Ekball sees DNA study as Jewish conspiracy to malign Taliban
Satish Kumar
based Observer dated 17th January, 2010.
Zball sees it as clear proof that Zionsts are using DNA study to
malign Pashtuns in general and Taliban in particular as bastard
descendants of Jews. However, others are of the opinion that it will
malign only the Jews for unwittingly sowing wild oats that has left
the world reaping the evil Taliban,
Here's the story.
Pashtun clue to lost tribes of Israel
Genetic study sets out to uncover if there is a 2,700-year-old link to
Afghanistan and Pakistan
Israel is to fund a rare genetic study to determine whether there is a
link between the lost tribes of Israel and the Pashtuns of Afghanistan
and northern Pakistan.
Historical and anecdotal evidence strongly suggests a connection, but
definitive scientific proof has never been found. Some leading Israeli
anthropologists believe that, of all the many groups in the world who
claim a connection to the 10 lost tribes, the Pashtuns, or Pathans,
have the most compelling case. Paradoxically it is from the Pashtuns
that the ultra-conservative Islamic Taliban movement in Afghanistan
emerged. Pashtuns themselves sometimes talk of their Israelite
connection, but show few signs of sympathy with, or any wish to
migrate to, the modern Israeli state.
Now an Indian researcher has collected blood samples from members of
the Afridi tribe of Pashtuns who today live in Malihabad, near
Lucknow, in northern India. Shahnaz Ali, from the National Institute
of Immunohaematology in Mumbai, is to spend several months studying
her findings at Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology, in
Haifa. A previous genetic study in the same area did not provide proof
one way or the other.
The Assyrians conquered the kingdom of Israel some 2,730 years ago,
scattering 10 of the 12 tribes into exile, supposedly beyond the
mythical Sambation river. The two remaining tribes, Benjamin and
Judah, became the modern-day Jewish people, according to Jewish
history, and the search for the lost tribes has continued ever since.
Some have claimed to have found traces of them in modern day China,
Burma, Nigeria, Central Asia, Ethiopia and even in the West.
But it is believed that the tribes were dispersed in an area around
modern-day northern Iraq and Afghanistan, which makes the Pashtun
connection the strongest.
"Of all the groups, there is more convincing evidence about the
Pathans than anybody else, but the Pathans are the ones who would
reject Israel most ferociously. That is the sweet irony," said Shalva
Weil, an anthropologist and senior researcher at the Hebrew University
of Jerusalem.
The Pashtuns have a proud oral history that talks of descending from
the Israelites.
Their tribal groupings have similar names, including Yusufzai, which
means sons of Joseph; and Afridi, thought by some to come from
Ephraim. Some customs and practices are said to be similar to Jewish
traditions: lighting candles on the sabbath, refraining from eating
certain foods, using a canopy during a wedding ceremony and some
similarities in garments.
Weil cautioned, however, that this is not proof of any genetic
connection. DNA might be able to determine which area of the world the
Pashtuns originated from, but it is not at all certain that it could
identify a specific genetic link to the Jewish people.
So far Shahnaz Ali has been cautious. "The theory has been a matter of
curiosity since long ago, and now I hope a scientific analysis will
provide us with some answers about the Israelite origin of Afridi
Pathans. We still don't know what the truth is, but efforts will
certainly give us a direction," she told the Times of India last year.
Some are more certain, among them Navras Aafreedi, an academic at Luck
now University, himself a Pashtun from the Afridi tribe. His family
trace their roots back to Pathans from the Khyber Agency of what is
today north-west Pakistan, but he believes they stretch back further
to the tribe of Ephraim.
"Pathans, or Pashtuns, are the only people in the world whose probable
descent from the lost tribes of Israel finds mention in a number of
texts from the 10th century to the present day, written by Jewish,
Christian and Muslim scholars alike, both religious as well as
secularists," Aafreedi said.
The implications of any find are uncertain. Other groups that claim
Israelite descent, including those known as the Bnei Menashe in India
and some in Ethiopia, have migrated to Israel. That is unlikely with
the Pashtuns.
But Weil said the work was absorbing, well beyond questions of
immigration. "I find a myth that has been so persistent for so long,
for 2,000 years, really fascinating," she said.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/17/israel-lost-tribes-pashtun/print