I provided you with a study that shows a significant mix of females who do not share the identical marker, far more than the 10% you cite. Even so, your first study also goes beyond 10% because it doesn’t account for Sephardic men who don’t share similar markers. The study you cite focuses on Ashkenazi men.

And even so, if you went to Israel today you’d see Jews of all races…because Jews are not a race.

Froylein educated you about the Nazis, so there’s no need to go there. The fact that you consider a “crossbreed” to be other than what I posited is laughable.

As for Deir Yassin, there is no resemblance to the Nazis and not every atrocity resembles the Nazis. Sorry. Now, why don’t you try to focus your energies on Sudan for a while. I hear they have soldiers and militia men who kill unarmed civilians at random in brutal ways, almost always without sustaining any injuries or even encountering fights before they kill. Maybe they’re like Nazis.

The only thing you have managed to refute so far is your ability to respond articulately and objectively to what I have actually written. You have either ignored or misinterpreted everything inconvenient I have written and seem incapable of admitting fault or conceding ground on anything.

“I reject entirely the “racial” premise of your comments, have provided ample evidence to this end and don’t believe that you would bring up race if the subject was, say, the Irish. If you wouldn’t call the Irish a race, you also shouldn’t call the Jews a race.”

Reject away my friend, your evidence is not ample for this end, but that is irrelevant to you because you are arguing from a position of irrational conviction, which can never be shifted even slightly by reason. Regarding the Irish, I would say that there is probably a significant degree of shared genetic heritage amongst those descended from the Celtic natives, which would probably include regional differentiation. However, overall there would be very few if any ubiquitous genetic markers, since over 10% of current Irish residents were born overseas. There has been no-where near that level of influx into Jewish populations (as the study which you cited, stated), so your comparison is flawed. And as to your previous question regarding the Amish, if over a sufficient period of time, Amish communities were reproductively isolated then they would gain common, race-specific, biological characteristics which would distinguish them from surrounding non-Amish populations.

“And fyi, the Nazis considered a person Jewish if ONE of the grandparents was a Jew.”

No, individuals with one Jewish grandparent were considered “Mischlings” (“crossbreeds”). Individuals with two Jewish grandparents were also “Mischlings” unless they had a Jewish parent, practiced the Jewish religion or were married to a Jew; in which case they were considered “Geltungsjude” (“Jewish by legal validity”).

“We haven’t discussed the birth of Israel too much but I wouldn’t call what happened in 1947 a “civil war” since there was no state at the time and “Palestine” was a mandatory protectorate of the British.”

Fair enough, but although there wasn’t really a state until May of ’48, the violence which occurred before then can reasonably considered to be a prelude to the civil war and considered on a similar basis to the violence after the Declaration of Independence. Associate Professor Monica Toft from Harvard University disagrees with you, and considers the “Israel/Palest Unrest/War of Indep 1945 1949” to be a civil war.

“But the suggestion that violence was “unprovoked” is egregious. On the day that UNGAR 181 passed (Nov. 29, 1947), a string of Arab attacks was launched that resulted in the deaths of dozens of Jews. These attacks continued unabated well into May of the 1948 when Israel declared independence and the Arab armies attacked. “

This is what I wrote: “in numerous incidents of unprovoked violence, 0.1% of the country’s population was killed in four months of civil war and 0.2% injured.”
In this instance, my use of the word unprovoked refers to the fact that there were many attacks from either side on unarmed civilians. That the perpetrators probably saw themselves as “retaliating” against legitimate enemies , does not alter the fact that their victims were unlikely to have played an active role in previous altercations and were therefore non-combatants.

“Just as one example, on Nov. 30, there was Arab sniper fire into buses that resulted in 7 Jewish deaths.”

Yes, if Arab snipers shot unarmed civilians, then that was an atrocity.

“But the fact is that this was part of the war, as was the truck bombing on Ben Yehuda in Feb of 1948. That killed over 60 people, mostly Jews and is the first known truck bombing. Is that an atrocity?”

In a word, yes.

“Does that compare to Deir Yassin where there was fighting involved?”

