Netanyahu: Archaeology, DNA prove Palestinians not native to Land of Israel
Could DNA testing prove Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s politics? He seems to think so.Another Sampson blinded in Gaza
On Sunday, Netanyahu tweeted that, “A new study of DNA recovered from an ancient Philistine site in the Israeli city of Ashkelon confirms what we know from the Bible – that the origin of the Philistines is in southern Europe,” quoting research released last week by the Leon Levy Expedition to Ashkelon, which revealed that the ancient people most known for their biblical conflict with the Israelites were immigrants to the region in the 12th century BCE.
“For 30 years, we excavated at Ashkelon, uncovering Canaanites, early Philistines and later Philistines – and now we can begin to understand the story that these bones tell,” said Daniel M. Master, director of the Leon Levy Expedition to Ashkelon, who headed the excavations.
The team used state-of-the-art DNA technologies on ancient bone samples unearthed during the excavation from 1985-2016. Analyzing for the first time genome-wide data retrieved from people who lived in Ashkelon during the Bronze and Iron ages (around 3,600 to 2,800 years ago), the team found that a substantial proportion of their ancestry was derived from a European population. This European-derived ancestry was introduced into Ashkelon around the time of the Philistines’ estimated arrival in the 12th century BCE.
“The Bible mentions a place called Caphtor, which is probably modern-day Crete,” Netanyahu continued in a follow up tweet. “There’s no connection between the ancient Philistines & the modern Palestinians, whose ancestors came from the Arabian Peninsula to the Land of Israel thousands of years later.”
Hooray for Pallywood, or rather Gazallywood, that wonderful melange of misleading footage, falsehoods, fakeries and frauds that makes up so much of what the Western media reports as going on in Gaza. The latest offering was brought to Australia by Todd Sampson, co-creator of Earth Hour and host of Body Hack on Channel 10, which was made with generous funding from unsuspecting taxpayers, courtesy of Screen Australia and Create NSW.Rift opens in UK Labour over whistle-blowers ahead of anti-Semitism exposé
Mr Sampson says he was assisted by the only female fixer in Gaza and not since Samson fell for Delilah and had his eyes gouged out by the Philistines has anyone been quite so blind to Palestinian shenanigans in Gaza.
Sampson says his original mission was to document the lives of medics in Gaza, but once he met his fixer, he ended up making something else. What? Hamas propaganda. ‘Body Hack is not a political show, we’re not here to take sides,’ says Sampson somewhat disingenuously, since he didn’t even try to present two sides to the story; he spent three weeks filming in Gaza and none in Israel. As he gads about from one lethal ‘protest’ to the next, he is perpetually surprised when he and his Hamas minders are shot at as they charge at Israeli soldiers and sailors. ‘It’s starting to feel to me like a sick form of target practice,’ he whinges, as if he thinks the whole thing is a nasty game the Israelis are playing. ‘It’s really hard not to take sides, when one side is shooting at you,’ he announces. Well, what a surprise. That is how Israelis feel. Since Hamas seized power in Gaza, in 2006, Israeli civilians have been bombarded with rockets and mortars; more than 600 were fired in May this year, and more than 20,000 have been fired at Israel since 2001. Sampson doesn’t cover that. He is only interested in Palestinian pain. ‘To not show what we showed would be to omit the truth,’ he says, but it is his sins of omission which distort reality. He talks of Israel bombing a school without explaining that Hamas weapons were hidden in it or flattening apartment blocks without explaining that Hamas shoots weapons from heavily populated areas to use civilians as human shields. There is no mention of Hamas diverting millions of dollars in international aid into constructing tunnels to allow terrorists to infiltrate Israel. Or conversely of the thousands of Palestinians who are treated in Israeli hospitals every year.
The British Labour Party came under fresh attack Sunday after it was revealed that it had cracked down on whistle-blowers by threatening to sue ex-staffers who spoke to the BBC for an exposé on anti-Semitism within the opposition faction.
According to the Sunday Times, at least six former Labour officials agreed to speak to the public broadcaster and provide new details on anti-Jewish sentiment within the party and its handling of the widespread allegations against it and leader Jeremy Corbyn. The ex-employees did so despite having signed non-disclosure agreements with the party.
Lawyers representing Labour have now sent some of the former staffers letters threatening to sue them and accusing them of “wantonly disregarding their obligations by selectively leaking information to the media,” the report said.
BBC TV’s Panorama investigation is set to air on Wednesday and is expected to be critical of Labour and feature further evidence that Corbyn advisers intervened in disciplinary procedures to protect members accused of anti-Semitism. The exposé will also feature interviews with “key insiders,” according to a preview.
Labour reportedly received some details of the show’s content when BBC contacted the party to get its reaction to the Panorama program, titled “Is Labour Antisemitic?”
In a letter sent by the Carter Ruck law firm, which is representing the party, to Sam Matthews, Labour’s former head of disputes, it said some information presented in the documentary apparently could “only have come from you,” according to the Sunday Times.
EXCLUSIVE: Labour has launched a crackdown on whistleblowers ahead of bombshell BBC Panorama doc on antisemitism. Carter Ruck, their lawyers, have written to Sam Matthews, ex head of investigations, saying the party "will not tolerate" ex employees "wantonly disregarding" NDAs pic.twitter.com/0koCyPNnMB
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