<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=windows-1255"> <META content="MSHTML 6.00.2600.0" name=GENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=#ffffff> <DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman">Journal Axes Gene Research on Jews and Palestinians for Political Reasons </FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman">The London Observer<BR>November 25, 2001</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman">A keynote research paper showing that Middle Eastern Jews and Palestinians are genetically almost identical has been pulled from a leading journal. </FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman">Academics who have already received copies of Human Immunology have been urged to rip out the offending pages and throw them away. </FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman">Such a drastic act of self-censorship is unprecedented in research publishing and has created widespread disquiet, generating fears that it may involve the suppression of scientific work that questions Biblical dogma. </FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman">'I have authored several hundred scientific papers, some for Nature and Science, and this has never happened to me before,' said the article's lead author, Spanish geneticist Professor Antonio Arnaiz-Villena, of Complutense University in Madrid. 'I am stunned.' </FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman">British geneticist Sir Walter Bodmer added: 'If the journal didn't like the paper, they shouldn't have published it in the first place. Why wait until it has appeared before acting like this?' </FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman">The journal's editor, Nicole Sucio-Foca, of Columbia University, New York, claims the article provoked such a welter of complaints over its extreme political writing that she was forced to repudiate it. The article has been removed from Human Immunology's website, while letters have been written to libraries and universities throughout the world asking them to ignore or 'preferably to physically remove the relevant pages'. Arnaiz-Villena has been sacked from the journal's editorial board. </FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman">Dolly Tyan, president of the American Society of Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics, which runs the journal, told subscribers that the society is 'offended and embarrassed'. </FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman">The paper, 'The Origin of Palestinians and their Genetic Relatedness with other Mediterranean Populations', involved studying genetic variations in immune system genes among people in the Middle East. </FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman">In common with earlier studies, the team found no data to support the idea that Jewish people were genetically distinct from other people in the region. In doing so, the team's research challenges claims that Jews are a special, chosen people and that Judaism can only be inherited. </FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman">Jews and Palestinians in the Middle East share a very similar gene pool and must be considered closely related and not genetically separate, the authors state. Rivalry between the two races is therefore based 'in cultural and religious, but not in genetic differences', they conclude. </FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman">But the journal, having accepted the paper earlier this year, now claims the article was politically biased and was written using 'inappropriate' remarks about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Its editor told the journal Nature last week that she was threatened by mass resignations from members if she did not retract the article. </FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman">Arnaiz-Villena says he has not seen a single one of the accusations made against him, despite being promised the opportunity to look at the letters sent to the journal. </FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman">He accepts he used terms in the article that laid him open to criticism. There is one reference to Jewish 'colonists' living in the Gaza strip, and another that refers to Palestinian people living in 'concentration' camps. </FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman">'Perhaps I should have used the words settlers instead of colonists, but really, what is the difference?' he said. </FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman">'And clearly, I should have said refugee, not concentration, camps, but given that I was referring to settlements outside of Israel - in Syria and Lebanon - that scarcely makes me anti-Jewish. References to the history of the region, the ones that are supposed to be politically offensive, were taken from the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and other text books.' </FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman">In the wake of the journal's actions, and claims of mass protests about the article, several scientists have now written to the society to support Arnaiz-Villena and to protest about their heavy-handedness. </FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman">One of them said: 'If Arnaiz-Villena had found evidence that Jewish people were genetically very special, instead of ordinary, you can be sure no one would have objected to the phrases he used in his article. This is a very sad business.'<BR> <BR></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>