Arabic Bible Study 6:00 P: Fill & Download for Free

Quite a bit.Historical references from other countries:HISTORY OF PALESTINE 1150 BCE through 1500 CEOctober 27, 2015 at 1:08 PMThis is an incomplete history, but does show a Palestinian history prior to the Kingdom of Israel and the Roman Empire, and that Palestine existed through history.BCE1150 BCE Land of “Peleset” referred to in numerous Egyptian heiroglyphics, refering to their neighbors during the 20th dynastyFirst mention was in the texts at the temple of Medinet Habu referring to the “Sea People during Ramsses III reign.800 BCE The Assyrians called them the Palashtu or Pilistu. There were references to them for over a century.5th century BCE- Herodotus wrote about Palaistine in The Histories^ In his work, Herodotus referred to the practice of male circumcision associated with the Hebrew people: "the Colchians, the Egyptians, and the Ethiopians, are the only nations who have practised circumcision from the earliest times. The Phoenicians and the Syrians of Palestine themselves confess that they learnt the custom of the Egyptians.... Now these are the only nations who use circumcision." The History of Herodotus^ Beloe, W., Rev., Herodotus, (tr. from Greek), with notes, Vol.II, London, 1821, p.269 "It should be remembered that Syria is always regarded by Herodotus as synonymous with Assyria. What the Greeks called Palestine the Arabs call Falastin, which is the Philistines of Scripture."^ Elyahu Green, Geographic names of places in Israel in Herodotos This is confirmed by George Rawlinson in the third book (Thalia) of The Histories where Palaestinian Syrians are part of the fifth tax district spanning the territory from Phoenicia to the borders of Egypt, but excludes the kingdom of Arabs who were exempt from tax for providing the Assyrian army with water on its march to Egypt. These people had a large city called Cadytis, identified as Jerusalem.4th century BCE Aristotle wrote about the Dead Sea in Palestine in his book, Meteorology,"Again if, as is fabled, there is a lake in Palestine, such that if you bind a man or beast and throw it in it floats and does not sink, this would bear out what we have said. They say that this lake is so bitter and salt that no fish live in it and that if you soak clothes in it and shake them it cleans them," an obvious reference to the Dead Sea.Later writers such as Polemon, and Pausanias also used the term to refer to the same region. This usage was followed by Roman writers such as Ovid, Tibullus, Pomponius Mela, Pliny the Elder,[15] Statius, as well as Roman-era Greek writers such as Plutarch, Dio Chrysostom and Roman-era Judean writers such as Philo of Alexandria[16] and Josephus.135 CE After the Bar Kokhba Revolt, the Romans called it Syria Palaestina*In Hebrew, the name Palestine (פלשת) and the name Philistine (פלשתי) are pretty much the same, and Philistine literally means One Of Palestine. The Philistines are descendants of the Casluhim, who were sons of Mizraim, son of Ham, son of Noah (Genesis 10:14).********Peleshet (פלשת Pəlésheth)- usually translated as Philistia in English, is used in the Bible more than 250 times.In the Torah / Pentateuch the term is used 10 times and its boundaries are undefined. The later Historical books (see Deuteronomistic history) include most of the biblical references, almost 200 of which are in the Book of Judges and the Books of Samuel, where the term is used to denote the southern coastal region to the west of the ancient Kingdom of Judah.1500sAs for the early population of Palestine, even the Jewish virtual library puts the Jewish population at less than 2% in 1517 ( http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Society_&_Culture/israel_palestine_pop.html )According to the founder of Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics Roberto Bachi there were :219 000 Muslims,11 000 Christians andonly 2 000 Jews in the year 1690.So Muslims were the vast majority. Even by each Palestinian city, you can see that. In the middle of the 16th century for example Hebron had 749 Muslim taxable households to only 20 Jewish. Jerusalem had 7,287 Muslims and only 1,363 Jews. Nablus 806 Muslim households to only 15 Jewish. Safed had 1,121 Muslim households to 716 Jewish (Jewish community of Safed was just formed at that time of Jewish refugees from Spain).SHAKESPEAREthere are also references to "Palestine" in Shakespeare. In Othello, Act 4, scene 3, "I know a lady in Venice would have walked bare-foot to Palestine for a touch of his nether lip". In King John, Act 2, Scene 1, "fought Holy Wars