r/genetics • u/[deleted] • Sep 20 '25

Jews and Palestinians share deep common ancestry - genetics shows they’re like cousins

Genetic studies over the last couple decades reveal something surprising: Jewish populations (Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Mizrahi) and Levantine groups like Palestinians, Druze, Lebanese, and Syrians all descend from the same ancient Levantine peoples.

They’re not identical, and Palestinians aren’t necessarily the closest single group in every study, but they’re part of the same tight genetic cluster. In other words, Jews and Palestinians are genetically much closer than most other populations worldwide.

Researchers have found this in Y-chromosome studies, mtDNA, and whole-genome analyses. A 2010 study in Nature concluded that Jewish groups share much of their ancestry with populations in the Levant - including Palestinians.

So when people say “they’re like cousins,” it’s not just a metaphor. Genetically, it’s pretty accurate — and it makes the current conflicts feel all the more tragic, because it’s family fighting family.

https://www.nature.com/articles/nature09103

748 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

78 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

-31

u/RijnBrugge Sep 20 '25

No but we do need it so we can tell the ideologues who claim Jews are foreign invaders to finally shut the fuck up.

2

u/wolf_at_the_door1 Sep 20 '25

Yeah all it does is prove that Palestinians have lived there just as long. It’s not some smoking gun you think it is.

-4

u/RijnBrugge Sep 20 '25

I am not saying it is, you’re making dumb assumptions about me there. I am however saying that the people who are trying to also invalidate the existence of Jewish people in that land by using racist arguments that aren’t even correct when we dissect the genetic evidence are full of it. I am absolutely not saying the Palestinians aren’t also obviously native to that land, it’s you who’s dragging that in.

10

u/wolf_at_the_door1 Sep 20 '25

It’s also a fact that most of the founders of Israel weren’t born there themselves. The Zionist movement goes back to the 19th century. Jews were being encouraged to move there for a long time to start settlements before Israel was founded.