One of the false myths that stand in the way of peace is that the Jews are foreign European-based colonizers, encroaching upon the indigenous Palestinians who have lived in the land for thousands of years.
In reality, Jews are indigenous to the land. Their religion, culture and identity originated in Israel thousands of years ago and are fundamentally and perpetually connected to the land. Conversely, and surprisingly to some, Islam and Arabism are of foreign origins. Based in the Arabian peninsula, Islam and Arab culture were spread through the Levant by the sword beginning in the 7th century AD, roughly 2,000 years after the earliest Jewish presence in the land.
Genetically, Jews are demonstrably Levantine in origin, and while 2,000 years of diaspora impacted their genotypes (most Jews today are roughly a genetic mix of 50% Levantine origin and 50% admixture with diasporic host populations) and phenotypes (Ashkenazi Jews appear more “white” because of European admixture, while Mizrahi Jews appear more “brown” because of Middle-Eastern admixture), their culture and origin are indisputably Judean, Levantine, Israeli.
Palestinians are also, by and large, Levantine in origin. Though they’ve adopted a foreign culture and religion as their own, and have integrated with foreign populations who have migrated to and through the region over the years – mostly from the Arabian peninsula and North Africa, but also from southern Europe and Mesopotamia – their genotype is predominantly Levantine and likely, to some extent, Judean as well. Genetic studies demonstrating the similarities between Palestinians and Jews support that.
The myth of the white Jew vs. the brown Palestinian is propaganda, meant to leverage European and American liberals’ guilt and apologism over their colonialist past to create a misguided affinity with the Palestinians and animosity toward Israelis. Should all parties realize that the conflict is, in fact, between brothers of a common origin who were separated involuntarily by the tides of history, peace may easily follow.