in Palestine". Othello was written between 1601 and 1604. King John Was written in 1594-1596.1600s"Palaestina ex monumentis veteribus illustrata" - a detailed geographical survey of Palestine in 1696 written in Latin by Adriaan Reland published by Willem Broedelet, Utrecht, in 1714.1800sAs early as 1882 Ben-Yehuda and Yehiel Michal Pines, Zionist pioneers in Palestine, talked about 500 000 Arabs living in Palestine.Ahad Ha'am, the founder of cultural Zionism, visited Palestine in 1891 and described it as Arab developed land. The founder of Israel David Ben Gorion, spoke about Arab farmers as descendants of ancient Hebrews. Michael Bar-Zohar, Ben-Gurion's official biographer, said that Palestine was not an empty land, and the Jews were only a small minority of its population.^ a b Robinson, Edward, Physical geography of the Holy Land, Crocker & Brewster, Boston, 1865, p.15. Robinson, writing in 1865 when travel by Europeans to the Ottoman Empire became common asserts that, "Palestine, or Palestina, now the most common name for the Holy Land, occurs three times in the English version of the Old Testament; and is there put for the Hebrew name פלשת, elsewhere rendered Philistia. As thus used, it refers strictly and only to the country of the Philistines, in the southwest corner of the land. So, too, in the Greek form, Παλαςτίνη), it is used by Josephus. But both Josephus and Philo apply the name to the whole land of the Hebrews ; and Greek and Roman writers employed it in the like extent."^ Studies in Hellenistic Judaism ：Louis H. Feldman1900sArthur Ruppin the founder of the Bit Shalom Kibbutz movement, said that in Palestine there were hardly any more arable unsettled lands, Israel Zangwill, another Zionist leader in 1900 said that the pashalik of Jerusalem is already twice as thickly populated as the United States, having fifty-two souls to the square mile, and not 25% of them Jews, ...1910shttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Nablus_%281918%29Filastin was a daily newspaper published from 1911-1967 in Palestine. Published from Jaffa, the principal publishers (who edited and owned the paper) were Issa El-Issa and his cousin Yousef El-Issa.[1] Both El-Issas were Greek Orthodox, opponents of British administration, and supporters of pan-Arab unity. The paper supported the Committee of Union and Progress, opposed Zionism, and promoted Palestinian nationalism.[2]**1919: Aref Al-Dajani President of the Palestine Arab Congress, (also president of the Jerusalem Christian-Muslim Society). Also part of the Executive Committee were Izzat Darwaza and Yusef al-‘Isa, editor of paper Falastin, the newspaper of Palestine. (So much for an invented people.)1920s**1920-1934: Musa al-Husayni, former mayor of Jerusalem was elected President of the Palestine Arab Congress. It had 36 delegates, including Sheik Suleiman al-Taji Al-Faruqi, Daoud Issa, and head of the Catholic community -Bullus Shehadeh. The congress was opened by Haifa's mufti, Muhammad Murad.1921 Musa Kazem led a delegation from the executive committee to meet the British Colonial Secretary, Winston Churchill.1922- funds were raised by the 100 delegate Congress and Executive Committee by the selling of stamps that depicted the Dome of the Rock and said "Palestine for the Arabs" in English and Arabic. (again...usage of the national identity term “Palestine.”A Women's Congress, attended by 200 women, was convened in 1929. Organisers included Wahida al-Khalidi (wife of Hussein al-Khalidi) and Amina al-Husayni (wife of Jamal al-Husayni). It was led by Salma al-Husayni, wife of Musa Kazim.1930s**1934, Christian executive vice-president Yacoub Farraj became acting president. The Palestine Arab Congress was eventually broken up by the British and other groups took its place in a splintered Palestine.April - Palestine Arab Party established.23 June - Reform Party (Palestine) established.**1935- 25 April – The Arab Higher Committee is established, on the initiative of the Mufti of Jerusalem Hajj Amin al-Husayni, to oppose British rule and Jewish claims in Palestine.**1936-1939 Palestine Arab Revolt for Independence against the British. Palestinian Arabs -Arab Higher Committee (until October 1937)Central Committee of National Jihad in Palestine (from October 1937) 1 in 10 Palestinian adults were murdered by the British and led to greater support for the Zionist immigration and division of Palestine. Palestine was lead by city leaders during this time. Each city had its own leader and coordinated attacks against the British.