http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,605798,00.html
Journal axes gene research on Jews and Palestinians
Robin McKie, science editor
Sunday November 25, 2001
The Observer
A keynote research paper showing that Middle Eastern Jews and
Palestinians are genetically almost identical has been pulled from a
leading journal. Academics who have already received copies of Human
Immunology have been urged to rip out the offending pages and throw
them away.
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.
'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.'
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?'
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.
Dolly Tyan, president of the American Society of Histocompatibility
and Immunogenetics, which runs the journal, told subscribers that the
society is 'offended and embarrassed'.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
'Perhaps I should have used the words settlers instead of colonists,
but really, what is the difference?' he said.
'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.'
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.
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.'
