Helen Thomas please note this...

Helen Thomas, ace reporter, recently said that Israeli Jews should "get the hell out of Palestine". Here is news from the BBC that:

'Scientists have shed light on Jewish history with an in-depth genetic study.

The researchers analysed genetic samples from 14 Jewish communities across the world and compared them with those from 69 non-Jewish populations.

Their study, published in Nature, revealed that most Jewish populations were "genetically closer" to each other than to their non-Jewish neighbours.

It also revealed genetic ties between globally dispersed Jews and non-Jewish populations in the Middle East.

This fits with the idea that most contemporary Jews descended from ancient Hebrew and Israelite residents in the Middle Eastern region known as the Levant. It provides a trace of the Jewish diaspora.

Doron Behar from Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa, Israel, led an international team of scientists in the study. He described it as a form of "genetic archaeology".

"It seems that most Jewish populations and therefore most Jewish individuals are closer to each other [at the genetic level], and closer to the Middle Eastern populations, than to their traditional host population in the diaspora," he explained. '

I wonder if Helen Thomas will be interested...

Of course the way the BBC carefully construct this sentence is of interest:

'This fits with the idea that most contemporary Jews descended from ancient Hebrew and Israelite residents in the Middle Eastern region known as the Levant.'

'The Levant'? Why do the BBC not explain that 'the Levant' is an arc of land centred on modern day Israel? Do the BBC assume that everyone knows that? Because I doubt that more than a couple of percent of the UK population know what the Levant was. Or was the BBC being very careful not to give any historical context to the legitimacy of Israel.