**********From 1939-1948 Britain and Palestinians fought. Zionist immigration expands dramatically, most of the Kibbutzes are founded. thousands of Palestinians are murdered and most Palestinian villages are destroyed.Jewish women were pressured and used to spy and to curry favor with British soldiers during the mandate period. These women were later persecuted, ousted from Israeli society, kidnapped and murdered by Jewish extremist groups who didn’t know these women were forced into these relationships by those working for Israel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkUydwFWAVU“Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushua in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population.”– David Ben Gurion, quoted in The Jewish Paradox, by Nahum Goldmann, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1978, p. 99″We will expel the Arabs and take their place. In each attack a decisive blow should be struck resulting in the destruction of homes and expulsion of the population.” David Ben Gurion, Letter to his son, 1937"We came here to a country that was populated by Arabs and we are building here a Hebrew, a Jewish state; instead of the Arab villages, Jewish villages were established. You even do not know the names of those villages, and I do not blame you because these villages no longer exist. There is not a single Jewish settlement that was not established in the place of a former Arab Village." ­ Moshe Dyan, March 19, 1969, speech at the Technion in Haifa, quoted in Ha'aretz, April 4, 1969.Then there is DNA studies that supports Palestinians coming from a core population in the area from thousands of years ago. And DNA studies that tie Palestinians to the ancient Israelis, proving that Palestinians are the descendants of ancient Israelis:“Another team, lead by Almut Nebel at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, took a closer look in 2001. They found that Jewish lineages essentially bracket Muslim Kurds, but they were also very closely related to Palestinians. In fact, what their analysis suggested was that Palestinians were identical to Jews, but with a small mix of Arab genes – what you would expect if they were originally from the same stock, but that Palestinians had mixed a little with Arab immigrants. They conclude:We propose that the Y chromosomes in Palestinian Arabs and Bedouin represent, to a large extent, early lineages derived from the Neolithic inhabitants of the area and additional lineages from more-recent population movements. The early lineages are part of the common chromosome pool shared with Jews (Nebel et al. 2000). According to our working model, the more-recent migrations were mostly from the Arabian Peninsula…So, as far as male lineage goes, the genetic story is very clear. Palestinians and Jews are virtually indistinguishable.M. F. Hammer (2000). Jewish and Middle Eastern non-Jewish populations share a common pool of Y-chromosome biallelic haplotypes Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 97 (12), 6769-6774 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.100115997A NEBEL, D FILON, B BRINKMANN, P MAJUMDER, M FAERMAN, A OPPENHEIM (2001). The Y Chromosome Pool of Jews as Part of the Genetic Landscape of the Middle East The American Journal of Human Genetics, 69 (5), 1095-1112 DOI: 10.1086/324070M THOMAS (2002). Founding Mothers of Jewish Communities: Geographically Separated Jewish Groups Were Independently Founded by Very Few Female Ancestors The American Journal of Human Genetics, 70 (6), 1411-1420 DOI: 10.1086/340609Doron M. Behar, Ene Metspalu, Toomas Kivisild, Saharon Rosset, Shay Tzur, Yarin Hadid, Guennady Yudkovsky, Dror Rosengarten, Luisa Pereira, Antonio Amorim, Ildus Kutuev, David Gurwitz, Batsheva Bonne-Tamir, Richard Villems, Karl Skorecki (2008). Counting the Founders: The Matrilineal Genetic Ancestry of the Jewish Diaspora PLoS ONE, 3 (4) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0002062″*********************************Haaretz - Israel NewsSaturday, December 15, 2018.Tevet 7, 5779 Time in Israel: 11:00 PMScience & HealthBlood Brothers: Palestinians and Jews Share Genetic RootsJews break down into three genetic groups, all of which have Middle Eastern origins – which are shared with the Palestinians and Druze.Josie GlausiuszBlood brothers: Palestinians and Jews share genetic rootsConfronted by the violence sweeping over Israel, it can be easy to overlook the things that Jews and Palestinians share: a deep attachment to the same sliver of contested land, a shared appetite for hummus, a common tradition of descent from the patriarch Abraham, and, as scientific research shows - a common genetic ancestry, as well.Several major studies published in the past five years attest to these ancient hereditary links. At the forefront of these efforts are two researchers: Harry Ostrer, professor of pediatrics and pathology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York, and Karl Skorecki, director of medical and research development at the Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa. Back in June 2010, and within two days of each other, the two scientists and their research teams published extensive analyses of the genetic origins of the Jewish people and their Near East ancestry.