Jewish Life Digital Edition February 2013 | Page 8

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NEWS FROM AROUND THE WORLD

ZIONISTS ARE ‘DESCENDANTS OF PIGS’

T EX T C OM P I L E D B Y L I Z S A M UE L S

Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi called Zionists
“bloodsuckers” and “descendants of apes and pigs”
in a television interview aired in 2010, but only
recently transcribed into English by Middle East
Media Research Institute (Memri). In his interview
on the Lebanese channel, Al-Quds TV, made before
he was elected, Morsi also called for a Muslim
“military resistance” against the Jewish state, and
said all Israeli-Palestinian negotiations were “a
waste of time and opportunities”. He continued,
“The Zionists have no right to the land of Palestine.
There is no place for them on the land of Palestine.
By no means do we recognise their Green Line. The
land of Palestine belongs to the Palestinians, not
to the Zionists.” President Morsi also called for an
international boycott of Israel. “[Jews] are hostile by
nature – they have been fanning the flames of civil
strife wherever they were throughout history,” he
continued. “There should also be political resistance
and economic resistance through a boycott, as well
as by supporting the resistance fighters. This should
be the practice of the Muslims and the Arabs outside
Palestine. They must not be given any opportunity,
and must not stand on any Arab or Islamic land. They
must be driven out of our countries.” This vitriol
appears to be at odds with Morsi’s letter to Israeli
president Shimon Peres last July, in which he called
Peres a “great and good friend”.

ME A ‘PERFECT STORM’ IN 2013

Showing geneticists the chromosomes in your genome could identify your
surname. This amazing development has been accomplished by Tel Aviv
University (TAU) researchers, who have just published their findings in the
prestigious journal, Science. The Israeli researchers, working at TAU and at
the Whitehead Institute of Biomedical Research in Boston, have developed
an algorithm that makes it possible to identify family names on the basis
of genetic data in the Y chromosome, which is handed down through the
generations from father to son (notwithstanding slight mutations along
the way). A sample of 900 American men was examined for data on their Y
chromosome that was stored in the Internet databank with the genomes
of 135 000 people. This comprised an accurate representative sample
of surnames, especially those of European ancestry. In one case, the
researchers managed to identify the name of one individual and the fact that
he lived in California, all according to his Y chromosome. They also found
the chromosome Y information about famed geneticist Craig Venter, who
headed the Genome Project, after narrowing down the identity to only two
men in California.

6 JEWISH LIFE

ISSUE 59

UK foreign secretary William Hague has warned that
2013 could see a ‘perfect storm’ in the Middle East,
and urged US president Barack Obama to lead the
way on Israel. Speaking at a conference in Sydney,
Hague stated that 2013 “will be a crucial year in
the Middle East. We could see a perfect storm of
crises converging if the