Kahanistan
28-06-2007, 00:58
This may be an old article, but it predates NSG by some time and I don't think a lot of people know about it, so it's seriously worthy of discussion.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,605798,00.html
Journal axes gene research on Jews and Palestinians
Robin McKie, science editor
Sunday November 25, 2001
The Observer
A keynote research paper showing that Middle Eastern Jews and Palestinians are genetically almost identical has been pulled from a leading journal.
Academics who have already received copies of Human Immunology have been urged to rip out the offending pages and throw them away.
"Offending" pages? So it's "offending" to claim that two groups of Semites living right on each other's doorsteps are genetically related? I'd be surprised if they weren't related.
Such a drastic act of self-censorship is unprecedented in research publishing and has created widespread disquiet, generating fears that it may involve the suppression of scientific work that questions Biblical dogma.
And in ten years from now, or fifty, or one hundred years from now... will we return to a Dark Age when scientific pursuits were frowned upon, and return to cre(a)ti(o)nism as the main explanation for our existence?
I have no doubt that this act of censorship was politically motivated. Now, I don't buy into Jewish conspiracy theories. "The Jews" are not a unified ideological hivemind. "The Jews" can't even agree on whether or not Israel has a right to exist, or what to do about their conflict with the Arabs. These are not the Borg we're talking about. I find it very difficult to believe that "the Jews," numbering some 15 million people scattered in dozens of different countries, engaged in a conspiracy of any sort.
However, it is possible that someone in a position of power may have been motivated to influence the journal to retract its article.
'I have authored several hundred scientific papers, some for Nature and Science, and this has never happened to me before,' said the article's lead author, Spanish geneticist Professor Antonio Arnaiz-Villena, of Complutense University in Madrid. 'I am stunned.'
British geneticist Sir Walter Bodmer added: 'If the journal didn't like the paper, they shouldn't have published it in the first place. Why wait until it has appeared before acting like this?'
I fully agree. Obviously, the journal didn't have a problem with the paper. It was someone else who had a problem with it.
The journal's editor, Nicole Sucio-Foca, of Columbia University, New York, claims the article provoked such a welter of complaints over its extreme political writing that she was forced to repudiate it. The article has been removed from Human Immunology's website, while letters have been written to libraries and universities throughout the world asking them to ignore or 'preferably to physically remove the relevant pages'. Arnaiz-Villena has been sacked from the journal's editorial board.
So someone put political writing in a genetics paper? I don't see how it would fit in a paper about genetic facts, maybe in a discussion about the political ramifications of those facts, but whatever...
What gets to me is that the journal is contacting universities throughout the world, where ideas are supposed to be exchanged freely, and urging them to censor these pages. What a travesty of academic freedom.
Dolly Tyan, president of the American Society of Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics, which runs the journal, told subscribers that the society is 'offended and embarrassed'.
The paper, 'The Origin of Palestinians and their Genetic Relatedness with other Mediterranean Populations', involved studying genetic variations in immune system genes among people in the Middle East.
In common with earlier studies, the team found no data to support the idea that Jewish people were genetically distinct from other people in the region. In doing so, the team's research challenges claims that Jews are a special, chosen people and that Judaism can only be inherited.
Jews and Palestinians in the Middle East share a very similar gene pool and must be considered closely related and not genetically separate, the authors state. Rivalry between the two races is therefore based 'in cultural and religious, but not in genetic differences', they conclude.
Well, the society should be offended and embarrassed that scientists are covering up facts that state again what "earlier studies" said in common.
Of course the conflict is based on cultural and religious differences, not genetic. They're all Semites over there.
Also, I was never aware that Judaism could "only be inherited." Anyone can convert to Judaism. True, the Orthodox rabbis are supposed to discourage converts, but anyone who really wants to be a Jew can be one.
But the journal, having accepted the paper earlier this year, now claims the article was politically biased and was written using 'inappropriate' remarks about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Its editor told the journal Nature last week that she was threatened by mass resignations from members if she did not retract the article.
Arnaiz-Villena says he has not seen a single one of the accusations made against him, despite being promised the opportunity to look at the letters sent to the journal.
So they claim the author used politically biased terminology, then don't give him a chance to see the accusations against him so he can refute them?
He accepts he used terms in the article that laid him open to criticism. There is one reference to Jewish 'colonists' living in the Gaza strip, and another that refers to Palestinian people living in 'concentration' camps.
