[spinestein]

I remember about 4 years ago an article in the journal "Science" described a genetic study of persons in the Middle East and compared the extent of differences between ethnic groups there. They concluded that there was no discernible genetic difference between any random sample of Israelis and any random sample of Palestinians.

The reaction among many Arab and Jewish biologists/anthropologists worldwide was to denounce the study and destroy or remove access to the issue.

I will never truly understand how people can get to the point where thinking like this takes place.

[hlmencken3]

Why would you think 'Jewish biologists' denounced the study?

This is a continuing story and widely publicized, and a wildly popular subject in the Jewish world. see the work of orthodox Rabbi Yaakov Kleiman, for example.

A good collection of resources is found at:

http://tarkus.pha.jhu.edu/~ethan/jFAQ.html

see also

http://www.aish.com/societyWork/sciencenature/Abrahams_Chromosomes$.asp

http://www.aish.com/societywork/sciencenature/Jewish_Genes.asp

These [widely scattered] Jewish communities are more closely related to each other and to other Middle Eastern Semitic populations -- Palestinians, Syrians, and Druze -- than to their neighboring non-Jewish populations in the Diaspora.

http://www.khazaria.com/genetics/abstracts.html

At the present time, it is known that Eastern European Jews have a significant Eastern Mediterranean element which manifests itself in a close relationship with Kurdish, Armenian, Palestinian Arab, Lebanese, Syrian, and Anatolian Turkish peoples.

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=96990
http://www.judaism.com/display.asp?type=newbook&etn=BCBEG
http://www.jewishsf.com/bk010309/sbaychrom.shtml

[Old Student]

"I will never truly understand how people can get to the point where thinking like this takes place."

What would give you the impression that they were "thinking" about anything?