*********************************************American author and Professor of Political Science Alan Dowty put it best when he wrote, "Palestinians are the descendants of all the indigenous peoples who lived in Palestine over the centuries." Moreover, studies suggest, that part, if not the majority of Arabs living in Palestine, descend from a core population that dates back thousands of years. I Traveled to Palestine-Israel and Discovered There Is No 'Palestinian-Israeli Conflict'************************************Finally…population studies and comments from Zionists, themselves:1517- As for the early population of Palestine, even the Jewish virtual library puts the Jewish population at less than 2% in 1517( http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsou... )In the middle of the 16th century:Hebron had 749 Muslim taxable households to only 20 Jewish.Jerusalem had 7,287 Muslims and only 1,363 Jews.Nablus 806 Muslim households to only 15 Jewish.Safed had 1,121 Muslim households to 716 Jewish (Jewish community of Safed was just formed at that time of Jewish refugees from Spain). http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsou...1690-According to the founder of Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics Roberto Bachi there were 219 000 Muslims,11 000 Christians and only2 000 Jews in the year 1690. So Muslims were the vast majority.1696- "Palaestina ex monumentis veteribus illustrata" - a detailed geographical survey of Palestine in 1696 written in Latin by Adriaan Reland published by Willem Broedelet, Utrecht, in 1714.Residents of the REGION mainly concentrated in cities: Jerusalem, Acre, Safed, Jaffa, Tiberias and Gaza.Nablus: 120 muslims, 70 SamaritansNazareth: 700 people - all ChristiansUmm al-Fahm: 50 people-10 families, ALL ChristianGaza: 550 people- 300 Jews, 250 Christian(Jews engaged in agriculture, Christians deal with the trading and transporting the products)Tiberias:  300 residents, all Jews.Safed: about 200 inhabitants, all JewsJerusalem: 5000 people, most of them (3,500) Jews, the rest - Christian (1000) Muslim (500)note**Christians and Muslims are Palestinians.1882- Jewish population 24,0001914- Palestinians 634,133, Jews 55,4131920- Palestinian 600,000+ Jews 66, 5741931-British Census found Palestinians outnumbered Jews 2 to 1 (and most of the Jews were immigrants from Europe, in Jerusalem. Surrounding areas were 98% Palestinian.1948- The Ad Hoc Committee on the Palestinian Question in the United Nations found in 1948 that, except for Haifa, "the Arabs have a clear majority over the Jews." www.palestine-encyclopedia.com.***********************************From 1939-1948 Britain and Palestinians fought. Zionist immigration expands dramatically, most of the Kibbutzes are founded. Thousands of Palestinians are murdered and most Palestinian villages are destroyed.ZIONIST REPORTS:"We came here to a country that was populated by Arabs and we are building here a Hebrew, a Jewish state; instead of the Arab villages, Jewish villages were established. You even do not know the names of those villages, and I do not blame you because these villages no longer exist. There is not a single Jewish settlement that was not established in the place of a former Arab Village." ­ Moshe Dyan, March 19, 1969, speech at the Technion in Haifa, quoted in Ha'aretz, April 4, 1969.“Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushua in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population.”– David Ben Gurion, quoted in The Jewish Paradox, by Nahum Goldmann, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1978, p. 99″As early as 1882 Ben-Yehuda and Yehiel Michal Pines, Zionist pioneers in Palestine, talked about 500 000 Arabs living in Palestine.Ahad Ha'am, the founder of cultural Zionism, visited Palestine in 1891 and described it as Arab developed landThe founder of Israel David Ben Gorion, spoke about Arab farmers as descendants of ancient Hebrews.Michael Bar-Zohar, Ben-Gurion's official biographer, said that Palestine was not an empty land, and the Jews were only a small minority of its population.1900 Arthur Ruppin the founder of the Bit Shalom Kibbutz movement, said that in Palestine there were hardly any more arable unsettled lands, Israel Zangwill, another Zionist leader in 1900 said that the pashalik of Jerusalem is already twice as thickly populated as the United States, having fifty-two souls to the square mile, and not 25% of them Jews.