According to fascinating new research, scientists believe the genetic profile of many Palestinians in the West Bank is actually closer to that of Ashkenazi (i.e. European) Jews than to the general Arab populations in the Middle East.
If accurate, this discovery adds yet more (ironic) weight to the idea that the stateless, much maligned Palestinian is eerily similar to the so-called ‘Wandering Jew.’
Like the Jews, many of today’s Palestinians are (or, more accurately, are descendants of) people who were forced to leave their homes in the land between the river and the sea. While the details differ widely – and importantly – it is nonetheless true that Palestinian refugee was born of dispossession. First by their myopic leaders and Arab ‘brothers,’ who in 1948 rejected peace in favor of war, encouraged an exodus (with some help, we now know, from the Israelis), and spun a fantasy about the victorious return of the Palestinians to enjoy the spoils of war on the grave of a defeated Israel. And second, by many of these same and subsequent Arab ‘brothers,’ who set out to ensure the destitute refugees would irrevocably remain so.
In Lebanon, for example, a quarter of a million Palestinian refugees are denied the right to own property, or to work as doctors, lawyers or specialists in other important professions. In the other refugee ‘camps’ – now more like towns, really – throughout Arabia, the Palestinians do not fare much better (except perhaps in Jordan), where their exclusion from basic civil rights and the construction of myriad barriers to normality evoke the Jewish ghettos of Europe.
The Palestinian tragedy at the hands of their politically manipulative brethren is exacerbated by the desire to magnify this problem for international consumption, ensuring no solution is found in peace or negotiation.
Further reading:
Global Politician
RaelPress