'Perhaps I should have used the words settlers instead of colonists, but really, what is the difference?' he said.
'And clearly, I should have said refugee, not concentration, camps, but given that I was referring to settlements outside of Israel - in Syria and Lebanon - that scarcely makes me anti-Jewish. References to the history of the region, the ones that are supposed to be politically offensive, were taken from the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and other text books.'
Well, remember, this guy is Spanish. This alone opens up an idea: he may have used terms that are considered offensive in English, but not in the original Spanish. There is a lot of room for interpreting terms such as "concentration camp" or "colonist." A concentration camp is simply a place where a certain segment of the population is concentrated - like a Palestinian refugee camp, or although it's not the point of the thread, Guantanamo Bay. However, Hitler corrupted the connotation of the word in English, so it's usually equated with Nazi camps. I'm not a fluent Spanish speaker, but it's entirely possible AFAIK that the equivalent Spanish term that might have been translated as "concentration camp" may have simply meant "camp" and was meant to be distinguished from, say, a campsite.
In the wake of the journal's actions, and claims of mass protests about the article, several scientists have now written to the society to support Arnaiz-Villena and to protest about their heavy-handedness.
One of them said: 'If Arnaiz-Villena had found evidence that Jewish people were genetically very special, instead of ordinary, you can be sure no one would have objected to the phrases he used in his article. This is a very sad business.'
Some sanity out there, at least. The scientist's quote does seem a little like s/he's open to the possibility of Jewish influence in the sciences.
---
Anyway, a few questions that might be raised if Jews and Palestinians are related...
1. If it became public knowledge in Israel and Palestine, would it affect the course of the conflict, e.g. strengthening the peace factions and/or encouraging debate among Israeli and Palestinian academics?
2. Is it possible that the Arabic-speaking Palestinian Muslims are descendants of Jews who were forcibly converted to Islam when the Muslims took Jerusalem? If so, and the Palestinians are ethnically Jews, that could upset a lot of people used to seeing Palestinians or Muslims in general as "the enemy" or simply evil.
3. Could it lead to social changes, e.g. mass conversions to Judaism among large numbers of Palestinians? Weakening the hardline militant factions on all sides? In short, turning the status quo up on its head?
4. I'm kind of just running off a few ideas that came to me when I read the article, so if anyone has other ideas, feel free to post.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,605798,00.html
Journal axes gene research on Jews and Palestinians
Robin McKie, science editor
Sunday November 25, 2001
The Observer
A keynote research paper showing that Middle Eastern Jews and Palestinians are genetically almost identical has been pulled from a leading journal.
Academics who have already received copies of Human Immunology have been urged to rip out the offending pages and throw them away.
"Offending" pages? So it's "offending" to claim that two groups of Semites living right on each other's doorsteps are genetically related? I'd be surprised if they weren't related.
Such a drastic act of self-censorship is unprecedented in research publishing and has created widespread disquiet, generating fears that it may involve the suppression of scientific work that questions Biblical dogma.
And in ten years from now, or fifty, or one hundred years from now... will we return to a Dark Age when scientific pursuits were frowned upon, and return to cre(a)ti(o)nism as the main explanation for our existence?
I have no doubt that this act of censorship was politically motivated. Now, I don't buy into Jewish conspiracy theories. "The Jews" are not a unified ideological hivemind. "The Jews" can't even agree on whether or not Israel has a right to exist, or what to do about their conflict with the Arabs. These are not the Borg we're talking about. I find it very difficult to believe that "the Jews," numbering some 15 million people scattered in dozens of different countries, engaged in a conspiracy of any sort.
However, it is possible that someone in a position of power may have been motivated to influence the journal to retract its article.
'I have authored several hundred scientific papers, some for Nature and Science, and this has never happened to me before,' said the article's lead author, Spanish geneticist Professor Antonio Arnaiz-Villena, of Complutense University in Madrid. 'I am stunned.'
British geneticist Sir Walter Bodmer added: 'If the journal didn't like the paper, they shouldn't have published it in the first place. Why wait until it has appeared before acting like this?'
I fully agree. Obviously, the journal didn't have a problem with the paper. It was someone else who had a problem with it.
The journal's editor, Nicole Sucio-Foca, of Columbia University, New York, claims the article provoked such a welter of complaints over its extreme political writing that she was forced to repudiate it. The article has been removed from Human Immunology's website, while letters have been written to libraries and universities throughout the world asking them to ignore or 'preferably to physically remove the relevant pages'. Arnaiz-Villena has been sacked from the journal's editorial board.