“We will expel the Arabs and take their place. In each attack a decisive blow should be struck resulting in the destruction of homes and expulsion of the population.” David Ben Gurion, Letter to his son, 1937***********************************American author and Professor of Political Science Alan Dowty put it best when he wrote, "Palestinians are the descendants of all the indigenous peoples who lived in Palestine over the centuries." Moreover, studies suggest, that part, if not the majority of Arabs living in Palestine, descend from a core population that dates back thousands of years.**********************************Oh, and linguistically, Palestinian Arabic differs than other forms of Arabic, suggesting a distinct split form other Arab speakers.Even other Levantine Arabic (Lebanon, Jordanian) has differences from Palestinian Arabic speakers.Palestinians were traditionally better educated, women more independent (Palestinian women PhDs out numbered Western women PhDs per capita as late as the 1980s), and more religiously diverse than any other Arab state.

Cannanites.And no, Palestine is not a Roman invention, not invented by Arafat. Palestinians were Palestinian since the time of ancient Egypt and were written about as Palestinians in ancient Egyptian heiroglyphics.BCE1150 BCE Land of “Peleset” referred to in numerous Egyptian heiroglyphics, refering to their neighbors during the 20th dynastyFirst mention was in the texts at the temple of Medinet Habu referring to the “Sea People during Ramsses III reign.800 BCE The Assyrians called them the Palashtu or Pilistu. There were references to them for over a century.5th century BCE- Herodotus wrote about Palaistine in The Histories^ In his work, Herodotus referred to the practice of male circumcision associated with the Hebrew people: "the Colchians, the Egyptians, and the Ethiopians, are the only nations who have practised circumcision from the earliest times. The Phoenicians and the Syrians of Palestine themselves confess that they learnt the custom of the Egyptians.... Now these are the only nations who use circumcision." The History of Herodotus^ Beloe, W., Rev., Herodotus, (tr. from Greek), with notes, Vol.II, London, 1821, p.269 "It should be remembered that Syria is always regarded by Herodotus as synonymous with Assyria. What the Greeks called Palestine the Arabs call Falastin, which is the Philistines of Scripture."^ Elyahu Green, Geographic names of places in Israel in Herodotos This is confirmed by George Rawlinson in the third book (Thalia) of The Histories where Palaestinian Syrians are part of the fifth tax district spanning the territory from Phoenicia to the borders of Egypt, but excludes the kingdom of Arabs who were exempt from tax for providing the Assyrian army with water on its march to Egypt. These people had a large city called Cadytis, identified as Jerusalem.4th century BCE Aristotle wrote about the Dead Sea in Palestine in his book, Meteorology,"Again if, as is fabled, there is a lake in Palestine, such that if you bind a man or beast and throw it in it floats and does not sink, this would bear out what we have said. They say that this lake is so bitter and salt that no fish live in it and that if you soak clothes in it and shake them it cleans them," an obvious reference to the Dead Sea.Later writers such as Polemon, and Pausanias also used the term to refer to the same region. This usage was followed by Roman writers such as Ovid, Tibullus, Pomponius Mela, Pliny the Elder,[15] Statius, as well as Roman-era Greek writers such as Plutarch, Dio Chrysostom and Roman-era Judean writers such as Philo of Alexandria[16] and Josephus.135 CE After the Bar Kokhba Revolt, the Romans called it Syria Palaestina*In Hebrew, the name Palestine (פלשת) and the name Philistine (פלשתי) are pretty much the same, and Philistine literally means One Of Palestine. The Philistines are descendants of the Casluhim, who were sons of Mizraim, son of Ham, son of Noah (Genesis 10:14).