“According to a 2016 summary by genetic researchers Ariella Gladstein and Michael F. Hammer, however, “Ashkenazi Jews are not closely related to modern populations that best represent the Khazars.” Rather, they “appear equally close to both Middle Eastern and European populations,” and they “likely arose from a genetically diverse population in the Middle East.”
Notably, Abbas did not address Mizrahim, Jews of Middle Eastern and North African origin, who account for about 45 percent of Israel’s Jewish population, compared to 32 percent for Ashkenazim. Overall, a 2000 study found, “a substantial portion” of Jewish and Arab Y chromosomes (70 percent and 82 percent, respectively) belonged to the same chromosome pool, results that were consistent with “previous studies that suggested a common origin for Jewish and non-Jewish populations living in the Middle East.””
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“While genetic research belies the notion that Jews are newcomers to the Middle East, it gets you only so far. In particular, it does not address conflicting land claims based on much more recent developments.”
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“Israel’s founding in 1948, which most Jews celebrate but most Palestinians remember as the Nakba (catastrophe), involved a mixture of prior land purchases, arbitrary line drawing by the United Nations, and a war in which the nascent state was attacked by the combined armies of Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. Some of the 700,000 or so Palestinians who fled their homes planned to return after the anticipated Arab victory, while others were forcibly expelled.
Israel’s defenders have long argued that it could rightly claim land won in defensive wars—in 1967 as well as 1948. They have noted that Israel absorbed Jewish refugees from Arab states and wondered why Arab states could not likewise absorb Palestinian refugees.”
“Israeli students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) say they are “terrified” to be on campus after participants at a campus protest chanted “one solution, intifada, revolution” at a rally supporting the devastating Hamas terrorist attacks that killed hundreds of Israelis in Israel.
MIT students Liyam Chitayat and Lior Alon told Fox News Digital in interviews that after they contacted MIT’s administration to report the calls to violence being chanted from the protest and for concern for their own safety, they’ve yet to receive a substantial response.
Chitayat, a 19-year-old pursuing a Ph.D. on a prestigious scholarship and who previously served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), describes the rally cry as a call for the murder of Jews and the demolition of Israel.
“Intifada is not a call for resistance. Intifada is the name of acts of bombing and killing civilians in Israel in the Israel-Palestine conflict. It’s the name of taking civilian lives in terrorist attacks in Israel. That is what intifada means. That is how it’s defined,” she said.”
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“Alon argued that maybe 99% of the students calling for terrorism are just “stupid kids” who don’t know the weight that the phrase carries or what it means.
“But we only need one stupid person with a gun,” he said.”
“after the systematic massacre of Israeli citizens, a massacre that evokes some of the darkest memories of persecution against the Jewish people, it’s understandable that many Israelis have demanded that their government do whatever it takes to root out Hamas and make sure such attacks never happen again. Moreover, Hamas’ military operations are deeply embedded within Gaza — and its leadership seems to intentionally hide among civilians, thereby endangering the very people they claim to represent.
Still, the world is watching closely as events in the region unfold, and any Israeli military strategy that ignores the human costs could ultimately backfire.”
“In one video, children cry amid rubble. In another, explosions rip through residential neighbourhoods. The images have gone viral on X (formerly Twitter), purporting to be from the ongoing chaos in Israel and Gaza. They actually originate from the war in Syria – including my family’s besieged hometown of Aleppo, where the Assad regime’s tanks once fired on my grandparents’ home while they were still inside.
They are not isolated examples, and the proliferation of misinformation on X is now so extreme that the European Commission began an official investigation last week. The past week has proved that the site is now unable to effectively tackle the spread of falsehoods in a time of crisis.”