That’s a good point, and I feel the same level of disgust for truck bombing as I do for the events at Deir Yassin, but it is the nature of the massacre at Deir Yassin which-for me-is reminiscent of Nazi atrocities: lining up, and then machine-gunning a group of unarmed prisoners and throwing their bodies into a ditch. That is what happened, and all your protestations of Zionist desperation and Arabic brutality cannot change it.

“In either case, Arab or Jew, there is no resemblance to what the Nazis did or why they did it. Unless you would like us to believe that every conflict in the world is similar to what the Nazis did.”

No, only conflicts in which groups of unarmed captives and civilians are butchered and thrown into mass graves i.e. Bosnia, Somalia, Rwanda and this isolated incident (Deir Yassin) in a brutal but non-genocidal conflict.

We haven’t discussed the birth of Israel too much but I wouldn’t call what happened in 1947 a “civil war” since there was no state at the time and “Palestine” was a mandatory protectorate of the British. But the suggestion that violence was “unprovoked” is egregious. On the day that UNGAR 181 passed (Nov. 29, 1947), a string of Arab attacks was launched that resulted in the deaths of dozens of Jews. These attacks continued unabated well into May of the 1948 when Israel declared independence and the Arab armies attacked.

Just as one example, on Nov. 30, there was Arab sniper fire into buses that resulted in 7 Jewish deaths.

You could call that an “atrocity.” But the fact is that this was part of the war, as was the truck bombing on Ben Yehuda in Feb of 1948. That killed over 60 people, mostly Jews and is the first known truck bombing. Is that an atrocity? Does that compare to Deir Yassin where there was fighting involved?

In either case, Arab or Jew, there is no resemblance to what the Nazis did or why they did it. Unless you would like us to believe that every conflict in the world is similar to what the Nazis did.

“Sure, you just called the Jews a race, compared Jews to Nazis, called the Jewish people militant, identified Jews by two violent events that took place 2000 and 3000 years ago, justified anti-Semitism against Jews because of this supposed militancy, limited historic anti-Semitism to merely the past two hundred year, informed us that it made you upset when “people” carried their grievances on their shoulders – as if losing millions of people to genocide is a grievance, brought up Nazi racial laws to justify calling the Jews a race, and again compared Jews in a war to Nazis.”

You obviously haven’t read my posts very well; the bulk of your assertions are based upon either erroneous or wilful misrepresentation, which is very tiresome.

I did not call the Jews a race; I said that the Jewish identity is complex and that there is a racial component to that identity.

I did not compare Jews to Nazis; I compared the violent actions of some Zionist gangs with “the innumerate travesties committed by SS officers during WW2”.

For the second time, I did not call the Jewish people militant; I said that the Jewish faith had militant roots.

I did not identify Jews by the examples I cited; I used those examples to support my statement that the Jewish faith had militant roots. I also wrote “this is not a criticism, but an expression of admiration”, so I fail to see how you could interpret that as an attack upon the historical Israelites in question, let alone against Jews in general.

I did not justify anti-Semitism in any way whatsoever; I undertook to provide a very brief explanation as to two of the (probable) reasons or causes of historical anti-Semitism. The reasons I listed were: “the pre-eminence of Jews in professional employment-a source of jealousy” and “the militancy of the Jewish faith’s roots”. The other main reason (or excuse) being the crucifixion of Jesus. One can understand the reasons for misanthropism, racism, murder, rape etc on an intellectual level without condoning either the delinquency or the rationale behind the delinquency.

I did not limit historic anti-Semitism to the previous two centuries; I referenced the anti-Semitism of the previous two centuries because I understood it to have been the most extreme era of Jewish persecution in history.

Grievance:
1.
a. An actual or supposed circumstance regarded as just cause for complaint.
b. A complaint or protestation based on such a circumstance.
2. Indignation or resentment stemming from a feeling of having been wronged.
3. (Obsolete.)
a. The act of inflicting hardship or harm.
b. The cause of hardship or harm.
[Middle English grevaunce, from Old French grevance, from grever, to harm.]

That seems like an accurate summary of the Holocaust to be honest. I’m sure I will be lambasted and called an anti-Semite for “belittling” the Holocaust by referring to it as a grievance, but I would go so far as to say that it is the ultimate grievance. And before you patronise me yet again; I am not ignorant regarding the Holocaust. I studied it at school for several years, including a trip to Poland for the horrors of Auschwitz, and have studied it since out of personal interest; I only finished “If This Is A Man” by Primo Levi the other day.