********Peleshet (פלשת Pəlésheth)- usually translated as Philistia in English, is used in the Bible more than 250 times.In the Torah / Pentateuch the term is used 10 times and its boundaries are undefined. The later Historical books (see Deuteronomistic history) include most of the biblical references, almost 200 of which are in the Book of Judges and the Books of Samuel, where the term is used to denote the southern coastal region to the west of the ancient Kingdom of Judah.1500sAs for the early population of Palestine, even the Jewish virtual library puts the Jewish population at less than 2% in 1517 ( Jewish & Non-Jewish Population of Israel/Palestine )According to the founder of Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics Roberto Bachi there were :219 000 Muslims,11 000 Christians andonly 2 000 Jews in the year 1690.So Muslims were the vast majority. Even by each Palestinian city, you can see that. In the middle of the 16th century for example Hebron had 749 Muslim taxable households to only 20 Jewish. Jerusalem had 7,287 Muslims and only 1,363 Jews. Nablus 806 Muslim households to only 15 Jewish. Safed had 1,121 Muslim households to 716 Jewish (Jewish community of Safed was just formed at that time of Jewish refugees from Spain).SHAKESPEAREthere are also references to "Palestine" in Shakespeare. In Othello, Act 4, scene 3, "I know a lady in Venice would have walked bare-foot to Palestine for a touch of his nether lip". In King John, Act 2, Scene 1, "fought Holy Wars in Palestine". Othello was written between 1601 and 1604. King John Was written in 1594-1596.1600s"Palaestina ex monumentis veteribus illustrata" - a detailed geographical survey of Palestine in 1696 written in Latin by Adriaan Reland published by Willem Broedelet, Utrecht, in 1714.“Another team, lead by Almut Nebel at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, took a closer look in 2001. They found that Jewish lineages essentially bracket Muslim Kurds, but they were also very closely related to Palestinians. In fact, what their analysis suggested was that Palestinians were identical to Jews, but with a small mix of Arab genes – what you would expect if they were originally from the same stock, but that Palestinians had mixed a little with Arab immigrants. They conclude:We propose that the Y chromosomes in Palestinian Arabs and Bedouin represent, to a large extent, early lineages derived from the Neolithic inhabitants of the area and additional lineages from more-recent population movements. The early lineages are part of the common chromosome pool shared with Jews (Nebel et al. 2000). According to our working model, the more-recent migrations were mostly from the Arabian Peninsula…So, as far as male lineage goes, the genetic story is very clear. Palestinians and Jews are virtually indistinguishable.M. F. Hammer (2000). Jewish and Middle Eastern non-Jewish populations share a common pool of Y-chromosome biallelic haplotypes Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 97 (12), 6769-6774 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.100115997A NEBEL, D FILON, B BRINKMANN, P MAJUMDER, M FAERMAN, A OPPENHEIM (2001). The Y Chromosome Pool of Jews as Part of the Genetic Landscape of the Middle East The American Journal of Human Genetics, 69 (5), 1095-1112 DOI: 10.1086/324070M THOMAS (2002). Founding Mothers of Jewish Communities: Geographically Separated Jewish Groups Were Independently Founded by Very Few Female Ancestors The American Journal of Human Genetics, 70 (6), 1411-1420 DOI: 10.1086/340609Doron M. Behar, Ene Metspalu, Toomas Kivisild, Saharon Rosset, Shay Tzur, Yarin Hadid, Guennady Yudkovsky, Dror Rosengarten, Luisa Pereira, Antonio Amorim, Ildus Kutuev, David Gurwitz, Batsheva Bonne-Tamir, Richard Villems, Karl Skorecki (2008). Counting the Founders: The Matrilineal Genetic Ancestry of the Jewish Diaspora PLoS ONE, 3 (4) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0002062″Haaretz - Israel NewsSaturday, December 15, 2018.Tevet 7, 5779 Time in Israel: 11:00 PMScience & HealthBlood Brothers: Palestinians and Jews Share Genetic RootsJews break down into three genetic groups, all of which have Middle Eastern origins – which are shared with the Palestinians and Druze.Josie GlausiuszBlood brothers: Palestinians and Jews share genetic rootsConfronted by the violence sweeping over Israel, it can be easy to overlook the things that Jews and Palestinians share: a deep attachment to the same sliver of contested land, a shared appetite for hummus, a common tradition of descent from the patriarch Abraham, and, as scientific research shows - a common genetic ancestry, as well.Several major studies published in the past five years attest to these ancient hereditary links. At the forefront of these efforts are two researchers: Harry Ostrer, professor of pediatrics and pathology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York, and Karl Skorecki, director of medical and research development at the Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa. Back in June 2010, and within two days of each other, the two scientists and their research teams published extensive analyses of the genetic origins of the Jewish people and their Near East ancestry.