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Israelis and Taliban Separated at Birth? |
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Israel Finances Study About Pashtun Bloodlines
By SIMON McGREGOR-WOOD
JERUSALEM, Jan. 12, 2010
Don't tell the Taliban, but their ancestors may be Jewish.
Israel's foreign ministry is funding research into whether members of the ethnic tribe from which the Taliban draws its manpower have Jewish ancestors.
Pashtuns are the largest ethnic community in Afghanistan. It is widely believed they are an offshoot of the Pathans whose members are scattered across northern India and Pakistan. Both are today exclusively Muslim. Neither has any sympathy for modern Israel.
Scientists are now trying to determine whether the Pathans themselves are directly descended from the tribe of Ephraim which was exiled from the land of Israel by the invading Assyrians in 721 B.C. Pathan folklore and culture are filled with references to an Israelite past.
The last king of Afghanistan Zahir Shah who reigned in Kabul until 1973 reportedly claimed his family was descended from what he called the tribe of Benjamin.
The Taliban spare no effort in expressing their hatred for Israel. Any genetic link they may have with people of Jewish descent would be a dark irony.
Last year, a Persian blog item set off rumors suggesting that Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is of Jewish descent. Several global news outlets picked up the story and examined the notion of a Jewish Ahmadinejad, rooted in the claim that his original family name of "Sabourjian" links him to weavers of the Jewish prayer shawl. |
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Pashtun clue to lost tribes of Israel |
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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 Immuno haematology 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. |
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Taliban may be descended from Jews |
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The ethnic group at the heart of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan may descended from their Jewish enemy, according to researchers in India. By Dean Nelson in New Delhi Published: 6:29PM GMT 11 Jan 2010 Experts at Mumbai's National Institute of Immunohaematology believe Pashtuns could be one of the ten "Lost Tribes of Israel". The Israeli government is funding a genetic study to establish if there is any proof of the link. An Indian geneticist has taken blood samples from the Pashtun Afridi tribe in Lucknow, Northern India, to Israel where she will spend the next 12 months comparing DNA with samples with those of Israeli Jews. The samples were taken in Lucknow's Malihabad area because it was regarded as the only place safe enough to conduct such a controversial project for Muslims.
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analysis: Our northwestern neighbour |
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Salman Tarik Kureshi
We have been ruinously harmed, first by Afghanistan’s meddling in our affairs and then by the multi-dimensional backlash of our own intervention in Afghanistan. The best policy would be to sort out our own problems and leave Afghanistan to its own destiny
“Good fences,” wrote the poet Robert Frost, “Make good neighbours,” meaning thereby that it is wise to stay off your neighbours’ property and out of their affairs. Alas, this has seldom been true of the dealings between Pakistan and our northwestern neighbour Afghanistan.
Right back in 1947, Pakistan’s appearance on the world map was first recognised by the countries of the world — beginning with Britain and India and then the Soviet Union, which, it may by the way interest readers to know, had earlier supported the Pakistan Movement as the ‘national self-determination’ movement of Indian Muslims. |
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Defending freedom to abuse |
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National Post
06/22/2008
By Don Martin
Police rape of Afghan boys ignored
OTTAWA - Canadian soldiers in the main guard tower at forward operating base Wilson last summer winced when I asked about the sudden lineup of teenage boys along the mud walls of the neighbouring Afghan market.
"Wait a few minutes. You'll see," said one, his lip curling. "It's disgusting."
Sure enough, a handful of uniformed Afghan police officers emerged from their rundown detachment, walked through the barricades and started chatting up the dozen or so teens, some looking decidedly pre-teen.
A few minutes after they returned, the selected kids were waved through the main gates and went straight inside the police station. An hour later, when I left the observation post, the boys were still inside.
This evening ritual is often derided by soldiers as man-love Thursdays.
Afghan officials insist the notion of men and boys getting together the night before the Muslim holy day for sex is a myth. And, sure, it's theoretically possible the cops were merely good-deed-doers giving these teens reading lessons. |
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