Also for the second time, I did not use the Nuremberg laws to justify calling the Jews a race; I used the Nuremberg laws to justify my assertion that the Jews suffered racial oppression.

In my second post, I referenced the virtues of former Israeli general, Defence Minister and Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin; one of my personal heroes. And still I’m an anti-Semite…

“Actually, that article deals with the males. Another article, regarding females disproves the claims you’re making:”

I was completely unaware of this research, and it is very interesting, but your assertion is incorrect:

This article does not “disprove” my claim that there is a racial component to the Jewish identity because it does not refute the research regarding males; however it does mitigate the degree of significance it would be reasonable to attach to a racial component to the Jewish identity. The situation is not as cut and dried as you seem to believe: ““The men came from the Near East, perhaps as traders,” he said. “They established local populations, probably with local women. But once the community was founded, the barriers had to go up, because otherwise mitochondrial diversity would be increased.”” So in a number of geographically removed Jewish communities there is a degree of common genetic heritage which can be traced back to ancient Israel, and in each community there is also an genetic component derived from “a small number of founding mothers” of local origin, resulting in genetic differentiation between the different Jewish communities. But crucially “after the founding event there was little, if any, interchange with the host population.” This form of genetic isolation leads to speciation via genetic drift, and over a sufficient time period (a few millions of years) populations diverge into reproductively isolated species. Over several hundred thousand years genetic drift results in distinct races or sub-species, and over a couple of thousand years, genetically distinct populations will arise-particularly in cases like these; which follow the Founder effect.

Now obviously whilst the Jewish communities are differentiating from their local populations they will also be differentiating from each other; unless there is significant interbreeding between the isolated Jewish communities (which I doubt), leading to a less distinct overall genetic identity. I am happy to concede that the degree of genetic unity amongst modern Jews is miniscule, but not that it is entirely absent.

“You were using example of Nazi racial laws this to buttress your point about Jews being a race. They aren’t a race, Nazi laws are not material as to whether Jews are a race and the Jews didn’t suffer “racial oppression,” they suffered oppression and genocide because of their faith and identity. That the Nazis chose to use family connections to determine who was Jewish proves the point because many of the people they killed or harmed for being Jewish didn’t consider themselves Jewish and would not have been considered Jewish by many in the Jewish community.

No. I was using Nazi racial laws to buttress my point about the Jews suffering racial discrimination. Whether the Jews are a race, a faith, a nation, a club or a sports team, it would still be irrelevant to this point of dispute, (i.e. whether the Jews suffered racial oppression at the hands of the Third Reich) because what specifies abuse, prejudice and oppression, are the perceptions of the perpetrator and the reasoning behind their behaviour. The self-identity of the victim is irrelevant to the determination of why they were victimized if it contradicts the pejorative perceptions of the perpetrator. For example I have a friend who is Caucasian but very tanned, and he was attacked and verbally abused by some white skin-heads; using derogatory words for black people. That was a racially-motivated assault and the police treated it as such, although the perpetrators were mistaken regarding my friends ethnic background.

No, the Nazi’s didn’t care about the Jewish faith; aside from their general dislike of faith for anything but the Third Reich, they cared about “racial purity” and finding convenient scapegoats for the economic situation of the thirties. The Jews were convenient because they were a successful, vulnerable, significant minority group who were widely persecuted already. The Jews did not suffer oppression and genocide because of their faith; people with four Jewish grand-parents were considered Jews and oppressed even if they had renounced their faith or were raised as Christians. Whether they or the Jewish community regarded themselves as Jewish was irrelevant to the decision making processes of the Nazis and is therefore irrelevant to the determination of the form of oppression they suffered. And if you doubt my assessment of the priorities of the Nazi Regime you should read or re-read the Nuremberg laws for yourself.

“Well, sure. Uh, uh, um, uh, uh, oh wait! I know! How about 1900 difficult years in Europe including about 1500 years when they were treated as christ-killers, had to contend with pogroms and other massacres, were evicted from numerous countries sometimes after centuries of living there and didn’t fight back?”

This is interesting and supports your assertion that the Jews are generally peaceful-which I do not dispute-but not relevant to the point of whether the Jewish faith has militant roots.