So someone put political writing in a genetics paper? I don't see how it would fit in a paper about genetic facts, maybe in a discussion about the political ramifications of those facts, but whatever...
What gets to me is that the journal is contacting universities throughout the world, where ideas are supposed to be exchanged freely, and urging them to censor these pages. What a travesty of academic freedom.
Dolly Tyan, president of the American Society of Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics, which runs the journal, told subscribers that the society is 'offended and embarrassed'.
The paper, 'The Origin of Palestinians and their Genetic Relatedness with other Mediterranean Populations', involved studying genetic variations in immune system genes among people in the Middle East.
In common with earlier studies, the team found no data to support the idea that Jewish people were genetically distinct from other people in the region. In doing so, the team's research challenges claims that Jews are a special, chosen people and that Judaism can only be inherited.
Jews and Palestinians in the Middle East share a very similar gene pool and must be considered closely related and not genetically separate, the authors state. Rivalry between the two races is therefore based 'in cultural and religious, but not in genetic differences', they conclude.
Well, the society should be offended and embarrassed that scientists are covering up facts that state again what "earlier studies" said in common.
Of course the conflict is based on cultural and religious differences, not genetic. They're all Semites over there.
Also, I was never aware that Judaism could "only be inherited." Anyone can convert to Judaism. True, the Orthodox rabbis are supposed to discourage converts, but anyone who really wants to be a Jew can be one.
But the journal, having accepted the paper earlier this year, now claims the article was politically biased and was written using 'inappropriate' remarks about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Its editor told the journal Nature last week that she was threatened by mass resignations from members if she did not retract the article.
Arnaiz-Villena says he has not seen a single one of the accusations made against him, despite being promised the opportunity to look at the letters sent to the journal.
So they claim the author used politically biased terminology, then don't give him a chance to see the accusations against him so he can refute them?
He accepts he used terms in the article that laid him open to criticism. There is one reference to Jewish 'colonists' living in the Gaza strip, and another that refers to Palestinian people living in 'concentration' camps.
'Perhaps I should have used the words settlers instead of colonists, but really, what is the difference?' he said.
'And clearly, I should have said refugee, not concentration, camps, but given that I was referring to settlements outside of Israel - in Syria and Lebanon - that scarcely makes me anti-Jewish. References to the history of the region, the ones that are supposed to be politically offensive, were taken from the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and other text books.'
Well, remember, this guy is Spanish. This alone opens up an idea: he may have used terms that are considered offensive in English, but not in the original Spanish. There is a lot of room for interpreting terms such as "concentration camp" or "colonist." A concentration camp is simply a place where a certain segment of the population is concentrated - like a Palestinian refugee camp, or although it's not the point of the thread, Guantanamo Bay. However, Hitler corrupted the connotation of the word in English, so it's usually equated with Nazi camps. I'm not a fluent Spanish speaker, but it's entirely possible AFAIK that the equivalent Spanish term that might have been translated as "concentration camp" may have simply meant "camp" and was meant to be distinguished from, say, a campsite.
In the wake of the journal's actions, and claims of mass protests about the article, several scientists have now written to the society to support Arnaiz-Villena and to protest about their heavy-handedness.
One of them said: 'If Arnaiz-Villena had found evidence that Jewish people were genetically very special, instead of ordinary, you can be sure no one would have objected to the phrases he used in his article. This is a very sad business.'
Some sanity out there, at least. The scientist's quote does seem a little like s/he's open to the possibility of Jewish influence in the sciences.
---
Anyway, a few questions that might be raised if Jews and Palestinians are related...
1. If it became public knowledge in Israel and Palestine, would it affect the course of the conflict, e.g. strengthening the peace factions and/or encouraging debate among Israeli and Palestinian academics?
2. Is it possible that the Arabic-speaking Palestinian Muslims are descendants of Jews who were forcibly converted to Islam when the Muslims took Jerusalem? If so, and the Palestinians are ethnically Jews, that could upset a lot of people used to seeing Palestinians or Muslims in general as "the enemy" or simply evil.
3. Could it lead to social changes, e.g. mass conversions to Judaism among large numbers of Palestinians? Weakening the hardline militant factions on all sides? In short, turning the status quo up on its head?
4. I'm kind of just running off a few ideas that came to me when I read the article, so if anyone has other ideas, feel free to post.