of Islam. What do you think inspired the Islamists to invent 'Islamophobia'?
If you can't muster any ethical or moral arguments in support of Israel's war against the Palestinians don't resort to ad hominem attacks on critics of Israel.
Israel is not an ally against the Jihad it's fighting its own colonial war for its own reasons.
I beg your pardon...mace
You were the one who started with your antisemtic comment not me. I would suggst you find out what the working definiiton of antisemitism is.
As for being "obsessed with genetics" that happenes to be the converstation in hand, by a few people and I just happen to work in that field !!
I have no problems with Arabs, I have a fair few Arab friends
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