“And your examples mean diddly squat. Those who fought the Romans were militant? So no other nations under Roman rule rebelled? What were the Romans if the Jews under their thumb are considered militant? And if the Romans were several times more militant than the Jews, weren’t Italians persecuted over all these centuries?”

The Romans were one of the most barbaric, aggressive, expansionistic, grasping peoples to ever exist; perhaps only exceeded in abhorrence by the British Empire. The Romans were also accustomed to revolts in disaffected colonies and had a lot of practice at it, but they rarely forcibly evicted and/or enslaved such a large proportion of a local population so they must have felt fairly threatened by the ancient Israelites-hence my admiration. My original point concerning the militancy of the Jewish faith’s roots was that it led to historical persecution in that era- i.e. mass enslavement and dispersal by the Romans, and that subsequently, the Diaspora made the Jews vulnerable to persecution as minorities in other countries.

You have failed to address the biblical conquest of Canaan which cannot be described as anything other than militant, divinely mandated or not.

“The Hagana wasn’t involved in the attack. The group which did attack mentioned the strategic location of the village and the claim that Arab irregular soldiers were hiding there. People who have attacked this attack have said that there were no Arab irregulars stationed there, but the firefight that broke out and the six dead Jewish fighters indicates that there were definitely people there who knew how to shoot guns with some accuracy.”

I know that the Haganah weren’t involved, couldn’t command the irregulars not to attack and repudiated it afterwards, but the fact that they didn’t consider it to be a significant target seems to weaken the assessment that it was necessary or justified. Yes there obviously must have been some armed people there, but given the climate of fear it is conceivable that the villagers had armed themselves for self-defence, although the presence of Arab irregulars is more likely. Either way, 6 dead fighters, versus over 100 dead Arab civilians (possibly including some Arab guerrillas), is an absolute massacre.

“This would be fine if the comparison wasn’t with Nazis. The Nazis weren’t fighting in a war of survival and they weren’t fighting enemies who had displayed violence of a type that scared the Jewish community at the time, the pre-state Yishuv into believing that unless they won this war, they would be decimated.”

That’s a fair point about the disparity between the meta-situations, but being afraid or desperate is still never an excuse for abhorrence. And regarding the brutal violence against civilians which so terrorised the Jewish community; the Jewish Lehi guerrillas were the first perpetrators of a well-recorded attack on civilians by throwing bombs at a crowd of workers on December 30th which led to a bloody, escalated reprisal by an Arab mob and really kicked it all off.

“There weren’t “many” atrocities. There were some. And if you’re aware of what happened in that war, then you would refrain from making Nazi comparisons to Jewish fighters. It’s really simple.”

I disagree, in numerous incidents of unprovoked violence, 0.1% of the country’s population was killed in four months of civil war and 0.2% injured; that’s a lot of civilian casualties. If you want a list of what I would call atrocities I’d be happy to give you one. No it’s not simple; nothing is simple, and me having a different opinion to you does not invalidate my knowledge of the civil war and vis versa.

I suspect that we will have to agree to disagree. I think that I have made balanced, rational and reasonable arguments, and fail to see how my points or perceptions could possibly be interpreted as bigoted.

Sure, you just called the Jews a race, compared Jews to Nazis, called the Jewish people militant, identified Jews by two violent events that took place 2000 and 3000 years ago, justified anti-Semitism against Jews because of this supposed militancy, limited historic anti-Semitism to merely the past two hundred year, informed us that it made you upset when “people” carried their grievances on their shoulders – as if losing millions of people to genocide is a grievance, brought up Nazi racial laws to justify calling the Jews a race, and again compared Jews in a war to Nazis.

So it does seem that you’re intent on an agenda that in my experience on the Internet typically involves anti-Jewish bigotry.

1. Yes I understand that there have been many converts to the faith, but that does not a priori invalidate the points I raised in my previous post regarding matrilineal descent etc etc. Please visit pnas.org/conte… for an abstract from a paper concerning the genetic similarity within a large proportion of the Jewish collective.

Actually, that article deals with the males. Another article, regarding females disproves the claims you’re making:

The DNA data suggest a particular version of Jewish history and origins that historians have not yet had time to appraise but that seem to be reconcilable in principle with the historical record, according to experts in Jewish studies.

