Readers (just those who are willing to be confused by the facts) might like to read
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=jews-worldwide-share-genetic
Some of you may be able to access the referenced article through
http://www.cell.com/AJHG/abstract/S0002-9297(10)00246-6

Sand ignores the fact that the genetic studies were done in many countries by well known academic researchers and published in prestigious peer review journals. That research clearly shows that, even though there is no "Jewish DNA," there is definite biological-genetic evidence that the Jews are ONE people.
The researchers found that despite their long-term residence in different countries and isolation from one another, most Jewish populations were not significantly different from one another at the genetic level. The researchers studied seven Jewish populations: Yemenite, Ashkenazic, Near Eastern, North African, Asia Minor, the Balkans and Ethiopian. The first six showed a strong affinity, with the Ashkenazic and Yemenite populations coming out the closest. Palestinian, Syrian and other non-Jewish Middle Eastern populations were also very close to the Jewish populations.
Other research shows that the Jews in different countries are much closer to Jews in other countries than to their non-Jewish neighbors.
If modern-day Jews are descendants of converts, as Sand claims, then there would have been no similarity between the different Jewish communities. And the Jewish populations would have been similar to their non-Jewish neighbors. In fact, the Ethiopian Jewish community is different from the other Jewish communities because it originated from descendants of local converts.
The Ashkenazi Jews were not found to be similar to present-day Turkish speakers. This opposes the suggestion that Ashkenazi Jews descended from the Khazars. Dr. Neil Risch, a researcher at the Department of Genetics at Stanford University, said:
"If you made a [genetic] map of Europe and the Middle East and you put Ashkenazi Jews on it, they would not end up in Turkey or in the middle of Europe, but in the Mediterranean."
The results of the research support the notion that modern Jews descended from a common Middle Eastern ancestral population.
Contrary to Sand's assertion, both history and science support the existence of the Jewish people.
To Ron's great disappointment, he does belong to the Jewish people and is a descendant of the Jews who lived in Judea some 1900 y ago.

OK, so Witton and Sand are wrong on genetics; it's probably not their expertise. But Witton's wrong on almost all of his other "facts", as has been stated in some of the posts. 1 fact not yet rebutted: Pakistan has absorbed millions of Muslim refugees from India (and vice-versa);"Refugee-ism" hasn't been inherited there. Israel absorbed hundreds of thousands of refugees from Arab countries. It's the Arab countries who have mistreated Palestinian refugees, and their descendents!

To Rose Anon

You state:

"If it appeared that you were at all interested in understanding a different view from your own, I would be willing to help you, (and I would have liked that) but you are clearly entrenched in a particular ideological bias and even if we showed you the sun, you would disagree it existed and cite an outdated text that claimed otherwise. Therefore I will use my time in something more productive in the future than reading from you."

I am sure that if you had any facts or sources to contradict any of my statements and the facts on which I rely - you would have done so by now.

Instead you continue to do as so many do on OLO - shoot the messenger and ignore the message.

Dear Giovanni della Mirandola,

There is something of great rarity you have managed to achieve, getting David Singer to use the word Palestinians. It is something he is so loathed to do that when discussing the Palestinian/Israeli conflict over 22 articles for OLO in the last year he has used the term less than a dozen times.

Congratulations. But I gather you understand the mindset you are dealing with. My best wishes.

Ariram. you write that "most Jewish populations were not significantly different from one another at the genetic level". Most human populations are not significantly different either from each other or from chimpanzees. Your point was?