“The closest genetic neighbors to most Jewish groups were the Palestinians, Israeli Bedouins, and Druze in addition to the Southern Europeans, including Cypriots,” as Ostrer and Skorecki wrote in a review of their findings that they co-authored in the journal Human Genetics in October 2012.“Karl and I are good friends,” Ostrer told Haaretz by telephone from New York. “We used somewhat different analytical methods—there’s no claim there for superiority, or one side versus the other.” In their results, as well, “there was really very little difference at all.”Ostrer’s research on “Abraham’s Children in the Genome Era,” published in The American Journal of Human Genetics, sampled 652,000 gene variants from each of 237 unrelated individuals from seven Jewish populations: Iranian, Iraqi, Syrian, Italian, Turkish, Greek and Ashkenazi. These sequences were then compared with reference samples from non-Jews drawn from The Human Genome Diversity Project, a global database of genetic information gathered from populations across the world.Each of the Jewish populations, they found, “formed its own distinctive cluster,” indicating their shared ancestry and “relative genetic isolation.”Ostrer’s team also identified two major groups of Jews: Middle Eastern Jews (Iranian and Iraqi) and European/Syrian Jews. The split between these two groups of Jews occurred some 2,500 years ago.Cousins with the Druze and FrenchBoth groups of Jews shared ancestry with contemporary Middle Eastern and Southern European populations. The closest genetic relatives of the Middle Eastern Jews are Druze, Bedouin and Palestinians. The closest genetic relatives of the European group of Jews are Northern Italians, followed by Sardinians and French.In a 2012 study, Ostrer identified North African Jews as a third major group. In Skorecki’s study on the genome-wide structure of the Jewish people, published in the journal Nature, he and his fellow researchers sampled tens of thousands of genetic variants from the genomes of 121 individuals hailing from 14 Jewish Diaspora communities, and compared these variants with samples drawn from 1,166 individuals from 69 Old World non-Jewish populations.They found that Jews from the Caucasus (Azerbaijan and Georgia), the Middle East (Iran and Iraq) North Africa (Morocco) and Sephardi and Ashkenazi communities, as well as Samaritans, form a “tight cluster” that overlaps with Israeli Druze.This, the authors write, “is consistent with an ancestral Levantine contribution to much of contemporary Jewry.”In addition, a “compact cluster” of Yemenite Jews “overlaps primarily with Bedouins but also with Saudi individuals.” Ethiopian and Indian Jews are more closely related to their own neighboring, host populations.Middle East origins in European JewsFurther evidence for the Middle Eastern origins of Ashjenazi Jews came from a study published in 2014: In that research, which appeared in Nature Communications, a team led by Shai Carmi of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem sequenced the complete genomes of 128 people of Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry. Their analysis revealed that the Ashkenazi Jewish population is “an even mix” of European and Middle Eastern ancestral populations—suggesting, as Carmi writes on the web site of The Ashkenazi Genome Consortium (TAGC), “a sex-biased process, where, say, Middle-Eastern Jewish men married European non-Jewish women.”Are these genetic ties between Jews, Palestinians, Bedouin, and Druze important in a contemporary context? “It doesn’t matter to me personally,” Skorecki says, “since I think that global human identity supersedes all other considerations.”“We want to know who we are and where we came from,” Ostrer, who is now studying cancer risks among Ashkenazi Jews and Northern Israeli Druze populations, sums up. Even so, shared ancestry doesn’t necessarily imply a special bond. As Ostrer notes, citing the Biblical tale of Cain and Abel, “the fact that people are related to one another doesn’t prevent their developing extreme hostility to one another.”