The emerging genetic picture is based largely on two studies, one published two years ago and the other this month, that together show that the men and women who founded the Jewish communities had surprisingly different genetic histories.

The earlier study, led by Dr. Michael Hammer of University of Arizona, showed from an analysis of the male, or Y chromosome, that Jewish men from seven communities were related to one another and to present-day Palestinian and Syrian populations, but not to the men of their host communities.

The finding suggested that Jewish men who founded the communities traced their lineage back to the ancestral Mideastern population of 4,000 years ago from which Arabs, Jews and other people are descended. It pointed to the genetic unity of widespread Jewish populations and took issue with ideas that most Jewish communities were relatively recent converts like the Khazars, a medieval Turkish tribe that embraced Judaism.

A new study now shows that the women in nine Jewish communities from Georgia, the former Soviet republic, to Morocco have vastly different genetic histories from the men. In each community, the women carry very few genetic signatures on their mitochondrial DNA, a genetic element inherited only through the female line. This indicates that the community had just a small number of founding mothers and that after the founding event there was little, if any, interchange with the host population. The women’s identities, however, are a mystery, because, unlike the case with the men, their genetic signatures are not related to one another or to those of present-day Middle Eastern populations.

The new study, by Dr. David Goldstein, Dr. Mark Thomas and Dr. Neil Bradman of University College in London and other colleagues, appears in The American Journal of Human Genetics this month. Dr. Goldstein said it was up to historians to interpret the genetic evidence. His own speculation, he said, is that most Jewish communities were formed by unions between Jewish men and local women, though he notes that the women’s origins cannot be genetically determined.

”The men came from the Near East, perhaps as traders,” he said. ”They established local populations, probably with local women. But once the community was founded, the barriers had to go up, because otherwise mitochondrial diversity would be increased.”

nytimes.com/20...

Jews are not a race. They are a religion and a nation.

2. I wasn’t stating that there is a racial component to the Jewish collective because the Nazi’s decided to persecute the Jews upon a racial basis. What I said is that they persecuted Jews upon a racial basis, therefore the Jews suffered “racial” oppression. Is that illogical?

You were using example of Nazi racial laws this to buttress your point about Jews being a race. They aren’t a race, Nazi laws are not material as to whether Jews are a race and the Jews didn’t suffer “racial oppression,” they suffered oppression and genocide because of their faith and identity. That the Nazis chose to use family connections to determine who was Jewish proves the point because many of the people they killed or harmed for being Jewish didn’t consider themselves Jewish and would not have been considered Jewish by many in the Jewish community.

3. Until you address the examples that I provided, or at least come up with some references or examples to support your opinion, you lack the objective support to uphold your statements regarding militancy.

Well, sure. Uh, uh, um, uh, uh, oh wait! I know! How about 1900 difficult years in Europe including about 1500 years when they were treated as christ-killers, had to contend with pogroms and other massacres, were evicted from numerous countries sometimes after centuries of living there and didn’t fight back?

And your examples mean diddly squat. Those who fought the Romans were militant? So no other nations under Roman rule rebelled? What were the Romans if the Jews under their thumb are considered militant? And if the Romans were several times more militant than the Jews, weren’t Italians persecuted over all these centuries?

4. Why did the Zionist guerrillas attack the village in the first place? (That’s not a rhetorical question, I genuinely want to know) According to the documentary which you directed me to, the village wasn’t regarded by the Haganah as of military significance, so why?

The Hagana wasn’t involved in the attack. The group which did attack mentioned the strategic location of the village and the claim that Arab irregular soldiers were hiding there. People who have attacked this attack have said that there were no Arab irregulars stationed there, but the firefight that broke out and the six dead Jewish fighters indicates that there were definitely people there who knew how to shoot guns with some accuracy.

I would say that there are some similarities between all the atrocities you mentioned there; although Columbine stands out as different due to the motivations of the individuals involved and the fact that they were targeting their own community and institution. Which incident involving the US military killing civilians in Fallujah did you mean? The time they bombed the markets? Or the Second Battle of Fallujah when they WPd everyone? Obviously the genocide committed against Jews on a massive level is different to an isolated war crime, but that wasn’t the comparison I was originally making. I was comparing the mass murder of captured partisan fighters by the Nazis (for example) to the Deir Yassin massacre. The real point I was trying to make, is that (generally) there are no innocent victims, and that all individuals and groups of individuals are both victim and persecutor. I think that this point is made fairly clear in my previous post where I state that all collectives contain both “good” and “bad” people. If I see all people, and all peoples, as essentially the same; which I do, how can I be bigoted?

