Sheba

QUEEN OF SHEBA AND BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 37
At the end of 2001 the American journal Human Immunology asked its
subscribers to remove and destroy an article by nine Spanish-based
academics entitled The Origin of Palestinians and Their Genetic
Relatedness with Other Mediterranean Populations because of objections
to a reference to “Jewish colonists” and a sentence that read: “Diaspora
Palestinians (occurred after 1947), who have refugee status (about 40 per
cent) and live either in concentration camps or are scattered in Jordan (38
per cent), Syria (12 per cent) and Lebanon (13 per cent).” The rest of the
text supported the admission by the leader of the Spanish team, Antonio
Arnaiz-Villena, that he had not realized that in English colonist and
concentration camp are immensely emotive terms. A similar problem once
arose when British Airways informed its German customers that they
would be given “special treatment,” an innocuous phrase in English but in
German, torture by the Hitler era Gestapo. Arnaiz-Villena’s article is
nevertheless of interest because of its genetic relationships. It concludes
that Ashkenazi (European) Jews, Iranians, Cretans, Armenians, Turks, and
non-Ashkenazi Jews are the populations genetically closest to the
Palestinians, and that Jews and Palestinians have a common origin. The
article also reveals that Greeks (but not Cretans) have such a high
percentage of African genes that they are a genetic aberration among
Mediterranean peoples, which supports Martin Bernal’s Black Athena.
The Spanish team’s findings appear to support the fantasy or
exaggeration school (another term is minimalist) conclusions of Old
Testament historians and archaeologists. As this book argues, however, it is
more likely that the majority of Israelis are descendants of the population of
Palestine who were forced to convert to Judaism during the time of the
Hasmonean dynasty, from 124 to 49 B.C.E.
Finkelstein and Silberman’s conclusions about Old Testament
archaeology will doubtless be followed by similar explanations that the
biblical message of striving for an ideal is greater than creating a
prosperous powerful state. While unacceptable to fundamentalists who
continue to assert that the evidence is literally waiting to be unearthed in
Palestine, it eases the conscience of those Israelis who were inspired by the
Zionist ideal of building a better world but have since been appalled at the
consequences of the establishment of the State of Israel. Within the
parameters of these new historical conclusions they believe there is still
room to come to terms with the Palestinians whose land they occupy.
Perhaps if more investigations support Finkelstein and Silberman, it will