[Piranha]

A previous study by Ariella Oppenheim and her colleagues, published in Human Genetics in December 2000, showed that about 70 percent of Jewish paternal ancestries and about 82 percent of Palestinian Arabs share the same chromosomal pool. The geneticists asserted that this might support the claim that Palestinian Arabs descend in part from Judeans who converted to Islam. With their closer relationship to Jews, the Palestinian Arabs are distinctive from other Arab groups, such as Syrians, Lebanese, Saudis, and Iraqis, who have less of a connection to Jews.

This looks ideology-driven to me. The Palestinian Arabs are really the South Syrians. I would like to see data -- which I didn't find even alluded to in the article -- about how different the Palestinian Arabs are from the Syrians from a DNA-analysis perspective.

[Wuli]

"This looks ideology-driven to me. The Palestinian Arabs are really the South Syrians. I would like to see data -- which I didn't find even alluded to in the article -- about how different the Palestinian Arabs are from the Syrians from a DNA-analysis perspective."

Why?

If Ishmael was the son of Abraham, and Abraham was the prime paternal ancestor of the Hebrews, and most of Ishmael's descendents form are large part of the paternal gene pool of what are now called Arabs, then surely, the Y choromosome inherited from Abraham should be predominate in both Jews and Arabs.

There is every indication, both in and out of the Bible, that the status of Ishmael's maternity (the non-Hebrew servant of Abraham's wife) lent to a stigma among the Hebrews toward Ishmael and a stigma in Ishmael toward the Hebrews; due to the Hebrews relationship to Issac, Abraham's second son by his wife Sarah.

Although this is ancient history, it would appear that the mutual animosity continues between the descendents of Abraham's sons, Ishmael and Issac.