This would be fine if the comparison wasn’t with Nazis. The Nazis weren’t fighting in a war of survival and they weren’t fighting enemies who had displayed violence of a type that scared the Jewish community at the time, the pre-state Yishuv into believing that unless they won this war, they would be decimated.

5. I understand your reticence about trusting sources on such a controversial incident. Please don’t patronise me, I am well aware of the many atrocities perpetrated by both sides in the ‘47-’48 cival war.

There weren’t “many” atrocities. There were some. And if you’re aware of what happened in that war, then you would refrain from making Nazi comparisons to Jewish fighters. It’s really simple.

1. Yes I understand that there have been many converts to the faith, but that does not a priori invalidate the points I raised in my previous post regarding matrilineal descent etc etc. Please visit pnas.org/conte... for an abstract from a paper concerning the genetic similarity within a large proportion of the Jewish collective.

2. I wasn’t stating that there is a racial component to the Jewish collective because the Nazi’s decided to persecute the Jews upon a racial basis. What I said is that they persecuted Jews upon a racial basis, therefore the Jews suffered “racial” oppression. Is that illogical?

3. Until you address the examples that I provided, or at least come up with some references or examples to support your opinion, you lack the objective support to uphold your statements regarding militancy.

4. Why did the Zionist guerrillas attack the village in the first place? (That’s not a rhetorical question, I genuinely want to know) According to the documentary which you directed me to, the village wasn’t regarded by the Haganah as of military significance, so why?
I would say that there are some similarities between all the atrocities you mentioned there; although Columbine stands out as different due to the motivations of the individuals involved and the fact that they were targeting their own community and institution. Which incident involving the US military killing civilians in Fallujah did you mean? The time they bombed the markets? Or the Second Battle of Fallujah when they WPd everyone? Obviously the genocide committed against Jews on a massive level is different to an isolated war crime, but that wasn’t the comparison I was originally making. I was comparing the mass murder of captured partisan fighters by the Nazis (for example) to the Deir Yassin massacre. The real point I was trying to make, is that (generally) there are no innocent victims, and that all individuals and groups of individuals are both victim and persecutor. I think that this point is made fairly clear in my previous post where I state that all collectives contain both “good” and “bad” people. If I see all people, and all peoples, as essentially the same; which I do, how can I be bigoted?

5. I understand your reticence about trusting sources on such a controversial incident. Please don’t patronise me, I am well aware of the many atrocities perpetrated by both sides in the ‘47-’48 cival war.

That the Nazis made up an “Aryan race” and conveniently created a “Jewish race” doesn’t make either assertion correct. You’d be better off not using Nazi criteria for your arguments.

Sorry dude, but the Jewish people are not militant. Judaism evolved after the destruction of the Second Temple in a number of ways. One of the things it had to deal with was living as a minority – sometimes a hated minority – among non-Jews, particularly Christians who saw Judaism very negatively. As a result, Jews evolved their faith and traditions into quiescent and fairly mundane and peaceful ones. Judaism is not militant.

No, what happened at Deir Yassin included, at the very least, a firefight where several of the Jewish attackers were killed. It may or may not be true that prisoners were killed, I trust no sources on this from any side, but even if there was such a massacre, it still does not compare to a Nazi Einsatzgruppen unit lining up Jewish civilians and shooting them in order to eliminate members of a “race.” If it does, then I guess you could say that what happened at Columbine bears an “eerie resemblance” to Nazi massacres. Or that when the US killed civilians in Fallujah, it somehow resembled the Nazis. Maybe the Russian massacres in Chechnya bore resemblance, but Deir Yassin didn’t.

What happened at Deir Yassin may well have been a war atrocity. Again, it depends on what actually happened and I do not believe anybody’s version of the story. By the way, there were plenty of Arab massacres of Jews around that period as well. You should study them.

I have a feeling, dude, that of the two of us the bigot is not me.