The Palestinians are refugees from an ancient homeland to which they will always earn to return.
Reader comment on item: [UNRWA:] The Refugee Curse

Submitted by Jack Gardner (United States), Sep 1, 2003 at 05:06

The plight of Palestinian refugees is also perpetuated by the fact that they represent the indigenous population of historic Palestine. Their history is in the buildings, villages, holy sites, etc. and it is highly unlikely that they would be willing to give up their historical homeland. This natural tendancy amongst the ancient indigenous peoples is also fostered by the fact that the Palestinians are refused citizenship in the countries adjacent the Holy Land. Since they have very tight family relationships, it is also unreasonable to expect the Palestinians to willingly be dispersed throughout the world where they will not be able to return home and visit relatives and the land of their origin. The Palestinians have managed to remain in Palestine during the brutal oppression of centuries of dictators including the British, Turkish Empire, Ottoman Empire, Arabs, Crusaders, Romans, Greeks, etc. which of course brings up another issue. Who are the Palestinians? Tradition and history demonstrate (to educated historians) that the Palestinians are descendants of the first century Christian sect of Judaism. Modern genetic archeology proves unquestionably that this historical impression is correct. The majority of Palestinians are not ethnic "Arabs" but are in fact descendants of the ancient Israelites making them ethnic Hebrews. (A fact which most Palestinians are perfectly aware.) The complete ignorance of most regarding the actual identity of the Palestinians is shocking. See references pasted below for an extensive investigation of the Palestinian genome by Hebrew University. The crux of which, is the fact that many Jewish groups are more closely related to Palestinians then are other Jewish groups. The Palestinians are more closely related to the Jews then to the Arabs. (The Palestinians are also more closely related to the Kurds, Turks, and Armenians then to most Arabs.) The ancestors of modern-day Jews of the Diaspora were forced out of the Holy Land 2000 years ago, while their Palestinian brothers were left clinging to the land for 2000 years, and they won't let it go nor should they be expected to do so. These facts also support the return of Jews to Israel but not the exclusion of Palestinians since both have an ancestrial claim based on the mythos that G-d gave their ancestors the land. Of course, at the time G-d purportedly did this, they were the same ancestors.

References:

Almut Nebel, Dvora Filon, Bernd Brinkmann, Partha P. Majumder, Marina Faerman, and Ariella Oppenheim. "The Y Chromosome Pool of Jews as Part of the Genetic Landscape of the Middle East." The American Journal of Human Genetics 69:5 (November 2001): 1095-1112. http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/AJHG/journal/issues/v69n5/013033/brief/013033.abstract.html

Mark G. Thomas, Michael E. Weale, Abigail L. Jones, Martin Richards, Alice Smith, Nicola Redhead, Antonio Torroni, Rosaria Scozzari, Fiona Gratrix, Ayele Tarekegn, James F. Wilson, Cristian Capelli, Neil Bradman, and David B. Goldstein. "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 (June 2002): 1411-1420. http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/AJHG/journal/issues/v70n6/013504/brief/013504.abstract.html

Almut Nebel, Ariella Oppenheim, Dvora Filon, Mark G. Thomas, D. A. Weiss, M. Weale, Marina Faerman. "High-resolution Y chromosome haplotypes of Israeli and Palestinian Arabs reveal geographic substructure and substantial overlap with haplotypes of Jews." Human Genetics 107(6) (December 2000): 630-641.
http://www.springerlink.com/app/home/journal.asp?wasp=mgat4efuyn1ytwamexej&referrer=parent&backto=linkingpublicationresults,id:100421,1 (unfortunately this reference which is the most definitive is not available for free)

Michael F. Hammer, Alan J. Redd, Elizabeth T. Wood, M. R. Bonner, Hamdi Jarjanazi, Tanya Karafet, Silvana Santachiara-Benerecetti, Ariella Oppenheim, Mark A. Jobling, Trefor Jenkins, Harry Ostrer, and Batsheva Bonné-Tamir. "Jewish and Middle Eastern non-Jewish Populations Share a Common Pool of Y-chromosome Biallelic Haplotypes.", PNAS 97:12 (June 6, 2000): 6769-6774.
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/97/12/6769

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