For a while it does. 
Posted on 08/25/2005 5:03:15 AM PDT by conservativecorner
The lead article in the August issue of the Israel Medical Association Journal reports success in lowering infant mortality rates among Arabs in the Western Galilee. These rates being generally twice as high among Israeli Arabs as among Israeli Jews, by 2002 an Israeli health program launched in the late 1980s had lowered the rate among Western Galilee Arabs to about 1.5 that of the Jews in the area.
The program found three main factors causing the high rates among the Arabs: infections, home births, and diseases resulting from inbreeding. About 40 percent of Muslim and Druze women and 70 percent of Bedouin women in the region were found to be married to first- or second-degree relatives.
Through an information campaign, the infant mortality from infections and home births has almost been eliminated in Western Galilee. The health program is now trying to tackle the inbreeding problem, using ultrasound screening for pregnant women in consanguineous marriages, articles in the media, and study days for health workers, schoolteachers, and religious and community leaders on the harmful effects of inbreeding. The program emphasizes the fact that consanguineous marriage is in no way mandated by Islam.
Rooted in ancient custom, consanguinity is nonetheless widespread in the Arab world; for example, a 1989 study in Iraq found 53 percent of the subjects to be consanguineously married. One result is the prevalence of extended clans that lead to nepotism and lower levels of identification with the state. The clan structure is a major factor in the Arab world’s endemic corruption and lack of civil society.
But if, as the Israeli study highlights, inbreeding is also a major cause of disease, another conclusion seems inescapable. Just as modern medicine recognizes genetic sources of many physical illnesses, modern psychology recognizes genetic components in many psychological problems including criminality. Presumably, a region where inbreeding is rife—and reinforced through successive generations—should also have a greater frequency of such mental ailments. Though, not surprisingly, there seem to have been no studies in that regard given the delicacy of the subject, the high levels of social pathology, violence, and terrorism in the Arab world suggest that inbreeding is one of the causes.
Such observations are not, of course, comfortable because they are likely to inspire absurd charges of racism. Racism, of course, is not the issue; inbreeding is equally bad for all kinds of people, but Arabs happen to practice it. Indeed, in today’s world it is found mainly in a salient extending from Morocco to Southern India.
Skeptics about attempts to reform or democratize the Arab world often point to Islam as a factor more fundamental than political practices such as elections. It seems they should also emphasize the separate problem of inbreeding. Although it would require great resources, it may be that programs like the Israeli one in Western Galilee could contribute more to helping the Arab world overcome its problems than strictly political reforms for which it may not be ready.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- P. David Hornik is a freelance writer and translator living in Jerusalem who has contributed recently to The Jerusalem Post, The American Spectator Online, and Israeli news-views websites.He can be reached at pdavidh2001@yahoo.com.
That's what inbreeding will do to you.
OK,. So take a religion like Islam, mix well with continual genetically reproductive induced mental illnesses (insanity, borderline personality disorders, OCD, manic depression, bipolar, etc., etc.) and what has the world received? You got it!! Global terrorism.
Believe it or not, back in the '70's with the Israeli war, Palestinian protests, hijackings, bombings, etc., I told several people in college, friends, relatives to take note of the look in most of the Arabs eyes and watch and listen to what they say and do, and you would see that there was something seriously wrong with them as a people. I could never determine if it were a loss of spirituality, loss of purpose, pure hatred, simple insainity, or all of it wrapped into one head. Didn't matter, whatever I saw and still see, it is there. I stood by that comment then, and I stand by it now.
Why is it that the educated Arabs and Persians and clerics for the last 50 years have not brought this out to their own people that crossing blood lines 1st and 2nd degree was not healthy for animals and that includes humans?
Of course some would say I'm racist with such statements, but, that would be akin that parent/child incest is OK too, well, at least speaking from a mental aspect. BTW, there're some Westerners too that carry that look for whatever the cause(s).
I forgot to add, God declared to Moses that inbreeding was against His will. Leviticus chapter 18.
Jews also do not believe in original sin nor heaven and hell
Now there's a selling point!
I can see where such practices would cut down on marital arguments about the in-laws. But you couldn't say to your kids --"You must get that from your Mom's side of the family!"
http://www.hvk.org/articles/0603/267.html
Oslo Western Europe is increasingly a house divided against itself. While non-Muslim Europeans live in democracies, most Muslims in the same countries inhabit theocratic enclaves where they are expected to tread a narrow path or suffer the consequences.
Muslim women have it worst. Not only are they subject to the often tyrannical authority of husbands, fathers and community leaders, if they seek to escape that authority, they cannot necessarily expect support from the police and other government agencies, which often feel that "intruding" in such matters would show disrespect for immigrant culture.
Many European officials have long assumed that such problems would be gradually resolved through intermarriage, integration and the consequent fading away of Muslim ghettos. But intermarriage and integration are not happening as expected - and the consequences of this failure are grievous. Such is the conclusion drawn by "Feminin Integrering" (Female Integration), a new book from the Oslo-based organization Human Rights Service that is based on a recent report to the Norwegian Parliament. The book's focus is on Norway, but there is no reason to believe that the situation elsewhere in Europe is appreciably different. (Full disclosure: I have done research and translations for HRS.)
The book presents the results of a study of immigrant-group marriage patterns in Norway that is probably the most comprehensive statistical analysis of its kind in Europe. The study shows that members of most of Norway's non-Western immigrant groups are, in overwhelming numbers, not just marrying within their own ethnic groups but are marrying spouses - often their own cousins - from their countries of origin.
These marriages - invariably arranged, and often forced - have two chief motivations. One is to provide the foreign spouse with Norwegian residency rights under the "family reunification" provision of immigration law. The other is to resist integration by injecting into the European branch of the family a fresh dose of "traditional values" - among them a hostility to pluralism, tolerance, democracy and sexual equality.
Actually you may be on to something if this were pursued scientifically to introduce the right genes into the bloodlines.
I have posited many times that religions merely reflect the societies & cultures in which they are observed. If Islam didn't exist, the ME would just create (or modify) another religion that manifests itself in the pathological behaviour we see today, including a cartoonish emphasis on male dominance, female subordintion, paranoia and failure.
The problem isn't Islam, it's its practitioners. Perhaps our greatest weapon against extremism will be discovered via gene therapy.
I also disagree BUMP for the reasons you mentioned.
>> Ahhh.. the West Virginia sect.
You are showing your ignorance by spouting a Yankee myth (thought I will not dispute you if you claim Robert Byrd and Jay Rockefeller are the products of inbreeding). Note that inbreeding has been prevalent in European Royalty (which might explain the mutation named John Kerry).
For a while it does.
God didn't plan it that way and it'll never happen. Mankind doesn't have the power whatsoever to completely eradicate greed, covetousness and evil from this planet which brings about many of mankind's ills. All of us being human with our own uniqueness, will from time to time, make mistakes. Results of those mistakes are cumulative over time and results are what they're going to be. The variables are mind boggling from the perspective of 'a controlled experiment'. As humans, we can only strive to make small improvements along the way and hope for the best for all of us and deal with the undesirable results from our own mistakes.
Wow. No matter how they are treated by the Arab world, the Jews still try to help them. That says a lot.
LOL..nutin' personal :)
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